Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER 1?. Before Columbus. Draper places these three great voyages as immediately preceding the Age of Reason in Europe. They were the destroyers of ancient faith. They were the illuminators of the morning. Before the time of Columbus were the " Dark Ages," but they were not altogether the dark ages, and anterior to the discovery of America there were wonderful streaks of light in those obscure times. Let us try and understand the condition. Christianity, as it ruled the world in the time of Constantine, was indeed a blasting power. It was the greatest curse that ever came upon humanity. It destroyed life, it destroyed science, it destroyed civilization. The murder of Hypatia was the logical result both of the teachings of Jesus and St. Paul—" He who preaches any other gospel let him be accursed"; "Those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." In its inception and progress Christianity is the most cruel religion that has ever blackened the pages of history. In the pathetic death of Hypatia we behold its immortal infamy. The fate of Hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate knowledge. Henceforth there was to be no freedom of human thought if Christianity prevailed. In the sixth century, Mohammed appeared, more wonderful and more successful than Jesus himself, for to-day he is the religious guide of one-third of the human race- Mohammed overthrew and absolutely annihilated the old idolatry. The essential dogma of the new faith, " There is but one God," spread without any adulteration. The doctrine of the unity of God is ever an advance upon the doctrine of the trinity of God. It is a step toward the destruction of God. In fact, as Bishop Huntingdon shows, the trinitarian philosophy is absolutely ...