Danger in the Dark - ZseZse

120 DANGER IN THE DARK.
of Popery. And as I have said, the more sincere, the
more are they to be feared. Were all Roman priests
infidels, as no doubt many of them are, and only
making a pretense of religion for the sake of a livelihood,
we might calculate on their being left to some,
at least, of the restraints of natural sympathy, reason
and conscience; but believing Catholicism true and
from heaven, they, in obedience to its voice and
unnatural requirements, stifle the feelings of humanity
and blind the eyes of their reason and conscience.
From the real believers among papists, Protestants
have suffered most; they are the men who have been
the scourge of the human race. Heaven help the heretics
and unbelievers that fall into their hands I The
more deeply a corrupt and inhuman faith enters into
and imbues the mind, the more fearful and calamitous
are the results; for the surer it is to produce its legitimate
fruits. What is there more terrible, and so much
tq be dreaded, as the religious fanatic when clothed
with power! he is more to be shunned than a wild
beast. Let me be cast into a den of lions, rather than
delivered over to his tender mercies! for, devouring my
flesh, the voracious animals would speedily terminate
my sufferings; while the superstitious fanatic, to make
me of the same opinion with himself, would study to
prolong my agony by skillfully-contrived instruments
of torture-destroying life by piecemeall And the human
beast would add insult to injury by piously averring
he tortured the body for love of the soul l ,. ,. ..
.. • The history of the Romish church shows but too