Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Bible of Nature; Or the Principles of Secularism: A Contribution to the Religion of the Future
The principles of that religion are revealed in the monitions of our normal instincts, and have never been Wholly efi'aced from the soul of man, but for long ages the consciousness of their purpose has been obscured by the mists of superstition and the systematic inculcation of baneful delusions. The first taste of alcohol revolts our normal instincts; nature protests against the incipience of a. Ruinous poison-vice but the fables of the Bacchus priests for centuries encouraged that vice and deified the genius of intemperance. Vice itself blushed to mention the immoralities (if the pagan gods Whose temples invited the worship of the heavenly-minded. Alters were erected to a goddess of lust, to a. God of wantonness, to a god of thieves. That dynasty of scamp-gods was, at last, forced to abdicate, but only to yield their throne to a celestial Phalaris, a torture-god who cruelly punished the gratification of the most natural instincts, and fore doomed a vast plurality of his children to an eternity of horrid and hopeless torments. Every natural enjoyment was denounced as sinful. Every natural blessing was vilified as a curse in disguise. Mirth is the sunshine of the human mind, the love liest impulse of life's truest children yet the apostle of Antinaturalism promised his heaven to the gloomy world-despiser. Blessed are they that mourn. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily. Be af flicted, and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Woe unto you that laugh. If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
