They are sagacious enough to perceive that a people
totally untrammelled by the fears, the prejudices, and the wickedness of
religion would never consent to remain in bondage.
Hence the pains taken by piety-mongers to perpetuate the dominion of
that ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' What care
they for universal emancipation? Free themselves, their grand object is
to rivet the chains of others. So that those they defraud of their hard
earned substance be kept down, they are not over scrupulous with respect
to means. Among the most potent of their helps in the 'good work' are
churches, various in name and character, but in principle the very same.
All are pronounced true by priests who profit by them, and false by
priests who do not. Every thing connected with them bears the mark of
despotism. Whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, Popish or
Protestant, that mark of the 'beast' appears in characters as legible
as, it is fabled, the hand writing on the wall did to a tyrant of old.
In connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who
explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should
be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every
available impediment in the way of improvement.
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