itution party)
or the Roman Catholic Church?

_Answer_. The Association and the Catholic Church are dangerous
according to their power. The Catholic Church has far more power
than the Reform Association, and is consequently far more dangerous.
The God-in-the-Constitution association is weak, fanatical, stupid,
and absurd. What God are we to have in the Constitution? Whose
God? If we should agree to-morrow to put God in the Constitution,
the question would then be: Which God? On that question, the
religious world would fall out. In that direction there is no
danger. But the Roman Catholic Church is the enemy of intellectual
liberty. It is the enemy of investigation. It is the enemy of
free schools. That church always has been, always will be, the
enemy of freedom. It works in the dark. When in a minority it is
humility itself--when in power it is the impersonation of arrogance.
In weakness it crawls--in power it stands erect, and compels its
victims to fall upon their faces. The most dangerous institution
in this world, so far as the intellectual liberty of man is concerned,
is the Roman Catholic Church. Next to that is the Protestant
Church.

_Question_. What is your opinion of the Christian religion and
the Christian Church?

_Answer_. My opinion upon this subject is certainly well known.
The Christian Church is founded upon miracles--that is to say, upon
impossibilities. Of course, there is a great deal that is good in
the creeds of the churches, and in the sermons delivered by its
ministers; but mixed with this good is much that is evil. My
principal objection to orthodox religion is the dogma of eternal
pain. Nothing can be more infamously absurd. All civilized men
should denounce it--all women should regard it with a kind of
shuddering abhorrence.

--_Secular Thought_, Toronto, Canada, 1888.

POPE LEO XIII.

_Question_. Do you agree with the views of Pope Leo XIII. as
expressed in _The Herald_ of last week?

_Answer_. I am not personally acquainted with Leo XIII., but I
have not the slightest idea that he loves Americans or their country.
I regard him as an enemy of intellectual liberty. He tells us that
where the church is free it will increase, and I say to him that
where others are free it will not. The Catholic Church has increased
in this country by immigration and in no other way. Possibly the
Pope is willing to use his power for the good of the whole people,
Protestan