gmatic and fabulous nonsense, contains an admirable human
kernel, and precisely that human portion of Christian teaching--in the
best sense social-democratic--which preaches the equality of all men
before God, the loving of your neighbour as yourself, love in general
in the noblest sense, a fellow-feeling with the poor and wretched, and
so forth--precisely, those truly human sides of the Christian doctrine
are so natural, so noble, so pure, that we unhesitatingly adopt them
into the moral doctrine of our monistic natural religion. Nay, the
social instincts of the higher animals on which we found this religion
(for instance the marvellous sense of duty of ants, &c.) are in this
best sense strictly Christian.

And what--we may ask--what have the professed supporters, the "learned
divines" of this religion of love done? Their deeds are written in
letters of blood in the history of the civilisation of mankind during
the last 1800 years. All else that differing church-religions have
accomplished for the forcible extension of their doctrines and for the
extirpation of heretics of other creeds, all that the Jews have been
guilty of towards the heathen, the Roman emperors towards the
Christians, the Mohammedans towards Christians and Jews alike--all
this is outdone by the hecatombs of human victims which Christianity
has demanded for the spread of her doctrines. And these were
Christians against Christians--orthodox Christians against heterodox
Christians! think only of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, of the
inconceivable and inhuman barbarities committed by the "most Christian
kings" of Spain, by their worthy colleagues in Frankfort, in Italy,
and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands then died that most horrible
death by fire, simply because they would not bend their reason to pass
under the yoke of the grossest superstition, and because their loyalty
to their convictions forbade them to deny the natural truth that they
clearly discerned. There are no deeds more hideous, base, and inhuman
than those that at that time were committed--nay, are still
committed--in the name and on account of "true Christianity."

And finally, how do matters stand with regard to the morality of the
priests who announce themselves as the ministers of God's Word, and
whose duty is therefore above all others to carry out the saving
doctrines of Christianity in their own lives? The long, unbroken, and
horrible series of crimes of every kind which is o