age that money is the sinews of war. Fighting is very largely, often
wholly, a question of resources. Troops may be ever so brave, generals
ever so skilful, but they will be beaten unless they have good rifles
and artillery, plenty of ammunition, and an ample commissariat. Now the
same thing obtains in _all_ warfare. It would be foolish, no less than
base, to deny the inspiring efficacy of ideas, the electric force of
enthusiasm; but, however highly men may be energised, they cannot act
without instruments; and money buys them, whether the instruments
be rifles and artillery, or schools, or churches, or any kind of
organisation.

Given churches with great wealth, as well as control over public
education, and it is easy to see that they will be able to perpetuate
themselves. Endowments are specially valuable. They are rooted, so to
speak, in the past, and hold firm. They bear golden fruit to be plucked
by the skilful and adventurous. Besides, the very age of an endowed
institution gives it a venerable ora; and its freedom from the full
necessity of "cadging" lends it a certain "respectability"--like that of
a man who lives on his means, instead of earning his living.

It is not an extravagant calculation that, in England alone, twenty
millions a year are spent on religion. The figures fall glibly from the
tongue, but just try to realise them! Think first of a thousand, then of
a thousand thousand, then of twenty times that. Take a single million,
and think what its expenditure might do in the shaping of public
opinion. A practical friend of ours, a good Radical and Freethinker,
said that he would undertake to create a majority for Home Rule in
England with a million of money; and if he spent it judiciously, we
think he might succeed. Well then, just imagine, not one million, but
twenty millions, spent _every year_ in maintaining and propagating a
certain religion. Is it not enough, and more than enough, to perpetuate
a system which is firmly founded, to begin with, on the education of
little children?

Here lies the strength of Christianity. It is not true, it is not
useful. Its teachings and pretensions are both seen through by tens
of thousands, but the wealth supports it. "Without money and without
price," is the fraudulent language of the pious prospectus. It would
never last on those terms. The money keeps it up. Withdraw the money,
and the Black Army would disband, leaving the people free to work out
their secul