The Tragical in Nature 73 



taken as literal facts. The Greeks afforded the 

 finest example of artistic superstition built up into 

 a racial religion. 



In accordance with the universal rule that the 

 worst is always proximate to the best, the tragical 

 superstitions interwoven with Christianity are the 

 most ferocious, cruel, and deadly of any that ever 

 found access to the mind of man. It might be diffi- 

 cult to account for this were it not that Christianity 

 early fell under the control of an ecclesiastical 

 organization, which, dealing with a universal mass 

 of ignorance, was constantly led to increase its 

 superstitious terrors, and to burn them into the 

 minds of the masses by exhibition of cruelties as 

 dreadful as they could devise. It was to the inter- 

 est of this organization to keep the fires about the 

 stake well ablaze, and not finding a sufficient num- 

 ber of "heretics" to meet the requirements, found 

 an inexhaustible supply in "witches," This may 

 be regarded by the reader as outside of the subject 

 of the "Tragical in Nature," and yet it found its 

 power in the natural superstitions which grew out 

 of the tragical experiences of mankind. 



As civilized society became more settled and 

 secure, the tendency naturally was for superstition 

 in its more savage manifestations to pass away; and 

 such was the effect. But priestcraft, seeing its 

 powers departing, seemed desperately bent upon 

 increasing the terrors of the unknown, and as in 

 the example of Jonathan Edwards and his school. 



