According
to this mystically wise, but rather inconsistent school, Atheists are
stupid as Christians, Christians stupid as Mohammedans, and Mohammedans
stupid as nearly everybody else. These men are peculiarly fitted to make
in the world of intellect the best possible 'arrangements for general
confusion.' Atheists in all but good sense, and seemingly without
knowing it, they contrive to mix up, with skill worthy of better
employment, a very novel and amusing species of philosophical
hodge-podge. Their Reverend leader or 'Shepherd' was wont to rail most
furiously against dogmatists, especially those of the Atheistic sort;
but his own dogmatism is at least a match for theirs. He did more than
dogmatize when combatting Materialism, he from ignorance or design,
libelled it by putting, according to a custom 'more honoured in the
breach than the observance,' words into the mouths of Materialists that
no real Materialist could utter. Take an example. In the periodical just
referred to and quoted from, [50:1] are these words:--'The mode of
(matter's) existence is the only subject in dispute. The Materialist
says, it is an infinite collection of dead unintelligent particles of
sand; the spiritualist, that it is the visible and tangible development
of an infinite, eternal, omnipresent, thinking, sentient mind.
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