I will wait, and labor meanwhile to
promote its beneficent influence!"
I looked on the other side. I read the Secularists' Bible: I reviewed
the history of unbelief; I examined the character and working of infidel
communities. And what was the result! The Secularists' Bible I found to
be a huge and revolting mass of filth and loathsomeness; the most
shameless attack on virtue and happiness that ever came under my view. I
remembered that Carlisle and Robert Owen had published books of the same
immoral and dehumanizing tendency. The history of infidelity I found to
be a history of licentiousness, and of every abomination. The infidel
communities I found to be hot-beds of depravity. The leaders of the
party were teachers and examples of deceit, of dishonesty, of
intemperance, of gambling, and of unbounded licentiousness. They had no
virtue; they had no conscience; and it was only when they were in the
presence of men of other views, that they had any shame, or modesty, or
regard for decency. And they were fearfully intolerant and malignant
towards those who crossed them, or thwarted them, in their projects.
They were no great workers, but they would exert themselves to the
utmost to annoy or vilify the objects of their displeasure.
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