tely summed up the creed of the present age when he
said, 'Progress conquers death, destroys hell, rejects heaven, and
finds its god in the sweet enjoyment of life.' It is to be hoped that
all-powerful progress will next decree that there are no death and no
suffering upon earth, that all the hostile forces of nature have
ceased, that want and misery are no more, and that earth is a paradise
of sweet enjoyment for all."

Mr. Seicht was rather taken aback by this satire.

"Besides, gentlemen," proceeded Gerlach, "you will please observe that
the doctrine of state supremacy is a step backward of nearly two
thousand years. In Nero's day, but one source of right, namely, the
state, was recognized. In the head of the state, the emperor, were
centred all power, all authority, and all right. In his person, the
state was exalted into a divinity. Temples and altars were reared to
the emperor; sacrifices were offered to him; he was worshipped as a
deity. Even human sacrifices were not denied him if the imperial
divinity thought proper to demand them. And, now, to what condition did
these monstrous errors bring the world of that period? It became one
vast theatre of crime, immorality, and despotism. Slavery coiled itself
about men and things, and strangled their liberty. Matrimonial life
sank into the most loathsome corruption. Infanticide was permitted to
pass unpunished. The licentiousness of women was even greater than that
of men. Life and property became mere playthings for the whims of the
emperor and of his courtiers. Did the divine Caesar wish to amuse his
deeply sunken subjects, he had only to order the gladiators to butcher
one another, or some prisoners or slaves or Christians to be thrown to
tigers and panthers; this made a Roman holiday. Such, gentlemen, was
human society when it recognized no supersensible world, no God above,
no moral law. If our own progress proceeds much further in the path on
which it is marching, it will soon reach a similar fearful stage. We
already see in our midst the commencement of social corruption. We have
the only source of right proclaimed to be the divine state. Conscience
is being tyrannized over by a majority that rejects God and denies
future rewards and punishments. All the rest, even to the divine
despot, has already followed, or inevitably will follow. Therefore, Mr.
Seicht, the progress you so loudly boast of is mere stupid
retrogression, blind superstition, which falls prostra