Superstition Unveiled | Page 3

allurements, nor ministerial threats can
subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots. They are all but frantic
and certainly not without reason, for the Irish Colleges' Bill is the fine
point of that wedge which, driven home, will shiver to pieces their
'wicked political system.' Whatever improves Irish intellect will play
the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at all likely to deteriorate its
'morals.' Let the people of Ireland be well employed as a preliminary to
being well educated, and speedily they may deserve to be singled out as
'the most moral people on the face of the earth.'
An educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and
well do Ireland's enslavers know it. The most stupid of her priests,
equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the
expediency of teaching as fact the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.'
To keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only what
is false, is the great end of their training; and if a British ministry
propose anything better than the merest mockery of education, they call
it 'dangerous to faith and morals.'
Superstition is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that
country may be traced ALL the oppressions suffered by its people who
never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests.
When that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be
'a nation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. The priest-ridden
may talk of freedom, but can never secure it.
What then can be thought of the first-rate reformers, before alluded to,
who are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to
any body's superstition? It should be borne in memory that other people
are superstitious as well as the Irish, and that the churches of all
countries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the

churches of Ireland.
The judges of our country frequently remind us that its laws have a
religious sanction; nay, they assure us Christianity is part and parcel of
those laws. Do we not know that orthodox Christianity means
Christianity as by law established? And can any one fail to perceive
that such a religion must needs be political? The cunning few, who
esteem nothing apart from their own aggrandisement, are quite aware
that the civil and criminal law of England is intimately associated with
Christianity--they publicly proclaim their separation impossible, except
at the cost of destruction to both. They are sagacious enough to
perceive that a people totally untrammelled by the fears, the prejudices,
and the wickedness of superstition would never consent to remain in
bondage.
Hence the pains taken by priests 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
stamp 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 handwriting 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. Knowledge is their
accuser. To diffuse the 'truth' that 'will set men free' is no part of their
'wicked political system.' On the contrary, they labour to excite a
general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments preach fine
sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be gathered in
their 'Holy Scripture.' Non-established priesthoods are but little more
disposed to emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political

progression than those kept in state pay. The air of conventicles is not
of the freest or most bracing description. The Methodist preacher, who
has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flush lusteth
always contrary to the spirit, and, therefore, every person born into the
world deserveth God's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician,
one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism;
but I am extremely suspicious of such, and would not on any account
place my liberty in their keeping.
I possess little faith in political