"Thus truth has had to fight error step by step and the truth has been revealed to the wise and opposed by fools and the ignorant; so wisdom crept along till the time of John, the Baptist. Here was a new development of truth, far above anything reached yet. It held out a new motive to man, placing him above the superstition of the world or error. At the time of John, the world had been embracing false doctrines, not in regard to another world but to this world. They had a vague idea of a world after death and the priests, to strengthen their authority and hold on the people, invented all sorts of ideas, pretending to be empowered with authority to pardon their sins. They held out to the people that the dead should rise at the end of this natural world. All this was not taught by Moses but crept into the church, which itself is only a sort of popular religious opinion and carries sway in men's minds even to this day. The church contained the belief of the people and as science was developed, the priests lost power over the people. And at the time Jesus appeared, they acted as doctors and cured the diseases of the people. When John appeared his teaching struck at the root of all this error and he said, The axe of science is laid at the root of the trees or theories and every tree or theory that cannot sustain ideas must be hewn down or destroyed. The fire of truth would burn them up. Their beliefs made people sick, just according to the penalty attached to the crime or belief. For instance, the Jews believed that eating pork would produce scrofula; therefore they would not eat it and those who did eat could not help being disturbed by this belief. Where this error started I cannot say. Only, it was to satisfy the ignorant, so they would be better off not to eat the meat. This was for the poor at first and the aristocracy took advantage of it, just as the priests lay restrictions on the people but do as they like themselves. So you see scrofula was the result of their belief and the remedy was total abstinence from pork; but as priesthood went down and their theory was exploded, the idea that pork produced scrofula was absurd. This last belief was worse than the first, for it made this disease a thing independent of pork and therefore the people were afraid of it. Here you see one disease let loose in society. Now to get rid of this disease, mankind must get nervous and wrought up to a very high state of excitement, ready to embrace any idea that the priests could invent. And as the priests lost their hold on the people, medical men were introduced. And at the time of Jesus, it was the complaint that the poor paid all they had to the priests and doctors and got no relief." Quimby
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