hich would enable this fresh distribution to be made
equitably. Since all the precursory men of genius agreed so closely upon
those points, must they not be the very foundations of to-morrow's new
religion, the necessary faith which this century must bequeath to the
coming century, in order that the latter may make of it a human religion
of peace, solidarity and love?

Then, all at once, there came a leap in Pierre's thoughts. He fancied
himself at the Madeleine once more, listening to the address on the New
Spirit delivered by Monseigneur Martha, who had predicted that Paris, now
reconverted to Christianity, would, thanks to the Sacred Heart, become
the ruler of the world. But no, but no! If Paris reigned, it was because
it was able to exercise its intelligence freely. To set the cross and the
mystic and repulsive symbolism of a bleeding heart above it was simply so
much falsehood. Although they might rear edifices of pride and domination
as if to crush Paris with their very weight, although they might try to
stop science in the name of a dead ideal and in the hope of setting their
clutches upon the coming century, these attempts would be of no avail.
Science will end by sweeping away all remnants of their ancient
sovereignty, their basilica will crumble beneath the breeze of Truth
without any necessity of raising a finger against it. The trial has been
made, the Gospel as a social code has fallen to pieces, and human wisdom
can only retain account of its moral maxims. Ancient Catholicism is on
all sides crumbling into dust, Catholic Rome is a mere field of ruins
from which the nations turn aside, anxious as they are for a religion
that shall not be a religion of death. In olden times the overburdened
slave, glowing with a new hope and seeking to escape from his gaol,
dreamt of a heaven where in return for his earthly misery he would be
rewarded with eternal enjoyment. But now that science has destroyed that
false idea of a heaven, and shown what dupery lies in reliance on the
morrow of death, the slave, the workman, weary of dying for happiness'
sake, demands that justice and happiness shall find place upon this
earth. Therein lies the new hope--Justice, after eighteen hundred years
of impotent Charity. Ah! in a thousand years from now, when Catholicism
will be naught but a very ancient superstition of the past, how amazed
men will be to think that their ancestors were able to endure that
religion of torture and nihili