Judge (Rev.) Samuel Sewall, who had presided at many trials in Salem, expressed a real fear of divine retribution, but the victims of the Salem Witch Trials would have been better off with less Jesus and more justice.

We do not know if god-belief or the Trinity would have long survived the assaults of Thomas Aikenhead, so we can be sure it is a good thing that we have priests with no other useful function than to protect us.

Like most public figures during the post-Revolutionary Royalist reaction, Champollion was compelled to keep his religious opinions discreet.

30,000 pilgrims arrived daily, and one of them says, "day and night two clerics stood at the altar of St. Peter with rakes and drew off the infinite sums of money."