standing with the Catholic Church.

This book is being written in the year 1903, and I will make oath
before any court of record on earth to the truthfulness of the
statements herein set forth, and I will give ten thousand dollars to
any charitable institution in America if any priest, bishop or
archbishop on the face of the whole earth will make oath and prove
before any lawful tribunal of America if one word of the foregoing is
not true.

Furthermore, I will give up all of my earthly possessions, which
amounts to several thousand dollars, if any priest, bishop or
archbishop living upon the face of the earth can prove before any
court of justice in America that I have not always endeavored to live
an exemplary life and rigidly taught the doctrines of the Catholic
faith, although at times my whole life rebelled at being compelled to
do so, but my whole training and long association would invariably
get the master of my reason and better judgment, and I would be
forced by my superstitious training back into the mystified
labyrinths of my childhood's education.

I stood it until I became tortured day and night by the prod of
reason, then I quietly left the church and bade farewell to the
heathen Scapular and the ten thousand other trinkets of blind
paganism, and resolved to break the chain of this "_slave of the
soul_" and "_tyrant of reason_."

In this chapter we want to give the reader some idea of the
nonsensical and unreasonableness of the claims of Catholicism, so
that you may more fully understand how disgusting it is for a man who