edies of the Sixteenth Century, they lack only
the power. Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply
transferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the
murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the _auto de
fe_. What has been called religion is, after all, but the organization
of the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is Heaven.
Hell is the consummation of revenge.

The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of
life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and
perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and
upon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored
to sacrifice the Present and the Living.

Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some
little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that
until I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and
slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity
with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of
language, is simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant
and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure,
the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous
actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.

By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the
Nineteenth Century needs no, guardian. They should cease to regard
themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful
sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they
should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no
longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become
contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the
spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the Church
is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender
contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no
longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the
brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.

Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain
of superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women should
be equal and sacred--marriage should be a perfect partnership--children
should be governed by kindness,--every family should