Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/285

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CLERICAL INFLUENCE.
281

tellect, the most extensive learning, the most sterling integrity and practical piety. With all its imperfections, it would not perhaps suffer by comparison with any other calling. Let every one exercise a proper degree of charity towards all others;—let him scrupulously avoid the least encroachment upon their professional rights; let him endeavor, to the utmost of his ability, to build up his own and promote the honor and usefulness of every other—so shall he best advance the good of society and secure his own honor and happiness.

He is poorly acquainted with history, or has read to little purpose, who is not aware that revolutions of every kind, like tornadoes, tend to prostrate everything which stands in their way. The sweeping revolutions that have been witnessed in some European governments are melancholy proofs of this. The spirit which at first sought only to dethrone a single sovereign, in its progress overturned the church, swept away the altar, and finally buried in the dark abyss of infidelity every vestige of Christianity. The fire kindled by a single spark spread uncon-