and as such must be assailed by every true soldier of Progress.
We shall never enfranchise the world without touching people's
superstitions; and even if we abolish the House of Lords we shall still
dwell in the house of bondage unless we abolish the Lord of Lords; for
the evil principle will remain as a germ to develop into new forms of
oppression.

Freethought is the real Savior. When we make a man a Freethinker, we
need not trouble greatly about his politics. He is sure to go right in
the main. He may mistake here or falter there, but his tendency will
always be sound. Thus it is that Freethinkers always vote, work and
fight for the popular cause. They have discarded the principle of
authority in the heavens above and on the earth beneath, and left it to
the Conservative party, to which all religionists belong precisely in
proportion to the orthodoxy of their faith. Freethought goes to the
root. It reaches the intellect and the conscience, and does not merely
work at haphazard on the surface of our material interests and party
struggles. It aims at the destruction of all tyranny and injustice by
the sure methods of investigation and discussion, and the free play of
mind on every subject. It loves Truth and Freedom. It turns away from
the false and sterile ideas of the Kingdom of God and faces the true and
fruitful idea of the Republic of Man.

CONSECRATING THE COLORS

The Queen has recently presented new colors to the first battalion of
the Seaforth Highlanders. There was a great parade at Osborne, half the
royal family being present to witness her Majesty perform the one piece
of business to which she takes kindly in her old age. She has long been,
as Lord Beaconsfield said, physically and morally unfit for her many
duties; but she is always ready to inspect her troops, to pin a medal
or a cross on the breast of that cheap form of valor which excites
such admiration in feminine minds, or to thank her brave warriors for
exhibiting their heroism on foreign fields against naked savages and
half-naked barbarians. The ruling passion holds out strong to the last,
and the respectable old lady who is allowed to occupy the English throne
because of her harmlessness can still sing, like the Grand Duchess in
Offenbach's opera, "Oh, I dote on the military."

But the Queen is not my game. I am "going for" the priests behind her,
the mystery-men who give the sanction of religion to all the humbug and
hypocrisy, as well