“They said that a gentleman farmer, who was behind the scenes, wanted to double his money, which as I understood amounted to half a million, already; but in order to cover each one of his dollars with another he took off the only coat, ay, the skin itself of Walden Pond in the midst of a hard winter.”

They believe in immortality so far as to avoid preparation for death and in mortality so far as to avoid preparation for anything after death.

* * * *
I knew few Christians so convinced of the splendour of the rooms in their Father’s house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those mansions, than they would have been if the Queen had sent for them to live at court.

Nor has the Church’s most ardent “desire to depart and be with Christ,” ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on mourning for every person summoned to such departure.

* * * *
M. Renan has been at no loss to show,
Rome fell when her soldiery became converted to Churchianity or Christianity. The spirit of peace which pervaded the early Church enervated a nation; the virility of the most belligerent of races was sapped.

* * * *
Knit its (Earth’s) straw into what crowns you please, gather the dust of it for treasure and die rich in that, clutching at the black motes in the air with your dying hands. Was this grass of the Earth made green for your shroud only, not for your bed, and can you never lie down upon it, but only under it?

If you will have your laws obeyed without mutiny, see well that they be pieces of God Almighty’s laws, otherwise all the artillery in the world will not keep down mutiny.