[4] Polycrates was formidable at Samos, and so was Periander at Corinth; but no man ever feared either of them that had made his escape to an equal and free government. But he that dreads the divine government, as a sort of inexorable and implacable tyranny, whither can he remove? Whither can he fly? What land, what sea can he find where God is not? Wretched and miserable man! in what corner of the world canst thou so hide thyself, as to think thou hast now escaped him? Slaves are allowed by the laws, when they despair of obtaining their freedom, to demand a second sale, in hopes of kinder masters. But superstition allows of no change of Gods; nor could he indeed find a God he would not fear, that dreads his own and his ancestors’ guardians, that quivers at his preservers and benign patrons, and that trembles and shakes at those of whom we ask wealth, plenty, concord, peace, and direction to the best words and actions. Slaves again account it their misfortune to become such, and can say,—
But how much less tolerable, think you, is their condition, that can never possibly run away, escape, or desert? A slave may fly to an altar, and many temples afford sanctuary to thieves; and they that are pursued by an enemy think themselves safe if they can catch hold on a statue or a shrine. But the superstitious fears, quivers, and dreads most of all there, where others when fearfullest take greatest courage. Never hale a superstitious man from the altar. It is his place of torment; he is there chastised. In one word, death itself, the end of life, puts no period to this vain and foolish dread; but it transcends those limits, and extends its fears beyond the grave, adding to it the imagination of immortal ills; and after respite from past sorrows, it fancies it shall next enter upon never-ending ones. I know not what gates of hell open themselves from beneath, rivers of fire together with Stygian torrents present themselves to view; a gloomy darkness appears full of ghastly spectres and horrid shapes, with dreadful aspects and doleful groans, together with judges and tormentors, pits and caverns, full of millions of miseries and woes. Thus does wretched superstition bring inevitably upon itself by its fancies even those calamities which it has once escaped.
Both man and wife in direful slavery,
And with ill masters too! Fate’s worst decree!
De Superstitione. Plutarch. ed. William W. Goodwin. Boston. 1874.
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