sobbing, screaming to be delivered from such torments. I open my
morning paper and read of the arrest of five men and seven women in
Los Angeles, members of a sect known as the "Church of the Living
God", upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their neighbors.
The police officers testified that the accused claimed to be possessed
of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this possession they
"crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and barked like dogs." There
were "other acts, even more startling", about which the newspapers did
not go into details. And again, a week or two later, I read how a
woman has been heard screaming, and found tied to a bed-post, being
whipped by a man. She belonged to a religious sect which had found her
guilty of witchcraft. Another woman was about to shoot her, but this
woman's nerve failed, and the "high priest" was called in, who decreed
a whipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have
deserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake had
been made--it was another woman who was the witch. And again in the
Los Angeles "Times" I read a perfectly serious news item, telling how
a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his pillow where his
head had lain a perfect reproduction of the head of Christ with its
crown of thorns. He called in his neighbors to witness the miracle,
and declared that while he was not superstitious, he knew that such a
thing could not have happened by chance, and he knew what it was
intended to signify--he would buy more Liberty Bonds and be more
ardent in his support of the war!

And this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture think
that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no longer
necessary to spend our energies in fighting "Religion!"

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