The most unaccountable phase of the minds of the leaders of religions
has been their persistent effort to make their fellow beings wretched
and miserable instead of glad and happy. We expect savagery from the
Comanchee Indians and other primitive tribes and races; but from
self-styled Christians the history of their cruelties is astounding.
It is pure devil worship--that is what it is--if they but knew it.
One of the beautiful plans of theologians and priests for scaring
half-witted people into their individual folds has been telling them
that they were in danger of committing the most dreadful of all sins,
the "sin against the Holy Ghost." The utterly "unpardonable sin" of
all sins. This blasphemous, fiendish proposition has frightened
numbers of half-baked folks, and they have pestered their small modicum
of brains over this mysterious say-so of priests and parsons even to
the point of committing suicide, or of landing themselves in lunatic
asylums.