Superstition.

Superstition.

‘Tis Superstition nerves the bigots arm,
To plunge the glittering steel within the breast
Of those whose minds are cast in nobler mould;
Or, by fair science trained, do soar aloft,
To heights the bigot never can attain. 5
Unlike blind errors misled devotee,
The votary of Nature and of her God
Leaves Superstition’s dark and muddy pool,
To drink from knowledge’s clear and pearly fount,
And bathe in Freedom’s intellectual rays: 10
Leaving the fetters priestcraft would impose,
To those whose slavish souls boast of their chains,
And glory in the slavery they endure.
Yes! Superstition ever curses man;
Closes his ears against the shrieks and wails 15
Of those that suffer pain upon the rack,
Or groan midst fires by monkish hatred lit.
Know this, ye demons in the shape of men,
That for to torture those ye can’t convince
That your own dogmas only can be true,

Is never pleasing in the sight of God;
Whose essence being from pollution free,
Delights not in the woes of human kind,
Like those who to themselves do arrogate
The keeping of the oracles of God. 25
Inhuman wretches! ’tis in vain your fires
Do burn, more worthy mortals to consume.
Is not the victim suff’ring on the rack,
Your fellow-creature, countryman, and friend?
Your brother in all things but in cruelty? 30
His pains, his shrieks, your inhumanity,
And cruel exultation o’er his woes,
Will hasten on the tide of light and thought,
Which sweeping Persecution from the earth,
Bids Reason, Knowledge, Truth, and Virtue reign. 35

George Markham Tweddell
Stokesley using pen name ‘Georgius’ in Cleveland News and Stokesley Reporter c 1842 - 45
[No. 9, 01.07.1843, p. 71]