In their inception and early
progress this curse exercises but slight influence, and their growth
is consequently healthy and vigorous. All nations have concealed this
cancerous ulcer, sooner or later to develop for their destruction.
These wear out with those they destroy, and a new or reformed religion
is almost always accompanied with new and vigorous developments in
a new and progressive Government. The shackles which have paralyzed
the mind, forbidding its development, are broken; the unnatural
superstition ceases to circumscribe and influence its operations; and
thus emancipated, it recovers its elasticity and springs forward
toward the perfection of the Creator. Rescued from these baleful
influences, the new organization is vigorous and rapid in its growth,
yielding the beneficent blessings natural to the healthful and
unabused energies of the mind. But with maturity and age the webs of
superstition begin to fasten on the mind; priests become prominent,
and as is their wont, the moment they shackle the mind, they reach out
for power, and the chained disciple of their superstition willingly
yields, under the vain delusion that he shares and participates in
this power as a holy office for the propagation of his creed--and
retrogression commences.
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