remony of imposture; in Germany that myriads of pilgrims are wending
their way to the shrine of an idolatry as ignominious as anything that
Christianity ever supplanted.

Even in France the one great danger to the Republic is Christian
superstition. It is the Church, her priests and her devotees, that
furnish the real strength of every reactionary movement. That consummate
charlatan, General Boulanger, took to going to church and cultivating
orthodoxy when at the height of his aspiration for power. Happily he was
defeated by the men of light and leading. Happily, too, the ablest
and most trusted leaders of public life in France are on the side of
Freethought. It is this, more than anything else, that makes the
country of Voltaire the beacon of civilisation as well as the "martyr of
democracy."

Charles Bradlaugh, on a very solemn occasion, warned the Freethought
party that even in England their great fight would ultimately be with
the Catholic Church. He knew that superstition was scotched, but he
also knew it was far from slain. While Freethinkers are laughing at this
exhibition of old rags, called the Coat of Christ, they should pause for
a moment to consider the serious meaning of such a grotesque display of
superstition in the land of Goethe and Heine, and in the age of Darwin.
Let us jest round our camp-fires, but let us grip our sword-hilts as we
hear the cries, the jingle of weapons, and the tramp of men in the camp
of our enemy.

GOD-MAKING.

"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will
be making gods by dozens." So wrote honest Montaigne, the first great
sceptic in modern history, who was so far in advance of his age that
he surprised the world by venturing to doubt whether it was after all
a just and sensible thing to burn a man alive for differing from his
neighbors.

The history of that mental aberration which is called religion, and a
survey of the present state of the world, from the fetish worshipper of
central Africa to the super-subtle Theist of educated Europe, furnish
us with countless illustrations of the truth of Montaigne's exclamation.
God-making has always been a prevalent pastime, although it has less
attraction for the modern than for the ancient mind. It was a recreation
in which everyone could indulge, whether learned or illiterate, young
or old, rich or poor. All the material needed to fashion gods of was
ignorance, and there was always an unlimited stock o