this related in Dr Clarke's Travels.] lest an acknowledgment made to
science should allow one momentary surmise of imperfection to insult the
all-sufficiency and sanctity of the unalterable creed and institutes; lest
any diminutive crevice should be made on any side of the temple of the
vile superstition, for the passage of one glimpse of true light to annoy
the foul fiend that dwells there, invested "in the dunnest smoke of hell."
Not, however, that this is the policy of doubt and apprehension, the
evading and repelling caution of men who suspect themselves to be wrong
and dread being forced to meet the proof. For the subjects of this
execrable usurpation on the human understanding have, in general, the
firmest assurance that all things in the system are right: it has itself
secured them against _knowing_ anything that could discompose their sense
of certainty. No fell savage, or serpent, or monster, ever had a more
perfect instinct to avail itself of an impervious obscurity for its
lurking-place, than this imposture has shown to keep out all mental light
from its realm. The delusion is so strong and absolute in ignorance, is so
identified with it, and so systematically repels at all points the
approach of knowledge, that it is difficult to conceive a mode of its
extermination that shall not involve some fearful destruction, in the most
literal sense, of the people whom it possesses. And such a catastrophe it
is probable the great body of them, in the temper of mind prevailing among
them at this hour, would choose to incur by preference, we do not say to a
serious, patient consideration of the true religion, but even to the
admission among them of a system merely favoring knowledge in general, an
order of measures which should urge upon the adults, and peremptorily
enforce for the children, a discipline of intellectual improvement. There
would be little national hesitation of choice, (at least in the central
regions of the dominion of this hateful imposture,) between the
introduction of any general system of expedients for driving them from
their stupefaction into something like thinking and learning, and a