"superstition," kept alive by that deadly poison, " ignorance " -the support of "dogma and priestcraft," the cause of "intolerance," that plague of the past. Yet mankind marched on, nothing doubting, step after step, without knowing whither; the spirit of humanity keeping alive hope of a better future within them, until, after a long and terrible battle, " truth " has conquered; liberty, peace, justice, reason, conscience, science, have taken root; and the shoots of the upas-tree planted by the hands of dogma and priestcraft in every part of the earth will soon disappear, when mankind learns "that Nature's laws are eternal, and that her small still voice, speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under terrible penalties, be disregarded." Believe, if you like, that divine love came down to take on itself our sins; in "life " we find there is no Saviour to do the like for us; we shall individually suffer for our mistakes and weaknesses; and the nation must suffer that, by its politics, "curbs," rather than fosters, individual efforts onward and upward. If we compare the past condition of civilized nations with their present condition, we shall see how much we owe to this liberty of action by the individual. For many centuries the warlike spirit reigned supreme, and such energies as were not directly devoted to war were devoted to little else than supporting the organizations which carried on war, The working part of each community did not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of the fighting part. From slaves and serfs, through vassals of different grades, up to dukes and kings, there was an enforced subordination by which the individualities of all were greatly restricted. The bulk of the people, until