life worth living here and now. In all ages the priest, the medicine
man, the magician, the astrologer, in other words, gentlemen who have
traded upon the fear and ignorance of their fellow-man in all
countries--they have sought to, make their living out of others. There
was a time when a God presided over every department of human interest,
when a man about to take a voyage bribed the priest of Neptune so that
he might have a safe journey, and when he came back, he paid more,
telling the priest that he was infinitely obliged to him; that he had
kept waves from the sea and storms in their caves. And so, when one
was sick he went to a priest; when one was about to take a journey he
visited the priest of Mercury; if he were going to war he consulted the
representative of Mars. We have gone along. When the poor
agriculturist plowed his ground and put in the seed he went to the
priest of some god and paid him to keep off the frost. And the priest
said he would do it; "but," added the priest, "you must have faith."
If the frost came early he said, "You didn't have faith." And besides
all that he says to him: "Anything that has happened badly, after all,
was for your good." Well, we found out, day by day, that a good boat
for the purpose of navigating the sea was better than prayers, better
than the influence of priests; and you had better have a good captain
attending to business than thousands of priests ashore praying.

We also found that we could cure some diseases, and just as soon as we
found that we could cure diseases we dismissed the priest. We have
left him out now of all of them, except it may be cholera and smallpox.
When visited by a plague some people get frightened enough to go back
to the old idea--go back to the priest, and the priest says: "It has
been sent as a punishment." Well, sensible people began to look about;
they saw that the good died as readily as the bad; they saw that this
disease would attack the dimpled child in the cradle and allow the
murderer to go unpunished; and so they began to think in time that it
was not sent as a punishment; that it was a natural result; and so the
priest stepped out of medicine.

In agriculture we need him no longer; he has nothing to do with the
crops. All the clergymen in this world can never get one drop of rain
out of the sky; and all the clergymen in the civilized world could not
save one human life if they tried it.

Oh, but they say, "We do not e