teachings that are simply blunders of the translator, of the copyist,
or interpolated passages that have come down from the past.

So men in every direction become persuaded that they must be loyal to
the organization. I know cases where a minister in conversation with a
friend has said: So long as I remain a member of this Church, I have
got a great institution back of me, and I can accomplish so much
socially and in every way on account of it. I know I do not believe
half of the creed, but any number of other ministers are in the same
box. And so they stay true to the organization, while truth to the
truth is sacrificed.

One other influence that keeps so many of these old ideas alive or
prolongs their existence beyond the natural term is right in here. Any
number of men, educated, strong, prominent men, give their countenance
and influence to the support of old-time religious organizations
because they believe that somehow or other they are serviceable as a
police force in the world, they keep people quiet, they help preserve
social order. I have had people over and over again say that they
believed it would be a great calamity to disturb the Roman Catholic
Church, because it keeps so many people quiet. Do you know, friends, I
regard this as the worst infidelity that I know of on the face of the
earth. It is doubt of God, his ability to lead and manage his world
without cheating it. It is doubt of truth, as to whether it is safe for
anybody except very wise people, like a few of us! It is doubt of
humanity, its capacity to find the truth, and believe in it and live on
it. Do you believe that God has made this universe so that it is
healthier for the masses to live on a lie than it is for them to live
on the truth? Is that your confidence in God? Is that the kind of God
you worship? It is not the kind I worship. There is no danger of the
ignorant masses of the world getting wise too fast, judging by the
experience of the past up to the present time. There is only one thing
that is safe; and that is truth. Do you know what the trouble was at
the time of the French Revolution? It was not that the people began to
reason and think, and lost their faith, as so frequently said by
superficial historians: it was that they waked up at last to the idea
that the aristocracy and the priesthood had not only been fleecing them
financially and keeping them down socially, but had been fooling them
religiously, until at last they