Behold, the serried ranks of Truth advance,
And stubborn Science shakes her shining lance
Full in the face of stolid Ignorance. 
But Superstition is a monster still—­
An Hydra we may scotch but hardly kill;
For if with sword of Truth we lop a head,
How soon another groweth in its stead! 
All men are slaves.  Yea, some are slave to wine
And some to women, some to shining gold,
But all to habit and to customs old. 
Around our stunted souls old tenets twine
And it is hard to straighten in the oak
The crook that in the sapling had its start: 
The callous neck is glad to wear the yoke;
Nor reason rules the head, but aye the heart: 
The head is weak, the throbbing heart is strong;
But where the heart is right the head is not far wrong.

Men have been learning error age on age,
And superstition is their heritage
Bequeathed from age to age and sire to son
Since the dim history of the world begun. 
Trust paves the way for treachery to tread;
Under the cloak of virtue vices creep;
Fools chew the chaff while cunning eats the bread,
And wolves become the shepherds of the sheep. 
The mindless herd are but the cunning’s tools;
For ages have the learned of the schools
Furnished pack-saddles for the backs of fools. 
Pale Superstition loves the gloom of night;
Truth, like a diamond, ever loves the light. 
But still ’twere wrong to speak but in abuse,
For priests and popes have had, and have, their use. 
Yea, Superstition since the world began
Hath been an instrument to govern man: 
For men were brutes, and brutal fear was given
To chain the brute till Reason came from heaven. 
Aye, men were beasts for lo how many ages! 
And only fear held them in chains and cages.

Wise men were priests, and gladly I accord
They were the priests and prophets of the Lord;
For love was lust and o’er all earth’s arena
Hell-fire alone could tame the wild hyena. 
All history is the register, we find,
Of the crimes and lusts and sufferings of mankind;
And there are still dark lands where it is well
That Superstition wear the horns of hell,
And hold her torches o’er the brutal head,
And fright the beast with fire and goblin dread
Till Reason come the darkness to dispel.

How hard it is for mortals to unlearn
Beliefs bred in the marrow of their bones! 
How hard it is for mortals to discern
The truth that preaches from the silent stones,
The silent hills, the silent universe,
While Error cries in sanctimonious tones
That all the light of life and God is hers! 
Lo in the midst we stand:  we cannot see
Either the dark beginning or the end,
Or where our tottering footsteps turn or trend
In the vast orbit of Eternity. 
Let Reason be our light—­the only light
That God hath given unto benighted man,
Wherewith to see a glimpse of his vast plan