f the religious advocate in contrasting
the uneducated Freethinker with the educated believer.

Secondly, it strikes one as almost insane to assume that in a Christian
country Atheism should be professed as a cloak or as an excuse for
misconduct. They who talk in this strain greatly undervalue the
accommodating power of religion. Is there a single form of rascality
known to man for which religion has not been able to provide a sanction?
If there is I have failed to come across it. The use of religion made by
tyranny in all ages and in all countries is proof of how accommodating
it is to man's passions and interests. The picture of the dying murderer
meeting his end, filled with the consolation of religion, and certain of
his speedy salvation, contains a lesson that all may read if they will.

Error there may be in any case where opinion is concerned, but
profession of an opinion that paves the way for suspicion and
persecution provides a _prima facie_ guarantee of honesty that cannot be
furnished by the advocacy of one that stands high in the public favour.
For aught I know to the contrary, every one of England's Bishops may be
quite honest men. But there can be no certainty about it so long as the
profession carries with it all it does. The dice are loaded in favour of
conviction. But the man who faces social ostracism, and even loss of
liberty in defence of an opinion, is giving a hostage to truth such as
none other can give.

This association of heresy with a defective moral character is a very
old game. It has been played by all religions, and, it must be admitted,
with considerable success. Writing in the second century Lucian shows us
the same policy at work in his day. In one of his dialogues, when the
Atheist has refuted one after another the theistic arguments of his
opponent, the defender of the gods turns on his opponent with--

You god robbing, shabby, villainous, infamous, halter-sick
vagabond! Does not everybody know that your father was a
tatterdemalion, and your mother no better than she should be? that
you murdered your brother and are guilty of other execrable crimes?
You lewd, lying, rascally, abominable varlet.

That type of disputant is still with us, and is still supporting his
beliefs with the same tactics. And it is successful with some. There is
a certain snobbishness in human nature that makes it seek the
association of well-known names and shun all of those wit