of the human mind, cherish also the habitual conviction that it is an
evil more easily borne, even though not to be cured, so long as it is
only insulated individuals here and there who are infected with
it; but that the common danger is raised to the highest degree,
and everything put at stake, as soon as a too close connection is
permitted between many patients of this character. In the former
case it is possible by a judicious treatment, as it were by an
antiphlegistic regimen, and by a healthy spiritual atmosphere, to ward
off the violence of the paroxysms; and if not entirely to conquer the
exciting cause of the disease, to attenuate it to such a degree that
it shall be almost innocuous. But in the latter case we must despair
of every other means of cure, except that which may proceed from some
internal beneficent operation of Nature. For the evil is attended with
more alarming symptoms, and is more fatal in its effects, when the too
great proximity of other infected persons feeds and aggravates it in
every individual; the whole mass of vital air is then quickly poisoned
by a few; the most vigorous frames are smitten with the contagion;
all the channels in which the functions of life should go on are
destroyed; all the juices of the system are decomposed; and, seized
with a similar feverous delirium, the sound spiritual life and
productions of whole ages and nations are involved in irremediable
ruin. Hence your antipathy to the church, to every institution
which is intended for the communication of religion, is always more
prominent than that which you feel to religion itself; hence, also,
priests, as the pillars and the most efficient members of such
institutions, are, of all men, the objects of your greatest
abomination.

Even those among you who hold a little more indulgent opinion with
regard to religion, and deem it rather a singularity than a disorder