We may be pardoned, if we close this chapter by the expression of our views as to the religion which will prevail when men have thought as much upon their future life as upon their present, and are honest with themselves:
1. They will try to form some distinct idea of what would be to them a heaven; but, as they will be wholly unsuccessful, they will cease to speculate upon it.
2. They will cease to fear a hell, knowing that, if there be any immortal part of man, it must be immaterial; they will not believe that it can be tormented by material fires, forks, and furies.
3. They will cease to pay any attention to men who call themselves prophets, divine messengers, or vicars of God on earth, whether they use lying wonders or not.
4. Instead of constantly cogitating how much they can sin against, and yet get pardon from, some unknown deity, they will recognize the laws of nature for their guide, and live in communities as their reason dictates. The future will be left wholly in the power of the Creator.
5. There will be no belief in a trinity, in a virgin mother of God, in intercessors of any kind whatever between human beings and the invisible God; each man and woman will be independent and alone in the presence of the Supreme.
6. Man will no longer try to usurp the place of God, and persecute his fellow mortal on religious grounds.
7. There will be no priests or ministers of religion; but there will be instructors in science, in the laws of life, and moral order; there will be magistrates to enforce social propriety, and establishments where the insane and the criminal can be secluded.
8. There will be no strife about religion, for each will attend to his own personal concerns.
9. The laws of nature will be studied as regards marriage and family; the infected will not be allowed to perpetuate a feeble race, nor the diseased infant be pampered, that it may live to a sickly and useless maturity.*