which independent
minds are eliminated, while the slavish survive. Even when penal laws
are relaxed, social ostracism will have a similar, though perhaps
a weaker effect. Prizes offered to one form of opinion, and losses
inflicted on others, will necessarily make a difference in their
relative success. How slowly Christianity advanced during the first
three centuries, when it was under a cloud! How swiftly it progressed
when Constantine gave it wealth and privileges, and used the temporal
sword to repress or extinguish its enemies!

Nothing is truer than that the religious belief of more than ninety-nine
hundredths of mankind is determined by the geographical accident of
birth. Born in Spain they are Catholics; born in England they are
Protestants; born in Turkey they are Mohammedans; born in India they are
Brahmanists; born in Ceylon they are Buddhists; born in the shadow of a
synagogue they are Jews. Their own minds have not the smallest share in
deciding their faith. They take it at secondhand, as they do their
language and their fashion of dressing. To call their "faith" belief is
absurd. It is simply a prejudice. Belief, in the proper sense of the
word, follows evidence and reflection. What evidence has the ordinary
Christian, and has he ever reflected on his creed for five minutes in
the whole course of his life?

Philosophically speaking, men think as they _can_, and believe as they
_must_; and as belief is independent of the will, and cannot be
affected by motives, it is not a subject for praise or blame, reward or
punishment. Religions, therefore, which promise heaven for belief and
hell for unbelief, are utterly unphilosophical. They are self-condemned.
Truth invites free study. Falsehood shuns investigation, and denounces
that liberty of thought which is fatal to its pretensions.

There is a not too refined, but a very true piece of verse, which was
first published more than a generation ago in a pungent Freethought
journal, and we venture to quote its conclusion. After relating the
chief "flams" of the Bible, it says:

And when with this nonsense you're crammed,
To make you believe it all true,
They say if you don't you'll be damned;
But you ought to be damned if you do.

CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

Jesus Christ told his disciples that, in bestowing alms, they were not
even to let their left hand know what their right hand did. But
this self-sacrificing method has not been generally