they would punish heresy
with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deemed a certain
belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it
has the power. Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates?
Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will
burn in eternal fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God?
It is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity
than has been perpetrated by the church. Let it be remembered that all
churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. Every
nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched
by the church. Toleration has increased only when and where the power
of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of
the Christian has remained the same. There has been the same
intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves,
the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge
inconsistent with the ignorant creed.

Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this
revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the
church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be
content with a revelation--not from God--but from the church. Had the
people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have
been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. It
might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think, or
investigate, in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been
no progress.

The highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget. Neither
does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living
fossil, imbedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to
better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping
other people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is
to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this
object, he denounces all kinds of free thinking as a crime, and this
crime he calls heresy. When he had the power, heresy was the most
terrible and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile,
imprisonment, torture, and death.

In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across
the open bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such
heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order t