{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1558/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1558","id":"gutenberg_1558","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1558","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Economics","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Controversial literature"],"text":"Ver.04.29.93*END*\n\n\n\n\nScanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROFITS OF RELIGION\n\nAn Essay in Economic Interpretation\n\nBy UPTON SINCLAIR\n\n\n\n\nThe Profits of Religion\n\n\n\nOFFERTORY\n\nThis book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of\nview--as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have\nsearched the libraries through, and no one has done it before. If\nyou read it, you will see that it needed to be done. It has meant\ntwenty-five years of thought and a year of investigation. It\ncontains the facts.\n\nI publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the\nlowest possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return\nfor one thing which you may give me--the joy of speaking a true\nword and getting it heard.\n\nThe present volume is the first of a series, which will do for\nEducation, Journalism and Literature what has here been done for\nthe Church: the four volumes making a work of revolutionary\ncriticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under the\ngeneral title of \"The Dead Hand.\"\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nIntroductory\n Bootstrap-lifting\n Religion\n\nBook One: The Church of the Conquerors\n The Priestly Lie\n The Great Fear\n Salve Regina!\n Fresh Meat\n Priestly Empires\n Prayer-wheels\n The Butcher-Gods\n The Holy Inquisition\n Hell-fire\n\nBook Two: The Church of Good Society\n The Rain Makers\n The Babylonian Fire-God\n The Medicine-men\n The Canonization of Incompetence\n Gibson's Preservative\n The Elders\n Church History\n Land and Livings\n Graft in Tail\n Bishops and Beer\n Anglicanism and Alcohol\n Dead Cats\n \"Suffer Little Children\"\n The Court-circular\n Horn-blowing\n Trinity Corporation\n Spiritual Interpretation\n\nBook Three: The Church of the Servant Girls\n Charity\n God's Armor\n Thanksgivings\n The Holy Roman Empire\n Temporal Power\n Knights of Slavery\n Priests and Police\n The Church Militant\n The Church Triumphant\n God in the Schools\n The Menace\n King Coal\n The Unholy Alliance\n Secret Service\n Tax Exemption\n  Holy History\n Das Centrum\n\nBook Four: The Church of the Slavers\n The Face of Caesar\n Deutschland ueber Alles\n Der Tag\n King Cotton\n Witches and Women\n Moth and Rust\n To Lyman Abbott\n The Octopus\n The Industrial Shelley\n The Outlook for Graft\n Clerical Camouflage\n The Jungle\n\nBook Five: The Church of the Merchants\n The Head Merchant\n \"Herr Beeble\"\n Holy Oil\n Rhetorical Black-hanging\n The Great American Fraud\n Riches in Glory\n Captivating Ideals\n Spook Hunting\n Running the Rapids\n Birth Control\n Sheep\n\nBook Six: The Church of the Quacks\n Tabula Rasa\n The Book of Mormon\n Holy Rolling\n Bible Prophecy\n Koreshanity\n Mazdaznan\n Black Magic\n Mental Malpractice\n Science and Wealth\n New Nonsense\n \"Dollars Want Me!\"\n Spiritual Financiering\n The Graft of Grace\n\nBook Seven: The Church of the Social Revolution\n Christ and Caesar\n Locusts and Wild Honey\n Mother Earth\n The Soap Box\n The Church Machine\n The Church Redeemed\n The Desire of Nations\n The Knowable\n \"Nature's Insurgent Son\n The New Morality\n Envoi\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\nBootstrap-lifting\n\nBootstrap-lifting? says the reader.\n\nIt is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are\ngathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and\ndistressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of\ntheir boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and\nstraining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The\nperspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every\nsymptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each\nother, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There\nis a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid\ngrunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph.\n\nI approach one and say to him, \"Friend, what is this you are\ndoing?\"\n\nHe answers, without pausing to glance at me, \"I am performing\nspiritual exercises. See how I rise?\"\n\n\"But,\" I say, \"you are not rising at all!\"\n\nWhereat he becomes instantly angry. \"You are one of the\nscoffers!\"\n\n\"But, friend,\" I protest, \"don't you feel the earth under your\nfeet?\"\n\n\"You are a materialist!\"\n\n\"But, friend, I can see--\"\n\n\"You are without spiritual vision!\"\n\nAnd so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of\na sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the\nprevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of\nthe human race. How is it possible that none of them should\nsuspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that\nI am uncomprehending? That in some way they are actually getting\noff the ground, or about to get off the ground?\n\nThen I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there\namong the bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and\nslipping his hands into their pockets. The position of the\nspiritual exercisers greatly facilitates his work; their eyes\nbeing cast up to heaven, they do not see him, their thoughts\nbeing occupied, they do not heed him; he goes through their\npockets at leisure, and transfers the contents to a bag he\ncarries, and then moves on to the next victim. I watch him for a\nwhile, and finally approach and ask, \"What are you doing, sir?\"\n\nHe answers, \"I am picking pockets.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I say, puzzled by his matter-of-course tone. \"But--I beg\npardon--are you a thief?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" hie answers, smilingly, \"I am the agent of the\nWholesale Pickpockets' Association. This is Prosperity.\"\n\n\"I see,\" I reply. \"And these people let you--\"\n\n\"It is the law,\" he says. \"It is also the gospel.\"\n\nI turn, following his glance, and observe another person\napproaching--a stately figure, clad in scarlet and purple robes,\nmoving with slow dignity. He gazes about at the sweating and\ngrunting hordes; now and then he stops and lifts his hands in a\ngesture of benediction, and proclaims in rolling tones, \"Blessed\nare the Bootstrap-lifters, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.\"\nHe moves on, and after a bit stops and announces again, \"Man doth\nnot live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the\nmouth of the prophets and priests of Bootstrap-lifting.\"\n\nWatching a while longer, I see this majestic one approach the\nagent of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. The agent greets\nhim as a friend, and proceeds to transfer to the pockets of his\ncapacious robes a generous share of the loot which he has\ncollected. The majestic one does not cringe, nor does he make any\neffort to hide what is going on. On the contrary he cries aloud,\n\"It is more blessed to give than to receive!\" And again he cries,\n\"The laborer is worthy of his hire!\" And a third time he cries,\nyet more sternly, \"Render unto Caesar the things which are\nCaesar's!\" And the Bootstrap-lifters pause long enough to answer:\n\"Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this\nlaw!\" Then they renew their straining and tugging.\n\nI step up, and in timid tones begin, \"Reverend sir, will you tell\nme by what right you take this wealth?\"\n\nInstantly a frown comes upon his face, and he cries in a voice of\nthunder, \"Blasphemer!\" And all the Bootstrap-lifters desist from\ntheir lifting, and menace me with furious looks. There is a\ngeneral call for a policeman of the Wholesale Pickpockets'\nAssociation; and so I fall silent, and slink away in the throng,\nand thereafter keep my thoughts to myself.\n\nOver the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and\nincredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting\nimpulse. There is, I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a\nlong time ago--no man can recall how far back--the Wholesale\nPickpockets made the discovery of the ease with which a man's\npockets could be rifled while he was preoccupied with spiritual\nexercises, and they began offering prizes for the best essays in\nsupport of the practice. Now their propaganda is everywhere\ntriumphant, and year by year we see an increase in the rewards\nand emoluments of the prophets and priests of the cult. The\nground is covered with stately temples of various designs, all of\nwhich I am told are consecrated to Bootstrap-lifting. I come to\nwhere a group of people are occupied in laying the corner-stone\nof a new white marble structure; I inquire and am informed it is\nthe First Church of Bootstrap-lifters, Scientist. As I stand\nwatching, a card is handed to me, informing me that a lady will\ndo my Bootstrap-lifting at five dollars per lift.\n\nI go on to another building, which I am told is a library\ncontaining volumes in defense of the Bootstrap-lifters, published\nunder the auspices of the Wholesale Pickpockets. I enter, and\nfind endless vistas of shelves, also several thousand current\nmagazines and papers. I consult these--for my legs have given out\nin the effort to visit and inspect all phases of the\nBootstrap-lifting practice. I discover that hardly a week passes\nthat some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if\nI had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and\nceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies,\nthe hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting. There\nare the Holy Roman Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests are fed by\nTransubstantiation; the established Anglican Bootstrap-lifters,\nwhose priests live by \"livings\"; the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters,\nwhose preachers practice total immersion in Standard Oil. There\nare Yogi Bootstrap-lifters with flowing robes of yellow silk;\nTheosophist Bootstrap-lifters with green and purple auras; Mormon\nBootstrap-lifters, Mazdaznan Bootstrap-lifters, Spiritualist and\nSpirit-Fruit, Millerite and Dowieite, Holy Roller and Holy\nJumper, Come-to-glory negro, Billy Sunday base-ball and Salvation\nArmy bass-drum Bootstrap-lifters. There are the thousand\nvarieties of \"New Thought\" Bootstrap-lifters; the mystic and\ntranscendentalist, Swedenborgian and Jacob Boehme\nBootstrap-lifters; the Elbert Hubbard high-art Bootstrap-lifters\nwith half a million magazinelets at two bits apiece; the \"uplift\"\nand \"optimist,\" the Ralph Waldo Trine and Orison Swett Marden\nBootstrap-lifters with a hundred thousand volumes at one dollar\nper volume. There are the Platonist and Hegelian and Kantian\nprofessors of collegiate metaphysical Bootstrap-lifting at\nseveral thousand dollars per year each. There are the Nietzschean\nBootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves to the Superman, and the\nart-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan Bootstrap-lifters, who lift\nthemselves down to the Ape.\n\nExcepting possibly the last-mentioned group, the priests of all\nthese cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of\nBootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic\nthat they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and\nless at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and\ngive a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when\nthe Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a\nyear to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school\nSuperintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand\nof one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the\npriests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect,\nmany of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not\nreach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is\nto exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation,\nthat the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply\ntheir immemorial role with less chance of interference.\n\nReligion\n\nThe reader, offended by this raillery, asks if I mean to impugn\nthe sincerity of all who preach the supremacy of the soul. No; I\nadmit the honesty of the heroes and madmen of history. All I ask\nof the preacher is that he shall make an effort to practice his\ndoctrine. Let him be tormented like Don Quixote; let him go mad\nlike Nietzsche; let him stand upon a pillar and be devoured by\nworms like Simeon Stylites--on these terms I grant to any dreamer\nthe right to hold himself above economic science.\n\nMan is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions\nabout himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries\nto deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not\nlimited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this\nimpulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to\nsay when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of\nby unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see\nasceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers\nof the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become\nhypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind\ntwisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What\nI say is--Bootstrap-lifting!\n\nIt is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses,\none good and the other bad. Morality means the will to\nrighteousness, or it means Anthony Comstock; democracy means the\nrule of the people, or it means Tammany Hall. And so it is with\nthe word \"Religion\". In its true sense Religion is the most\nfundamental of the soul's impulses, the impassioned love of life,\nthe feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and further\nit. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that\nsense Religion is a perpetually self-renewing force, the very\nnature of our being. In that sense I have no thought of assailing\nit, I would make clear that I hold it beyond assailment.\n\nBut we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest\nsense, because of another which has been given to it. To the\nordinary man \"Religion\" means, not the soul's longing for growth,\nthe \"hunger and thirst after righteousness\", but certain forms in\nwhich this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails\nto-day throughout the world; that is to say, institutions having\nfixed dogmas and \"revelations\", creeds and rituals, with an\nadministering caste claiming supernatural sanction. By such\ninstitutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of\nchildhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives\nand stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the\nthesis of this book that \"Religion\" in this sense is a source of\nincome to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of\noppression and exploitation.\n\nIf by my jesting at \"Bootstrap-lifting\" I have wounded some dear\nprejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more\npersuasive voice. I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the\nsuffering of others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the\ncauses of the suffering, to find out if it be necessary and\nfore-ordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape for\nfuture generations. I have found that the latter is the case; the\nsuffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished\nfrom the earth. I know this with the knowledge of science--in the\nsame way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and\nlongitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in\norder to reach the port.\n\nCome, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the\ncults of the unknown. The power which made us has given us a\nmind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done\nwith it to rid the earth of its ancient evils. And do not be\ntroubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely\n\"destructive\". I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am\nnot so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with\na barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the\nheart of man because they corresponded to certain needs of the\nheart of man. I know that new symbols will be found,\ncorresponding more exactly to the needs of our time. If here I\nset to work to tear down an old and ramshackle building, it is\nnot from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who means to\nput a new and sounder structure in its place. Before we part\ncompany, I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the\nspirit.\n\n\n\nBOOK ONE\n\nThe Church of the Conquerors\n\n I saw the Conquerors riding by\n      With trampling feet of horse and men:\n  Empire on empire like the tide\n      Flooded the world and ebbed again;\n\n A thousand banners caught the sun,\n      And cities smoked along the plain,\n  And laden down with silk and gold\n      And heaped up pillage groaned the wain.\n         Kemp.\n\n\nThe Priestly Lie\n\nWhen the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of\nlightning, he fell down upon his face in terror. He had no\nconception of natural forces, of laws of electricity; he saw this\nevent as the act of an individual intelligence. To-day we read\nabout fairies and demons, dryads and fauns and satyrs, Wotan and\nThor and Vulcan, Freie and Flora and Ceres, and we think of all\nthese as pretty fancies, play-products of the mind; losing sight\nof the fact that they were originally meant with entire\nseriousness--that not merely did ancient man believe in them, but\nwas forced to believe in them, because the mind must have an\nexplanation of things that happen, and an individual intelligence\nwas the only explanation available. The story of the hero who\nslays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day and\nnight, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the\nphenomena, it was the science of early times.\n\nMen imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend.\nIf the lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be\nbecause the owner of the hut had given offense; so the owner must\nplacate the god, using those means which would be effective in\nthe quarrels of men--presents of roast meats and honey and fresh\nfruits, of wine and gold and jewels and women, accompanied by\nfriendly words and gestures of submission. And when in spite of\nall things the natural evil did not cease, when the people\ncontinued to die of pestilence, then came the opportunity for\nhysterical or ambitious persons to discover new ways of\npenetrating the mind of the god. There would be dreamers of\ndreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the\nentrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there\nwould be burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and\ninspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands.\nThere would arise special castes of men and women, learned in\nthese sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally\nemphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves\naloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and\nentitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles\nin ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would\nproclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking\nwith him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels,\nacting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing\npunishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of\nlaws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to\ndistinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to\nimpress their followers, employing all sensuous effects,\narchitecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and\ndancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs\n\n  And storied winnows richly dight,\n  Casting a dim religious light.\n  There let the pealing organ blow,\n  To the full-voiced choir below,\n  In service high and anthem clear,\n  As may with sweetness through mine ear\n  Dissolve me into ecstacies,\n  And bring all heaven before mine eyes.\n\nSo builds itself up, in a thousand complex and complicated forms,\nthe Priestly Lie. There are a score of great religions in the\nworld, each with scores or hundreds of sects, each with its\npriestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens\nand hells. Each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of\nmillions of \"true believers\"; each damns all the others, with\nmore or less heartiness--and each is a mighty fortress of Graft.\n\nThere will be few readers of this book who have not been brought\nup under the spell of some one of these systems of\nSupernaturalism; who have not been taught to speak with respect\nof some particular priestly order, to thrill with awe at some\nparticular sacred rite, to seek respite from earthly woes in some\nparticular ceremonial spell. These things are woven into our very\nfibre in childhood; they are sanctified by memories of joys and\ngriefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles, they become\npart of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who\nwishes to emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to\nbegin with a study of the beliefs and practices of other sects\nthan his own--a field where he is free to observe and examine\nwithout fear of sacrilege. Let him look into Madame Blavatsky's\n\"Secret Doctrine\", or her \"Isis Unveiled\"!--encyclopedias of the\nfantastic inventions which terror and longing have wrung out of\nthe tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries and solemnities,\ncharms and spells, illuminations and transmigrations, angels and\ndemons, guides, controls and masters--all of which it is\npermissible to refuse to support with gifts. Let the reader then\ngo to James Freeman Clarke's \"Ten Great Religions\", and realize\nhow many billions of humans have lived and died in the solemn\ncertainty that their welfare on earth and in heaven depended upon\ntheir accepting certain ideas and practicing certain rites, all\nmutually exclusive and incompatible, each damning the others and\nthe followers of the others. So gradually the realization will\ncome to him that the test of a doctrine about life and its\nwelfare must be something else than the fact that one was born to\nit.\n\nThe Great Fear\n\nIt was not the fault of primitive man that he was ignorant, nor\nthat his ignorance made him a prey to dread. The traces of his\nmental suffering will inspire in us only pity and sympathy; for\nNature is a grim school-mistress, and not all her lessons have\nyet been learned. We have a right to scorn and anger only when we\nsee this dread being diverted from its true function, a stimulus\nto a search for knowledge, and made into a means of clamping down\nignorance upon the mind of the race. That this has been the\ndeliberate policy of institutionalized Religion no candid student\ncan deny.\n\nThe first thing brought forth by the study of any religion,\nancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed\nby it--and that it cultivates the source from which its\nnourishment is derived. \"The fear of divine anger\", says Prof.\nJastrow, \"runs as an undercurrent through the entire religious\nliterature of Babylonia and Assyria.\" In the words of\nTabi-utul-Enlil, King of ancient Nippur:\n      Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven?\n    The plan of a god is full of mystery--who can understand it?\n   He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning.\nIn an instant he is cast into grief, in a moment he is crushed.\n\nAnd that cry might be duplicated from almost any page of the\nHebrew scriptures: the only difference being that the Hebrews\ncombined all their fears into one Great Fear. \"The fear of the\nLord is the beginning of wisdom,\" we are told by Solomon of the\nthousand wives; and the Psalmist repeats it. \"Dominion and fear\nare with Him,\" cries Job. \"How then can any man be just before\nGod? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even\nthe moon hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in His\nsight: How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man,\nwhich is a worm?\" He goes on, in his lyrical rapture, \"Sheol is\nnaked before Him, and Destruction hath no covering. . . . The\npillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His rebuke. . . .\nThe thunder of His power who can understand?\" That all this is\nsome of the world's great poetry does not in the least alter the\nfact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical\nperversion of the facts of life, and a preparation of the mind\nfor the seeds of Priestcraft.\n\nThe Book of Job has been called a \"Wisdom-drama\": and what is the\ndenouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last\nword about life? \"Wherefore I abhor myself,\" says Job, \"and\nrepent in dust and ashes.\" The poor fellow has done nothing; we\nhave been told at the beginning that he \"was perfect and upright,\nand one that feared God, and eschewed evil.\" But the Sabeans and\nthe Chaldeans rob him, and \"the fire of God\" falls from heaven\nand burns up his sheep and his servants, and \"a great wind from\nthe wilderness\" kills his sons and daughters; and then his body\nbecomes covered with boils--a phenomenon caused in part by worry,\nand the consequent nervous indigestion, but mainly by excess of\nstarch and deficiency of mineral salts in the diet. Job, however,\nhas never heard of the fasting cure for disease, and so he takes\nhim a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits among the\nashes--a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his religious\nritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors himself,\nand cries out: \"I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no\npurpose of Thine can be restrained.\" By which utter, unreasoning\nhumility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, and his friends\nmake a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams--a feast for a\nwhole templeful of priests--and then \"the Lord gave Job twice as\nmuch as he had before. . . . And after this Job lived an hundred\nand forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four\ngenerations.\"\n\nYou do not have to look very deeply into this \"Wisdom-drama\" to\nfind out whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your\nown impotence, abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred\nCaste, the Keepers of the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon\nand respite--in exchange for fresh meat. Here are verses from a\npsalm of the ancient Babylonians, which \"heathen\" chant is\nidentical in spirit and purpose with the utterances of Job:\n\n The Sin that I have wrought, I know not;\n  The unclean that I have eaten, I know not;\n  The offense into which I have walked, I know not....\n  The lord, in the wrath of his heart, hath regarded me;\n  The god, in the anger of his heart, hath surrounded me;\n  A goddess, known or unknown, hath wrought me sorrow....\n  I sought for help, but no one took my hand;\n  I wept, but no one harkened to me....\n  The feet of my goddess I kiss, I touch them;\n  To the god, known or unknown, I utter my prayer;\n  O god, known or unknown, turn thy countenance, accept my\n       sacrifice;\n  O goddess, known or unknown, look mercifully on me! accept\n       my sacrifice!\n\n\nSalve Regina!\n\nAnd now let the reader leap three thousand years of human\nhistory, of toil and triumph of the intellect of man; and instead\nof a Hebrew manuscript or a Babylonian brick there confronts him\na little publication, printed on a modern rotary press in the\ncapital of the United States of America, bearing the date of\nOctober, 1914, and the title \"Salve Regina\". In it we find \"a\nbeautiful prayer\", composed by the late cardinal Rampolla; we are\ntold that \"Pius X attached to it an indulgence of 100 days, each\ntime it is piously recited, applicable to the souls in\npurgatory.\"\n\nO Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where\nthou sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant.\nThough conscious of his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts\nthee from his whole heart as the purest, the most beautiful and\nthe most holy of creatures. He blesses thy holy name. He blesses\nthy sublime prerogatives as real Mother of God, ever Virgin,\nconceived without stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the human\nrace. He blesses the Eternal Father who chose you, etc. He\nblesses the Incarnate Word, etc. He blesses the Divine Spirit,\netc. He blesses, exalts and thanks the most august Trinity, etc.\nO Virgin, holy and merciful . . . be pleased to accept this\nlittle homage of your servant, and obtain for him also from your\ndivine Son pardon for his sins, Amen.\n\nAnd then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this\n\"beautiful prayer\", and of the neat little paper which prints it.\n\"Salve Regina\" is raising funds for the \"National Shrine of the\nImmaculate Conception\", a home for more priests, and Catholic\nladies who desire to collect for it may receive little books\nwhich they are requested to return within three months. Pius X\nwrites a letter of warm endorsement, and sets an example by\ngiving four hundred dollars \"out of his poverty\"--or, to be more\nprecise, out of the poverty of the pitiful peasantry of Italy.\nThere is included in the paper a form of bequest for \"devoted\nclients of Our Blessed Mother\", and at the top of the editorial\npage the most alluring of all baits for the loving hearts of the\nflock--that the names of deceased relatives and friends may be\nwritten in the collection books, and will be transferred to the\nrecords of the Shrine, and these persons \"will share in all its\nspiritual benefits\". In the days of Job it was with threats of\nboils and poverty that the Priestly Lie maintained itself; but in\nthe case of this blackest of all Terrors, transplanted to our\nfree Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the wretched\nvictims see before their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the\nshrieks of their loved ones writhing in torment through uncounted\nages and eternities.\n\n\nFresh Meat\n\nIn the days when I was experimenting with vegetarianism, I sought\nearnestly for evidence of a non-meat-eating race; but candor\ncompelled me to admit that man was like the monkey and the pig\nand the bear--he was vegetarian when he could not help it. The\nadvocates of the reform insist that meat as a diet causes muddy\nbrains and dulled nerves; but you would certainly never suspect\nthis from a study of history. What you find in history is that\nall men crave meat, all struggle for it, and the strongest and\ncleverest get it. Everywhere you find the subject classes living\nin the midst of animals which they tend, but whose flesh they\nrarely taste. Even in modern America, sweet land of liberty, our\nmillions of tenant farmers raise chickens and geese and turkeys,\nand hardly venture to consume as much as an egg, but save\neverything for the summer-boarder or the buyer from the city. It\nwould not be too much to say of the cultural records of early man\nthat they all have to do, directly or indirectly, with the\nreserving of fresh meat to the masters. In J. T. Trowbridge's\ncheerful tale of the adventures of Captain Seaborn, we are told\nby the cannibal priest how idol-worship has ameliorated the\nmorals of the tribe--\n\n For though some warriors of renown\n      Continue anthropophagous,\n  'Tis rare that human flesh goes down\n      The low-caste man's aesophagus!\n\nI suspect that we should have to go back to the days of the\ncave-man to find the first lover of the flesh-pots who put a\ntaboo upon meat, and promised supernatural favors to all who\nwould exercise self-control, and instead of consuming their meat\nthemselves, would bring it and lay it upon the sacred griddle, or\naltar, where the god might come in the night-time and partake of\nit. Certainly, at any rate, there are few religions of record in\nwhich such devices do not appear. The early laws of the Hebrews\nare more concerned with delicatessen for the priests than with\nany other subject whatever. Here, for example, is the way to make\na Nazarite:\n\nHe shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the\nfirst year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb\nof the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram\nwithout blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened\nbread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of\nunleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offerings.\n\nAnd the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain\nchoice, parts and \"wave them for a wave offering before the Lord:\nthis is holy for the priest.\" What was done with the other\nportions we are not told; but earlier in this same \"Book of\nNumbers\" we find the general law that\n\nEvery offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel,\nwhich they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's\nhallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth to the\npriest, it shall be his.\n\nIn the same way we are told by Viscount Amberley that the priests\nof Ceylon first present the gifts to the god, and then eat them.\nAmong the Parsees, when a man dies, the relatives must bring four\nnew robes to the priests; if they do this, the priests wear the\nrobes; if they fail to do it, the dead man appears naked before\nthe judgment-throne. The devotees are instructed that \"he who\nperforms this rite succeeds in both worlds, and obtains a firm\nfooting in both worlds.\" Among the Buddhists, the followers give\nalms to the monks, and are told specifically what advantages will\nthereby accrue to them. In the Aitareyo Brahmairiarn of the\nRig-Veda we read\n\nHe who, knowing this, sacrifices according to this rite, is born\nfrom the womb of Agni and the offerings, participates in the\nnature of the Rik, Yajus, and Saman, the Veda (sacred knowledge),\nthe Brahma (sacred element) and immortality, and is absorbed into\nthe deity.\n\nAmong the Parsees the priest eats the bread and drinks the haoma,\nor juice of a plant, considered to be both a plant and a god.\nAmong the Episcopalians, a contemporary Christian sect, the\nsacred juice is that of the grape, and the priest is not allowed\nto throw away what is left of it, but is ordered \"reverently to\nconsume it.\" In as much as the priest is the sole judge of how\nmuch good sherry wine he shall consecrate previous to the\nceremony, it is to be expected that the priests of this cult\nshould be lukewarm towards the prohibition movement, and should\npiously refuse to administer their sacrament with unfermented and\nuninteresting grape-juice.\n\n\nPriestly Empires\n\nIn every human society of which we have record there has been one\nclass which has done the hard and exhausting work, the \"hewers of\nwood and drawers of water\"; and there has been another, much\nsmaller class which has done the directing. To belong to this\nlatter class is to work also, but with the head instead of the\nhands; it is also to enjoy the good things of life, to live in\nthe best houses, to eat the best food, to have choice of the most\ndesirable women; it is to have leisure to cultivate the mind and\nappreciate the arts, to acquire graces and distinctions, to give\nlaws and moral codes, to shape fashions and tastes, to be revered\nand regarded--in short, to have Power. How to get this Power and\nto hold it has been the first object of the thoughts of men from\nthe beginning of time.\n\nThe most obvious method is by the sword; but this method is\nuncertain, for any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed\nwith it. It will be found that empires based upon military force\nalone, however cruel they may be, are not permanent, and\ntherefore not so dangerous to progress; it is only when\nresistance is paralyzed by the agency of Superstition, that the\nrace can be subjected to systems of exploitation for hundreds and\neven thousands of years. The ancient empires were all priestly\nempires; the kings ruled because they obeyed the will of the\npriests, taught to them from childhood as the word of the gods.\n\nThus, for instance, Prescott tells us:\n\nTerror, not love, was the spring of education with the Aztecs....\nSuch was the crafty policy of the priests, who, by reserving to\nthemselves the business of instruction, were enabled to mould the\nyoung and plastic mind according to their own wills, and to train\nit early to implicit reverence for religion and its ministers.\n\nThe historian goes on to indicate the economic harvest of this\nteaching:\n\nTo each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the\nmaintenance of the priests. The estates were augmented by the\npolicy or devotion of successive princes, until, under the last\nMontezuma, they had swollen to an enormous extent, and covered\nevery district of the empire.\n\nAnd this concerning the frightful system of human sacrifices,\nwhereby the priestly caste maintained the prestige of its\ndivinities:\n\nAt the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the\nprisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose,\nwere ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long.\nThe ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives\nare said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity.\n\nThe same system appears in Professor Jastrow's account of the\npriesthood of Babylonia and Assyria:\n\nThe ultimate source of all law being the deity himself, the\noriginal legal tribunal was the place where the image or symbol\nof the god stood. A legal decision was an oracle or omen,\nindicative of the will of the god. The power thus lodged in the\npriests of Babylonia and Assyria was enormous. They virtually\nheld in their hands the life and death of the people.\n\nAnd of the business side of this vast religious system:\n\nThe temples were the natural depositories of the legal archives,\nwhich in the course of centuries grew to veritably enormous\nproportions. Records were made of all decisions; the facts were\nset forth, and duly attested by witnesses. Business and marriage\ncontracts, loans and deeds of sale were in like manner drawn up\nin the presence of official scribes, who were also priests. In\nthis way all commercial transactions received the written\nsanction of the religious organization. The temples\nthemselves--at least in the large centres--entered into business\nrelations with the populace. In order to maintain the large\nhousehold represented by such an organization as that of the\ntemple of Enlil of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at Lagash, that of\nMarduk at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large holdings\nof land were required which, cultivated by agents for the\npriests, or farmed out with stipulations for a goodly share of\nthe produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the temple\nofficials. The enterprise of the temples was expanded to the\nfurnishing of loans at interest--in later periods, at 20%--to\nbarter in slaves, to dealings in lands, besides engaging labor\nfor work of all kinds directly needed for the temples. A large\nquantity of the business documents found in the temple archives\nare concerned with the business affairs of the temple, and we are\njustified in including the temples in the large centres as among\nthe most important business institutions of the country. In\nfinancial or monetary transactions the position of the temples\nwas not unlike that of national banks. . . .\n\nAnd so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor\nsaid more in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his\nlectures were delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the\nUniversity of Pennsylvania, and paid out of an endowment which\nspecifies that \"all polemical subjects shall be positively\nexcluded!\"\n\n\nPrayer-wheels\n\nThese priestly empires exist in the world today. If we wish to\nfind them we have only to ask ourselves: What countries are\nmaking no contribution to the progress of the race? What\ncountries have nothing to give us, whether in art, science, or\nindustry?\n\nFor example, Gervaise tells us of the Talapoins, or priests of\nSiam, that \"they are exempted from all public charges, they\nsalute nobody, while everybody prostrates himself before them.\nThey are maintained at the public expense.\" In the same way we\nread of the negroes of the Caribbean islands that \"their priests\nand priestesses exercise an almost unlimited power.\" Miss\nKingsley, in her \"West African Studies\", tells us that if we\ndesire to understand the institutions of this district, we must\nstudy the native's religion.\n\nFor his religion has so firm a grasp upon his mind that it\ninfluences everything he does. It is not a thing apart, as the\nreligion of the Europeans is at times. The African cannot say,\n\"Oh, that is all right from a religious point of view, but one\nmust be practical.\" To be practical, to get on in the world, to\nlive the day and night through, he must be right in the religious\npoint of view, namely, must be on working terms with the great\nworld of spirits around him. The knowledge of this spirit world\nconstitutes the religion of the African, and his customs and\nceremonies arise from his idea of the best way to influence it.\n\nOr consider Henry Savage Landor's account of Thibet:\n\nIn Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make\ncircumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days\ntogether, covering the entire distance lying flat upon their\nbodies.... From the ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long\nstrips, katas, offered by pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so\nmany flying prayers when hung up--for mechanical praying in every\nway is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of having to learn by\nheart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to stuff the\nentire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and revolve it while\nrepeating as fast as you can four words meaning, \"O God, the gem\nemerging from the lotus-flower.\". . . . The attention of the\npilgrims is directed to a large box, or often a big bowl, where\nthey may deposit whatever offerings they can spare, and it must\nbe said that their religious ideas are so strongly developed that\nthey will dispose of a considerable portion of their money in\nthis fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and have\na great hold over the entire country. They are ninety per cent of\nthem unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way and given to\nevery sort of vice. So are the women Lamas. They live and sponge\non the credulity and ignorance of the crowds; it is to maintain\nthis ignorance, upon which their luxurious life depends, that\nforeign influence of every kind is strictly kept out of the\ncountry.\n\n\nThe Butcher-Gods\n\nIn this last sentence we have summed up the fundamental fact\nabout institutionalized religion. Wherever belief and ritual have\nbecome the means of livelihood of a class, all innovation will of\nnecessity be taken as an attack upon that class; it will be\nliterally a crime--robbing the priests of their age-long\nprivileges. And of course they will oppose the robber--using\nevery weapon of terrorism, both of this world and the next. They\nwill require the submission, not merely of their own people, but\nof their neighbors, and their jealousy of rival priestly castes\nwill be a cause of wars. The story of the early days of mankind\nis a sickening record of torture and slaughter in the name of ten\nthousand butcher-gods.\n\nThus, for example, we read in the Hebrew religious records how\nthe priests were engaged in establishing the prestige of a fetish\ncalled \"the ark\"; and how the people of one tribe violated this\nfetish and wakened the wrath of Jehovah, the god.\n\nAnd he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked\ninto the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty\nthousand and three score and ten men; and the people lamented,\nbecause the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great\nslaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand\nbefore this holy Lord God?\n\nThis terrible old Hebrew divinity said of himself that he was \"a\njealous god\". Throughout the time of his sway he issued through\nhis ministers precise instructions for the most revolting\ncruelties, the extermination of whole nations of men, women and\nchildren, whose sole offense was that they did not pay tribute to\nJehovah's priests. Thus, for example, the chief of his prophets,\nMoses, called the people together, and with all solemnity, and\nwith many warnings, handed down ten commandments graven upon\nstone tablets; he went on to set forth how the people were to set\nupon and rob their neighbors, and gave them these blood-thirsty\ninstructions:\n\nWhen the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou\ngoest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee,\nthe Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the\nCanaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the\nJebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when\nthe Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite\nthem, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with\nthem, nor shew mercy unto them: ... But thus shall ye deal with\nthem; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images,\nand cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with\nfire. For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord\nthy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,\nabove all people that are upon the face of the earth.\n\nThe records of this Jehovah are full of similar horrors. He sent\nhis chosen people out to destroy the Midianites, and they slew\nall the males, but this was not sufficient, and Moses was wroth,\nand commanded them to kill all the married women, and to take the\nsingle women \"for themselves\". We are told that sixteen thousand\nsingle women were spared, of whom \"the Lord's tribute was thirty\nand two!\" In the Book of Joshua we read that he had an interview\nwith a supernatural personage called \"the captain of the Lord's\nhost\", and how this captain had given to him a magic spell which\nwould destroy the city of Jericho. The city should be accursed,\n\"even it and all that are therein, to the Lord\"; every living\nthing except one traitor-harlot was to be slaughtered, and all\nthe wealth of the city reserved to the priestly caste. This was\ncarried out to the letter, except that \"Achan, the son of Carmi,\nthe son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took\nof the accursed thing\"--that is, he hid some gold and silver in\nhis tent; whereupon the army met with a defeat, and everybody\nknew that something was wrong, and Joshua rent his clothes and\nfell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, and\ngot another message from Jehovah, to the effect that the guilty\nman should be burned with fire, \"he and all that he hath.\"\n\nAnd Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah,\nand the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his\nsons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his\nsheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them\nunto the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled\nus? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned\nhim with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned\nhim with stones.\n\nWe have no means of knowing what was the character of the\nunfortunate inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the\nHittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of\nthe victims of Jehovah. To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew\npriests that they sacrificed their children to their gods; but\nthen, consider what we should believe about the Hebrew religion,\nif we took the word of rival priestly castes! Consider, for\nexample, that in this twentieth century we saw an orthodox Jew\ntried in a Russian court of law for having made a sacrifice of\nChristian babies; nevertheless we know that the Jews represent a\nconsiderable part of the intelligence and idealism of Russia. We\nknow in the same way that the Moors had most of the culture and\nall of the scientific knowledge of Spain; that the Huguenots had\nmost of the conscience and industry of France; and we know that\nthey were massacred or driven out to death by the priestly castes\nof the Middle Ages.\n\n\nThe Holy Inquisition\n\nLet us have one glimpse of the conditions in those mediaeval\ntimes, so that we may know what we ourselves have escaped. In the\nfifteenth century there was established in Europe the cult of a\nthree-headed god, whose priests had won lordship over a\ncontinent. They were enormously wealthy, and unthinkably corrupt;\nthey sold to the rich the license to commit every possible crime,\nand they held the poor in ignorance and degradation. Among the\ncomparatively intelligent and freedom-loving people of Bohemia\nthere arose a great reformer, John Huss, himself a priest,\nprotesting against the corruptions of his order. They trapped him\ninto their power by means of a \"safe-conduct\"--which they\nrepudiated because no promise to a heretic could have validity.\nThey found him guilty of having taught the hateful doctrine that\na priest who committed crimes could not give absolution for the\ncrimes of others; and they held an auto de fe--which means a\n\"sentence of faith.\" As we read in Lea's \"History of the\nInquisition\":\n\nThe cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund (the\nEmperor) and his nobles, the great officers of the empire with\ntheir insignia, the prelates in their splendid robes. While mass\nwas sung, Huss, as an excommunicate, was kept waiting at the\ndoor; when brought in he was placed on an elevated bench by a\ntable on which stood a coffer containing priestly vestments.\nAfter some preliminaries, including a sermon by the Bishop of\nLodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day\nwould confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss\nwas convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed\nin transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in\npolluted hands. He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his\npersisting the beadles were told to silence him, but in spite of\nthis he continued to utter protests. The sentence was then read\nin the name of the council, condemning him both for his written\nerrors and those which had been proven by witnesses. He was\ndeclared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not\ndesire to return to the Church; his books were ordered to be\nburned, and himself to be degraded from the priesthood and\nabandoned to the secular court. Seven bishops arrayed him in\npriestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time.\nHe turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared that he\ncould not confess the errors which he never entertained, lest he\nshould lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that\nthey had waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his heresy.\nHe was degraded in the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal\nvestments, his fingers scraped; but when the tonsure was to be\ndisposed of, an absurd quarrel arose among the bishops as to\nwhether the head should be shaved with a razor or the tonsure be\ndestroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and a cross was\ncut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper cap,\na cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the\ninscription, \"This is the heresiarch.\"\n\nThe place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he\nwas conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis at\ntheir head, and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates,\nand cardinals. The route followed was circuitous, in order that\nhe might be carried past the episcopal palace, in front of which\nhis books were burning, whereat he smiled. Pity from man there\nwas none to look for, but he sought comfort on high, repeating to\nhimself, \"Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon\nus!\" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees\nand prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that\nhe would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was\nformed, and Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been\nprovidently empowered to take advantage of final weakening, came\nforward, saying, \"Dear sir and master, if you will recant your\nunbelief and heresy, for which you must suffer, I will willingly\nhear your confession; but if you will not, you know right well\nthat, according to canon law, no one can administer the sacrament\nto a heretic.\" To this Huss answered, \"It is not necessary: I am\nnot a mortal sinner.\" His paper crown fell off and he smiled as\nhis guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers,\nand when they were brought to him he thanked them for their\nkindness, saying that they had been to him rather brothers than\njailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German,\ntelling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold,\nand he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of\nfagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and\nvogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could\nsave himself, but only repeated that he had been convicted by\nfalse witnesses on errors never entertained by him. They clapped\ntheir hands and then withdrew, and the executioners applied the\nfire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, \"Christ Jesus, Son of the\nliving God, have mercy upon me!\" then a wind springing up and\nblowing the flames and smoke into his face checked further\nutterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move\nwhile one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster. The tragedy\nwas over; the sorely-tried soul bad escaped from its tormentors,\nand the bitterest enemies of the reformer could not refuse to him\nthe praise that no philosopher of old had faced death with more\ncomposure than he had shown in his dreadful extremity. No\nfaltering of the voice had betrayed an internal struggle.\nPalsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the\nexecutioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be\nreverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compensate him.\nWith the same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and\nthrown into the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was\ndug up and carted off; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the\nspot and carried home fragments of the neighboring clay, which\nthey reverenced as relies of their martyr. The next day thanks\nwere returned to God in a solemn procession in which figured\nSigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen\ncardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the\nclergy of the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had\ndelayed his departure for Spain to see the matter concluded, left\nConstance, feeling that his work was done.\n\n\nHell-Fire\n\nIf such a scene could be witnessed in the world today, it would\nonly be in some remote and wholly savage place, such as the\nmountains of Hayti, or the Solomon Islands. It could no longer\nhappen in any civilized country; the reason being, not any\nabatement of the pretensions of the priesthood, but solely the\npower of science, embodied in the physical arm of a secular\nState. The advance of that arm the church has fought\nsystematically, in every country, and at every point. To quote\nBuckle: \"A careful study of the history of religious toleration\nwill prove that in every Christian country where it has been\nadopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the authority of\nthe secular classes.\" The wolf of superstition has been driven\ninto its lair; but it has backed away snarling, and it still\ncrouches, watching for a chance to spring. The Church which\nburned John Huss, which burned Giordano Bruno for teaching that\nthe earth moves round the sun--that same church, in the name of\nthe same three-headed god, sent out Francesco Ferrer to the\nfiring-squad; if it does not do the same thing to the author of\nthis book, it will be solely because of the police. Not being\nallowed to burn me here, the clergy will vent their holy\nindignation by sentencing me to eternal burning in a future world\nwhich they have created, and which they run to suit themselves.\n\nIt is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated,\nthat the measure of the civilization which any nation has\nattained is the extent to which it has curtailed the power of\ninstitutionalized religion. Those peoples which are wholly under\nthe sway of the priesthood, such as Thibetans and Koreans,\nSiamese and Caribbeans, are peoples among whom the intellectual\nlife does not exist. Farther in advance are Hindoos, and Turks,\nwho are religious, but not exclusively. Still farther on the way\nare Spaniards and Irish; here, for example, is a flashlight of\nthe Irish peasantry, given by one of their number, Patrick\nMacGill:\n\nThe merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always\ntold the people if they did not pay their debts they would burn\nfor ever and ever in hell. \"The fires of eternity will make you\nsorry for the debts that you did not pay,\" said the priest. \"What\nis eternity?\" he would ask in a solemn voice from the altar\nsteps. \"If a man tried to count the sands on the sea-shore and\ntook a million years to count every single grain, how long would\nit take him to count them all? A long time, you'll say. But that\ntime is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell\nwhile a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand,\ncounts all the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did\nnot pay Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within\nthe letter of the law.\" That concluding phrase, \"within the\nletter of the law,\" struck terror into all who listened, and no\none, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it meant.\n\nThere is light in Ireland to-day, and hope for an Irish culture;\nthe thing to be noted is that it comes from two movements, one\nfor agricultural co-operation and the other for political\nindependence--both of them definitely and specifically\nnon-religious. This same thing has been true of the movements\nwhich have helped on happier nations, such as the republics of\nFrance and America, which have put an end to the power of the\npriestly caste to take property by force, and to dominate the\nmind of the child without its parents' consent.\n\nThis is as far as any nation has so far gone; it has apparently\nnot yet occurred to any legislature that the State may owe a duty\nto the child to protect its mind from being poisoned, even though\nit has the misfortune to be born of poisoned parents. It is still\npermitted that parents should terrify their little ones with\nimages of a personal devil and a hell of eternal brimstone and\nsulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the teaching of\ndevil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic campaigns\nand systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and\nchildren with hell-fire phobias. In the American city where I\nwrite one may see gatherings of people sunk upon their knees,\neven rolling on the ground in convulsions, moaning, sobbing,\nscreaming to be delivered from such torments. I open my morning\npaper and read of the arrest of five men and seven women in Los\nAngeles, members of a sect known as the \"Church of the Living\nGod\", upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their\nneighbors. The police officers testified that the accused claimed\nto be possessed of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this\npossession they \"crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and\nbarked like dogs.\" There were \"other acts, even more startling\",\nabout which the newspapers did not go into details. And again, a\nweek or two later, I read how a woman has been heard screaming,\nand found tied to a bedpost, being whipped by a man. She belonged\nto a religious sect which had found her guilty of witchcraft.\nAnother woman was about to shoot her, but this woman's nerve\nfailed, and the \"high priest\" was called in, who decreed a\nwhipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have\ndeserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake\nhad been made--it was another woman who was the witch. And again\nin the Los Angeles \"Times\" I read a perfectly serious news item,\ntelling how a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his\npillow where his head had lain a perfect reproduction of the head\nof Christ with its crown of thorns. He called in his neighbors to\nwitness the miracle, and declared that while he was not\nsuperstitious, he knew that such a thing could not have happened\nby chance, and he knew what it was intended to signify--he would\nbuy more Liberty Bonds and be more ardent in his support of the\nwar!\n\nAnd this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture\nthink that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no\nlonger necessary to spend our energies in fighting \"Religion!\"\n\n\n\nBOOK TWO\n\nThe Church of Good Society\n\n Within the House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert\n  By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt,\n Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure,\n  And they be found his chosen, untroubled, solemn, sure.\n\n Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts\n  Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts--\n A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals,\n  To tell of hopes long-ended, to tell the death of souls\n                                    Sterling.\n\nThe Rain Makers\n\nI begin with the Church of Good Society, because it happens to be\nthe Church in which I was brought up. Reading this statement,\nsome of my readers suspected me of snobbish pride. I search my\nheart; yes, it brings a hidden thrill that as far back as I can\nremember I knew this atmosphere of urbanity, that twice every\nSunday those melodious and hypnotizing incantations were chanted\nin my childish ears! I take up the book of ritual, done in\naristocratic black leather with gold lettering, and the old worn\nvolume brings me strange stirrings of recollected awe. But I\nendeavor to repress these vestigial emotions and to see the\nvolume--not as a message from God to Good Society, but as a\nlandmark of man's age-long struggle against myth and dogma used\nas a source of income and a shield to privilege.\n\nIn the beginning, of course, the priest and the magician ruled\nthe field. But today, as I examine this \"Book of Common Prayer\",\nI discover that there is at least one spot out of which he has\nbeen cleared entirely; there appears no prayer to planets to\nstand still, or to comets to go away. The \"Church of Good\nSociety\" has discovered astronomy! But if any astronomer\nattributes this to his instruments with their marvelous accuracy,\nlet him at least stop to consider my \"economic interpretation\" of\nthe phenomenon--the fact that the heavenly bodies affect the\ndestinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient\nemolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as\nastrologer.\n\nBut when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference!\nHas any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the\npriest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most\ncivilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified\nof institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America! I\nstudy with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as\ncontroller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened caution of\nphraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the\nsorcerer's apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and\nthen could not make them stop! The spell invokes \"moderate rain\nand showers\"; and as an additional precaution there is a\ncounter-spell against \"excessive rains and floods\": the\nweather-faucet being thus under exact control.\n\nI turn the pages of this \"Book of Common Prayer\", and note the\nremnants of magic which it contains. There are not many of the\nemergencies of life with which the priest is not authorized to\ndeal; not many natural phenomena for which he may not claim the\ncredit. And in case anything should have been overlooked, there\nis a blanket order upon Providence: \"Graciously hear us, that\nthose evils which the craft or subtilty of the devil or man\nworketh against us, be brought to nought!\" I am reminded of the\nidea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the\nhero who was allowed three wishes that would come true. I could\nnever understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for\nall--by wishing that everything he wished might come true!\n\nMost of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable;\nbut now and then you come upon one which is sinister in its\nimplications. The volume before me happens to be of the Church of\nEngland, which is even more forthright in its confronting of the\nGreat Magic. Many years ago I remember talking with an English\narmy officer, asking how he could feel sure of his soldiers in\ncase of labor strikes; did it never occur to him that the men had\nrelatives among the workers, and might some time refuse to shoot\nthem? His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had\nworked out its technique with care. He would never think of\nordering his men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first\nstart the spell of discipline to work, he would march them round\nthe block, and get them in the swing, get their blood moving to\nmilitary music; then, when he gave the order, in they would go. I\nhave never forgotten the gesture, the animation with which he\nillustrated their going--I could hear the grunting of bayonets in\nthe flesh of men. The social system prevailing in England has\nmade necessary the perfecting of such military technique; also,\nyou discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a\nreligious sanction for it. After the job has been done, and the\nbayonets have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church,\nand the officer kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel\nwith the parlor-maids, and the clergyman raises his hands to\nheaven and intones: \"We bless thy Holy Name, that it hath pleased\nThee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately\nraised up among us!\"\n\nAnd sometimes the clergyman does more than bless the killers--he\neven takes part in their bloody work. In the Home Office Records\nof the British Government I read (vol 40, page 17) how certain\nminers were on strike against low wages and the \"truck\" system,\nand the Vicar of Abergavenny put himself at the head of the\nyeomanry and the Greys. He wrote the Home Office a lively account\nof his military operations. All that remained was to apprehend\ncertain of the strikers, \"and then I shall be able to return to\nmy Clerical duties.\" Later he wrote of the \"sinister influences\"\nwhich kept the miners from returning to their work, and how he\nhad put half a dozen of the most obstinate in prison.\n\n\nThe Babylonian Fire-god\n\nSo we come to the most important of the functions of the tribal\ngod, as an ally in war, an inspirer to martial valour. When in\nancient Babylonia you wished to overcome your enemies, you went\nto the shrine of the Firegod, and with awful rites the priest\npronounced incantations, which have been preserved on bricks and\nhanded down for the use of modern churches. \"Pronounce in a\nwhisper, and have a bronze image therewith,\" commands the ancient\ntext, and runs on for many strophes in this fashion:\n\n      Let them die, but let me live!\n      Let them be put under a ban, but let me prosper!\n      Let them perish, but let me increase!\n      Let them become weak, but let me wax strong!\n      O, fire-god, mighty, exalted among the gods,\n      Thou art the god, thou art my lord, etc.\n\nThis was in heathen Babylon, some three thousand years ago. Since\nthen, the world has moved on--\n\n Three thousand years of war and peace and glory,\n      Of hope and work and deeds and golden schemes,\n  Of mighty voices raised in song and story,\nOf huge inventions and of splendid dreams--\n\nAnd in one of the world's leading nations the people stand up and\nbare their heads, and sing to their god to save their king and\npunish those who oppose him--\n\n O Lord our God, arise,  Scatter his enemies,\n      And make them fall;\n  Confound their politics,\n  Frustrate their knavish tricks,\n  On him our hopes we fix,\n      God save us all.\n\nRecently, I understand, it has become the custom to omit this\nstanza from the English national anthem; but it is clear that\nthis is because of its crudity of expression, not because of\nobjection to the idea of praying to a god to assist one nation\nand injure others; for the same sentiment is expressed again and\nagain in the most carefully edited of prayer-books:\n\nAbate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their\ndevices.\nDefend us, Thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies.\nStrengthen him (the King) that he may vanquish and overcome\nall his enemies.\nThere is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God.\n\nPrayers such as these are pronounced in every so-called civilized\nnation today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the\npriests of the Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and\ntheir ancient incantations; you may see magic spells being\nwrought, magic standards sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic\nwine drunk, fetishes blessed and hoodoos lifted, eternity\nransacked to find means of inciting soldiers to the mood where\nthey will \"go in\". Throughout all civilization, the phobias and\nmanias of war have thrown the people back into the toils of the\npriest, and that church which tortured Galileo in the dungeons of\nthe Inquisition, and shot Ferrier beneath the walls of the\nfortress of Montjuich, is rejoicing in a \"rebirth of religion\".\n\nThe Medicine-men\n\n\nAndrew D. White tells us that\n\nIt was noted that in the 14th century, after the great plague,\nthe Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of\nthe landed and personal property of every European country was in\nthe hands of the Church. Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that\n\"pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God.\"\n\nAnd so naturally the clergy hold on to their prerogative as\nbanishers of epidemics. Who knows what day the Lord may see fit\nto rebuke the upstart teachers of impious and atheistical\ninoculation, and scourge the people back into His fold as in the\ngood old days of Moses and Aaron? Viscount Amberley, in his\nimmensely learned and half-suppressed work, \"The Analysis of\nReligious Belief\", quotes some missionaries to the Fiji\nislanders, concerning the ideas of these benighted heathen on the\nsubject of a pestilence. It was the work of a \"disease-maker\",\nwho was burning images of the people with incantations; so they\nblew horns to frighten this disease-maker from his spells. The\nmissionaries undertook to explain the true cause of the\naffliction--and thereby revealed that they stood upon the same\nintellectual level as the heathen they were supposed to instruct!\nIt appeared that the natives had been at war with their\nneighbors, and the missionaries had commanded them to desist;\nthey had refused to obey, and God had sent the epidemic as\npunishment for savage presumption!\n\nAnd on precisely this same Fijian level stands the \"Book of\nCommon Prayer\" of our most decorous and cultured of churches. I\nremember as a little child lying on a bed of sickness, occasioned\nby the prevalence in our home of the Southern custom of hot bread\nthree times a day; and there came an amiable clerical gentleman\nand recited the service proper to such pastoral calls: \"Take\ntherefore in good part the visitation of the Lord!\" And again,\nwhen my mother was ill, I remember how the clergyman read out in\nchurch a prayer for her, specifying all sickness, \"in mind, body\nor estate\". I was thinking only of my mother, and the meaning of\nthese words passed over my childish head; I did not realize that\nthe elderly plutocrat in black broadcloth who knelt in the pew in\nfront of me was invoking the aid of the Almighty so that his\ntenements might bring in their rentals promptly; so that his\nlittle \"flyer\" in cotton might prove successful; so that the\nchildren in his mills might work with greater speed.\n\nSomebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations,\nand he answered, \"Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it.\"\nAnd that would seem to be the attitude of the present-day\nAnglican church-member; he calls in the best physician he knows,\nhe makes sure that his plumbing is sound, and after that he\nthinks it can do no harm to let the Lord have a chance. It makes\nthe women happy, and after all, there are a lot of things we\ndon't yet know about the world. So he repairs to the family pew,\nand recites over the venerable prayers, and contributes his mite\nto the maintenance of an institution which, fourteen Sundays\nevery year, proclaims the terrifying menaces of the Athanasian\nCreed:\n\nWhoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he\nhold the Catholick faith. Which faith, except one do keep whole\nand undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.\n\nFor the benefit of the uninitiated reader, it may be explained\nthat the \"Catholick faith\" here referred to is not the Roman\nCatholic, but that of the Church of England and the Protestant\nEpiscopal Church of America. This creed of the ancient\nAlexandrian lays down the truth with grim and menacing\nprecision--forty-four paragraphs of metaphysical minutiae,\nclosing with the final doom: \"This is the Catholick faith: which\nexcept a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.\"\n\nYou see, the founders of this august institution were not content\nwith cultured complacency; what they believed they believed\nreally, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon\nit, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they\nknew the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible\ntemptation which confronts each new generation to believe that\nwhich is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out the\ntrue faith in words which no one could mistake. They have\nprovided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the\n\"Thirty-nine Articles\"--which are thirty-nine separate and\nbinding guarantees that one who holds orders in the Episcopal\nChurch shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or else a\nsophist and hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in\nthe face of this cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which\nis told of Dr. Jowett, of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he\nwas required to recite the \"Apostle's Creed\" in public, he would\nsave himself by inserting the words \"used\" between the words \"I\nbelieve\", saying the inserted words under his breath, thus, \"I\nused to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.\"\nPerhaps the eminent divine never did this; but the fact that his\nstudents told it, and thought it funny, is sufficient indication\nof their attitude toward their \"Religion.\" The son of William\nGeorge Ward tells in his biography how this leader of the\n\"Tractarian Movement\" met the problem with cynicism which seems\nalmost sublime: \"Make yourself clear that you are justified in\ndeception; and then lie like a trooper!\"\n\n\nThe Canonization of Incompetence\n\nThe supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in\nall its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of\nmind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it\ncanonizes incompetence. Consider the power of the Church of\nEngland and its favorite daughter here in America; consider their\nprestige with the press and in politics, their hold upon\nliterature and the arts, their control of education and the minds\nof children, of charity and the lives of the poor: consider all\nthis, and then say what it means to society that such a power\nmust be, in every new issue that arises, on the side of reaction\nand falsehood. \"So it was in the beginning, is now, and ever\nshall be,\" runs the church's formula; and this per se and a\npriori, of necessity and in the nature of the case.\n\nTurn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the\nchurch's opposition to every advance in every field of science,\neven the most remote from theological concern. Here is the\nReverend Edward Massey, preaching in 1772 on \"The Dangerous and\nSinful Practice of Inoculation\"; declaring that Job's distemper\nwas probably confluent small-pox; that he had been inoculated\ndoubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by Providence for\nthe punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to prevent\nthem is \"a diabolical operation\". Here are the Scotch clergy of\nthe middle of the nineteenth century denouncing the use of\nchloroform in obstetrics, because it is seeking \"to avoid one\npart of the primeval curse on woman\". Here is Bishop Wilberforce\nof Oxford anathematizing Darwin: \"The principle of natural\nselection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God\"; it\n\"contradicts the revealed relation of creation to its creator\";\nit \"is inconsistent with the fulness of His glory\"; it is \"a\ndishonoring view of nature\". And the Bishop settled the matter by\nasking Huxley whether he was descended from an ape through his\ngrandmother or grandfather.\n\nThink what it means, friends of progress, that these\necclesiastical figures should be set up for the reverence of the\npopulace, and that every time mankind is to make an advance in\npower over Nature, the pioneers of thought have to come with\ncrow-bars and derricks and heave these figures out of the way!\nAnd you think that conditions are changed to-day? But consider\nsyphilis and gonorrhea, about which we know so much, and can do\nalmost nothing; consider birth-control, which we are sent to jail\nfor so much as mentioning! Consider the divorce reforms for which\nthe world is crying--and for which it must wait, because of St.\nPaul! Realize that up to date it has proven impossible to\npersuade the English Church to permit a man to marry his deceased\nwife's sister! That when the war broke upon England the whole\nnation was occupied with a squabble over the disestablishment of\nthe church of Wales! Only since 1888 has it been legally possible\nfor an unbeliever to hold a seat in Parliament; while up to the\npresent day men are tried for blasphemy and convicted under the\ndecisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that \"it is a crime either\nto deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian\nreligion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule.\" Said Mr.\njustice Horridge, at the West Riding Assizes, 1911: \"A man is not\nfree in any public place to use common ridicule on subjects which\nare sacred.\"\n\nThe purpose, as outlined by the public prosecutor in London, is\n\"to preserve the standard of outward decency.\" And you will find\nthat the one essential to prosecution is always that the victim\nshall be obscure and helpless; never by any chance is he a duke\nin a drawing-room. I will record an utterance of one of the\nobscure victims of the British \"standard of outward decency\", a\nteacher of mathematics named Holyoake, who presumed to discuss in\na public hall the starvation of the working classes of the\ncountry. A preacher objected that he had discussed \"our duty to\nour neighbor\" and neglected \"our duty to God\"; whereupon the\nlecturer replied: \"Our national Church and general religious\ninstitutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty\nmillion pounds annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal\nto your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to\nhave a God. While our distress lasts, I think it would be wise to\nput deity upon half pay.\" And for that utterance the unfortunate\nteacher of mathematics served six months in the common Gaol at\nGloucester!\n\nWhile men were being tried for publishing the \"Free-thinker\", the\nPremier of England was William Ewart Gladstone. And if you wish\nto know what an established church can do by way of setting up\ndullness in high places, get a volume of this \"Grand Old Man's\"\nwritings on theological and religious questions. Read his\n\"Juventus Mundi\", in the course of which he establishes, a mystic\nconnection between the trident of Neptune and the Christian\nTrinity! Read his efforts to prove that the writer of Genesis was\nan inspired geologist! This writer of Genesis points out in\nNature \"a grand, fourfold division, set forth in an orderly\nsuccession of times: First, the water population; secondly, the\nair population; thirdly, the land population of animals;\nfourthly, the land population consummated in man.\" And it seems\nthat this division and sequence \"is understood to have been so\naffirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a\ndemonstrated conclusion and established fact.\" Hence we must\nconclude of the writer of Genesis that \"his knowledge was\ndivine\"! Consider that this was actually published in one of the\nleading British monthlies, and that it was necessary for\nProfessor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so far is it\nfrom being true that \"a fourfold division and orderly sequence\"\nof water, air and land animals \"has been affirmed in our time by\nnatural science\", that on the contrary, the assertion is\n\"directly contradictory to facts known to everyone who is\nacquainted with the elements of natural science\". The\ndistribution of fossils proves that land animals originated\nbefore sea-animals, and there has been such a mixing of land, sea\nand air animals as utterly to destroy the reputation of both\nGenesis and Gladstone as possessing a divine knowledge of\nGeology.\n\n\nGibson's Preservative\n\nI have a friend, a well-known \"scholar\", who permits me the use\nof his extensive library. I stand in the middle and look about\nme, and see in the dim shadows walls lined from floor to ceiling\nwith decorous and grave-looking books, bound for the most part in\nblack, many of them fading to green with age. There are literally\nthousands of such, and their theme is the pseudo-science of\n\"divinity\". I close my eyes, to make the test fair, and walk to\nthe shelves and put out my hand and take a book. It proves to be\na modern work, \"A History of the English Prayer-book in Relation\nto the Doctrine of the Eucharist\". I turn the pages and discover\nthat it is a study of the variations of one minute detail of\nchurch doctrine. This learned divine--he has written many such\nworks, as the advertisements inform us--fills up the greater part\nof his pages with foot-notes from hundreds of authorities,\narguments and counter-arguments over supernatural subtleties. I\nwill give one sample of these footnotes--asking the reader to be\npatient:\n\nI add the following valuable observation, of Dean Goode: (\"On\nEucharist\", II p 757. See also Archbishop Ware in Gibson's\n\"Preservative\", vol X, Chap II) \"One great point for which our\ndivines have contended, in opposition to Romish errors, has been\nthe reality of that presence of Christ's Body and Blood to the\nsoul of the believer which is affected through the operation of\nthe Holy Spirit notwithstanding the absence of that Body and\nBlood in Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both present\nand absent; present, really and truly present, in one sense--that\nis, by the soul being brought into immediate communion with--but\nabsent in another sense--that is, as regards the contiguity of\nits substance to our bodies. The authors under review, like the\nRomanists, maintain that this is not a Real Presence, and\nassuming their own interpretation of the phrase to be the only\ntrue one, press into their service the testimony of divines who,\nthough using the phrase, apply it in a sense the reverse of\ntheirs. The ambiguity of the phrase, and its misapplication by\nthe Church of Rome, have induced many of our divines to repudiate\nit, etc.\"\n\nRealize that of the work from which this \"valuable observation\"\nis quoted, there are at least two volumes, the second volume\ncontaining not less than 757 pages! Realize that in Gibson's\n\"Preservative\" there are not less than ten volumes of such\nwriting! Realize that in this twentieth century a considerable\nportion of the mental energies of the world's greatest empire is\ndevoted to that kind of learning!\n\nI turn to the date upon the volume, and find that it is 1910. I\nwas in England within a year of that time, and so I can tell what\nwas the condition of the English people while printers were\nmaking and papers were reviewing and book-stores were\ndistributing this work of ecclesiastical research. I walked along\nthe Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, men, women and\nsometimes children, clad in filthy rags, starved white and frozen\nblue, soaked in winter rains and shivering in winter winds,\nhomeless, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity,\nunpreserved by Gibson's \"Preservative\". I walked on Hampstead\nHeath on Easter day, when the population of the slums turns out\nfor its one holiday; I walked, literally trembling with horror,\nfor I had never seen such sights nor dreamed of them. These\ncreatures were hardly to be recognized as human beings; they were\nsome new grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, they could\nonly shamble; they could not laugh, they could only leer. I saw a\nhand-organ playing, and turned away--the things they did in their\nefforts to dance were not to be watched. And then I went out into\nthe beautiful English country; cultured and charming ladies took\nme in swift, smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels and\nthe drink-sodden, starch-poisoned inhabitants--slum-populations\neverywhere, even on the land! When the newspaper reporters came\nto me, I said that I had just come from Germany, and that if ever\nEngland found herself at war with that country, she would regret\nthat she had let the bodies and the minds of her people rot; for\nwhich expression I was severely taken to task by more than one\nBritish divine.\n\nThe bodies--and the minds; the rot of the latter being the cause\nof the former. All over England in that year of 1910, in\nthousands of schools, rich and poor, and in the greatest centres\nof learning, men like Dean Goode were teaching boys dead\nlanguages and dead sciences and dead arts; sending them out to\nlife with no more conception of the modern world than a monk of\nthe Middle Ages; sending them out with minds, made hard and\ninflexible, ignorant of science, indifferent to progress,\ncontemptuous of ideas. And then suddenly, almost overnight, this\nterrified people finds itself at war with a nation ruled and\ndisciplined by modern experts, scientists and technicians. The\nawful muddle that was in England during the first two years of\nthe war has not yet been told in print; but thousands know it,\nand some day it will be written, and it will finish forever the\nprestige of the British ruling caste. They rushed off an\nexpedition to Gallipoli, and somebody forgot the water-supply,\nand at one time they had ninety-five thousand cases of dysentery!\n\nThey always \"muddle through\", they tell you; that is the motto of\ntheir ruling caste. But this time they did not \"muddle\nthrough\"--they had to come to America for help. As I write, our\nCongress is voting billions and tens of billions of dollars, and\na million of the best of our young manhood are being taken from\ntheir homes--because in 1910 the mind of England was occupied\nwith Dean Goode \"On Eucharist\", and the ten volumes of Gibson's\n\"Preservative\".\n\n\nThe Elders\n\nWhat the Church means in human affairs is the rule of the aged.\nIt means old men in the seats of authority, not merely in the\nchurch, but in the law-courts and in Parliament, even in the army\nand navy. For a test I look up the list of bishops of the Church\nof England in Whitaker's Almanac; it appears that there are 40 of\nthese functionaries, including the archbishops, but not the\nsuffragans; and that the total salary paid to them amounts to\nmore than nine hundred thousand dollars a year. This, it should\nbe understood, does not include the pay of their assistants, nor\nthe cost of maintaining their religious establishments; it does\nnot include any private incomes which they or their wives may\npossess, as members of the privileged classes of the Empire. I\nlook up their ages in Who's Who, and I find that there is only\none below fifty-three; the oldest of them is ninety-one, while\nthe average age of the goodly company is seventy. There have been\nmen in history who have retained their flexibility of mind, their\nability to adjust themselves to new circumstances at the age of\nseventy, but it will always be found that these men were trained\nin science and practical affairs, never in dead languages and\ntheology. One of the oldest of the English prelates, the\nArchbishop of Canterbury, recently stated to a newspaper reporter\nthat he worked seventeen hours a day, and had no time to form an\nopinion on the labor question.\n\nAnd now--here is the crux of the argument--do these aged\ngentlemen rule of their own power? They do not! They do literally\nnothing of their own power; they could not make their own\nepiscopal robes, they could not even cook their own episcopal\ndinners. They have to be maintained in all their comings and\ngoings. Who supports them, and to what end?\n\nThe roots of the English Church are in the English land system,\nwhich is one of the infamies of the modern world. It dates from\nthe days of William the Norman, who took possession of Britain\nwith his sword, and in order to keep possession for himself and\nhis heirs, distributed the land among his nobles and prelates. In\nthose days, you understand, a high ecclesiastic was a man of war,\nwho did not stoop to veil his predatory nature under pretense of\nphilanthropy; the abbots and archbishops, of William wore armor\nand had their troops of knights like the barons and the dukes.\nWilliam gave them vast tracts, and at the same time he gave them\norders which they obeyed. Says the English chronicler, \"Stark he\nwas. Bishops he stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their\nabbacies\". Green tells us that \"the dependencie of the church on\nthe royal power was strictly enforced. Homage was exacted from\nbishop as from baron.\" And what was this homage? The bishop knelt\nbefore William, bareheaded and without arms, and swore: \"Hear my\nlord, I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly\nregard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and\ndeath, God help me.\"\n\nThe lands which the church got from William the Norman, she has\nheld, and always on the same condition--that she shall be \"liege\nman for life and limb and earthly regard\". In this you have the\nwhole story of the church of England, in the twentieth century as\nin the eleventh. The balance of power has shifted from time to\ntime; old families have lost the land and new families have\ngotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the church have been\nheld by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by a mass\nof metal. Some two hundred and fifty years ago a popular song\ngave the general impression--\n\n For this is law that I'll maintain\n      Until my dying day, sir:\n  That whatsoever king shall reign\n      I'll still be vicar of Bray, sir!\n\nSo, wherever you take the Anglican clergy, they are Tories and\nRoyalists, conservatives and reactionaries, friends of every\ninjustice that profits the owning class. And always among\nthemselves you find them intriguing and squabbling over the\ndividing of the spoils; always you find them enjoying leisure and\nease, while the people suffer and the rebels complain. One can\npass down the corridor of English history and prove this\nstatement by the words of Englishmen from every single\ngeneration. Take the fourteenth century; the \"Good Parliament\"\ndeclares that\n\nUnworthy and unlearned caitiffs are appointed to benefices of a\nthousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one of\ntwenty. God gave the sheep to be pastured, not to be shaven and\nshorn.\n\nAnd a little later comes the poet of the people, Piers Plowman--\n\n But now is Religion a rider, a roamer through the streets,  A\nleader at the love-day, a buyer of the land,  Pricking on a\npalfrey from manor to manor,  A heap of hounds at his back, as\ntho he were a lord;  And if his servant kneel not when he brings\nhis cup,  He loureth on him asking who taught him courtesy.\nBadly have lords done to give their heirs' lands  Away to the\nOrders that have no pity;  Money rains upon their altars.  There\nwhere such parsons be living at ease  They have no pity on the\npoor; that is their \"charity\".  Ye hold you as lords; your lands\nare too broad,  But there shall come a king and he shall shrive\nyou all  And beat you as the bible saith for breaking of your\nRule.\n\nAnother step through history, and in the early part of the\nsixteenth century here is Simon Fish, addressing King Henry the\nEighth, in the \"Supplicacyon for the Beggars\", complaining of the\n\"strong, puissant and counterfeit holy and ydell\" which \"are now\nincreased under your sight, not only into a great nombre, but\nynto a kingdome.\"\n\nThey have begged so importunatly that they have gotten ynto their\nhondes more than a therd part of all youre Realme. The goodliest\nlordshippes, maners, londes, and territories, are theyres.\nBesides this, they have the tenth part of all the come, medowe,\npasture, grasse, wolle, coltes, calves, lambes, pigges, gese and\nchikens. Ye, and they looke so narowly uppon theyre proufittes,\nthat the poore wyves must be countable to thym of every tenth eg,\nor elles she gettith not her rytes at ester, shal be taken as an\nheretike. . . . Is it any merveille that youre people so\ncompleine of povertie? The Turke nowe, in your tyme, shulde never\nbe abill to get so moche grounde of christendome . . . And whate\ndo al these gredy sort of sturdy, idell, holy theves? These be\nthey that have made an hundredth thousand idell hores in your\nrealme. These be they that catche the pokkes of one woman, and\nhere them to an other.\n\nThe petitioner goes on to tell how they steal wives and all their\ngoods with them, and if any man protest they make him a heretic,\n\"so that it maketh him wisshe that he had not done it\". Also they\ntake fortunes for masses and then don't say them. \"If the Abbot\nof westminster shulde sing every day as many masses for his\nfounders as he is bounde to do by his foundacion, 1000 monkes\nwere too few.\" The petitioner suggests that the king shall \"tie\nthese holy idell theves to the cartes, to be whipped naked about\nevery market towne till they will fall to laboure!\"\n\n\nChurch History\n\nKing Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took\naway the property of the religious orders for the expenses of his\nmany wives and mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to\nforswear obedience to the Pope and make his royal self their\nspiritual head. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church, as\ndistinguished from the Catholic; a beginning of which the\nAnglican clergy are not so proud as they would like to be. When I\nwas a boy, they taught me what they called \"church history\", and\nwhen they came to Henry the Eighth they used him as an\nillustration of the fact that the Lord is sometimes wont to\nchoose evil men to carry out His righteous purposes. They did not\nexplain why the Lord should do this confusing thing, nor just how\nyou were to know, when you saw something being done by a\nmurderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord or of\nSatan; nor did they go into details as to the motives which the\nLord had been at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal\nagent to found the Anglican Church. For such details you have to\nconsult another set of authorities--the victims of the\nplundering.\n\nWhen I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with\nbushy brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often\nthe object--for even in those early days I had the habit of\npersisting in embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout\nCatholic, and not even in dealing with ancient Romans could he\nrestrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in life he became\neditor of the \"Catholic Encyclopedia\", and now when I turn its\npages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear\nthe thundering voice: \"Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you\nit is so!\"\n\nI investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King\nHenry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of\nEngland; he is ready with an \"economic interpretation\", as\ncomplete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears\nthat the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope\nshould grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat\nthe Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the\nwithdrawal of the \"annates\" and the \"Peter's pence\". Later on he\nforced the clergy to declare that the Pope was \"only a foreign\nbishop\", and in order to \"stamp out overt expression of\ndisaffection, he embarked upon a veritable reign of terror\".\n\nIn Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work\nof religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure\nvehicle of God's grace. There were no more \"holy idell theves\",\nholding the land of England and plundering the poor. But get to\nknow the clergy, and see things from the inside, and you will\nmeet some one like the Archbishop of Cashell, who wrote to one of\nhis intimates:\n\nI conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat,\ndrink and grow fat, rich and die; which laudable example I\npropose for the remainder of my days to follow.\n\nIf you say that might be a casual jest, hear what Thackeray\nreports of that period, the eighteenth century, which he knew\nwith peculiar intimacy:\n\nI read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's\nfavorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5000 pounds. (She\nbetted him the 5000 pounds that he would not be made a bishop,\nand he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time\nled up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George II's\nSt. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of\nthe ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into\ntheir laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his\nChapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing.\nDiscoursing about what?--About righteousness and judgment? Whilst\nthe chaplain is preaching, the king is chattering in German and\nalmost as loud as the preacher; so loud that the clergyman\nactually burst out crying in his pulpit, because the defender of\nthe faith and the dispenser of bishoprics would not listen to\nhim!\n\n\nLand and Livings\n\nAnd how is it in the twentieth century? Have conditions been much\nimproved? There are great Englishmen who do not think so. I quote\nRobert Buchanan, a poet who spoke for the people, and who\ntherefore has still to be recognized by English critics. He\nwrites of the \"New Rome\", by which he means present-day England:\n\n  The gods are dead, but in their name\n  Humanity is sold to shame,\n  While (then as now!) the tinsel'd priest\n  Sitteth with robbers at the feast,\n  Blesses the laden, blood-stained board,\n  Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword,\n  And poureth freely (now as then)\n  The sacramental blood of Men!\n\nYou see, the land system of England remains--the changes having\nbeen for the worse. William the Conqueror wanted to keep the\nSaxon peasantry contented, so he left them their \"commons\"; but\nin the eighteenth century these were nearly all filched away. We\nsaw the same thing done within the last generation in Mexico, and\nfrom the same motive--because developing capitalism needs cheap\nlabor, whereas people who have access to the land will not slave\nin mills and mines. In England, from the time of Queen Anne to\nthat of William and Mary, the parliaments of the landlords passed\nsome four thousand separate acts, whereby more than seven million\nacres of the common land were stolen from the people. It has been\ncalculated that these acres might have supported a million\nfamilies; and ever since then England has had to feed a million\npaupers all the time.\n\nAs an old song puts the matter:\n\n  Why prosecute the man or woman\n  Who steals a goose from off the common,\n  And let the greater felon loose\n  Who steals the common from the goose?\n\nIn our day the land aristocracy is rooted like the native oak in\nBritish soil: some of them direct descendants of the Normans,\nothers children of the court favorites and panders who grew rich\nin the days of the Tudors and the unspeakable Stuarts. Seven men\nown practically all the land of the city and county of London,\nand collect tribute from seven millions of people. The estates\nare entailed--that is, handed down from father to oldest son\nautomatically; you cannot buy any land, but if you want to build,\nthe landlord gives you a lease, and when the lease is up, he\ntakes possession of your buildings. The tribute which London pays\nis more than a hundred million dollars a year. So absolute is the\nright of the land-owner that he can sue for trespass the driver\non an aeroplane which flies over him; he imposes on fishermen a\ntax upon catches made many hundred of yards from the shore.\n\nAnd in this graft, of course, the church has its share. Each\nchurch owns land--not merely that upon which it stands, but farms\nand city lots from which it derives income. Each cathedral owns\nlarge tracts; so do the schools and universities in which the\nclergy are educated. The income from the holdings of a church\nconstitutes what is called a \"living\"; these livings, which vary\nin size, are the prerogatives of the younger sons of the ruling\nfamilies, and are intrigued and scrambled for in exactly the\nfashion which Thackeray describes in the eighteenth century.\n\nAbout six thousand of these \"livings\" are in the gift of great\nland owners; one noble lord alone disposes of fifty-six such\nplums; and needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen\nwho favor radical land-taxes. He gives them to men like\nhimself--autocratic to the poor, easy-going to members of his own\nclass, and cynical concerning the grafts of grace.\n\nIn one English village which I visited the living was worth seven\nhundred pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent\nhad a large family, he lived there. In another place the living\nwas worth a thousand pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate,\nhimself appearing twice a year, on Christmas day and on the\nKing's birthday, to preach a sermon; the rest of the time he\nspent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was\nproposed compelling absentee pluralists--that is, clergymen\nholding more than one \"living\"--to furnish curates to do their\nwork; it might be interesting to note that this law met with\nstrenuous clerical opposition, the house of Bishops voting\nagainst it without a division. Thus we may understand the sharp\nsaying of Karl Marx, that the English clergy would rather part\nwith thirty-eight of their thirty-nine articles than with one\nthirty-ninth of their income.\n\nThere is always a plentiful supply of curates in England. They\nare the sons of the less influential ruling families, and of the\nclergy; they have been trained at Oxford or Cambridge, and\npossess the one essential qualification, that they are gentlemen.\nTheir average price is two hundred and fifty pounds a year; their\nfunction was made clear to me when I attended my first English\ntea-party. There was a wicker table, perhaps a foot and a half\nsquare, having three shelves, one below the other the top layer\nthe plates and napkins, on the next the muffins, and on the\nlowest the cake. Said the hostess, \"Will you pass the curate,\nplease?\" I looked puzzled, and she pointed. \"We call that the\ncurate, because it does the work of a curate.\"\n\n\nGraft in Tail\n\nAs one of America's head muck-rakers, I found that I was popular\nwith the British ruling classes; they found my books useful in\ntheir campaigns against democracy, and they were surprised and\ndisconcerted when they found I did not agree with their\ninterpretation of my writings. I had told of corruption in\nAmerican politics; surely I must know that in England they had no\nsuch evils! I explained that they did not have to; their graft,\nto use their own legal phrase, was \"in tail\"; the grafters had,\nas a matter of divine right, the things which in America they had\nto buy. In America, for instance, we had a Senate, a\n\"Millionaire's Club\", for admission to which the members paid in\ncash; but in England the same men came to the same position as\ntheir birth-right. Political corruption is not an end in itself,\nit is merely a means to exploitation; and of exploitation England\nhas even more than America. When I explained this, my popularity\nwith the British ruling classes vanished quickly.\n\nAs a matter of fact, England is more like America than she\nrealizes; her British reticence has kept her ignorant about\nherself. I could not carry on my business in England, because of\nthe libel laws, which have as their first principle \"the greater\nthe truth, the greater the libel\". Englishmen read with\nsatisfaction what I write about America; but if I should turn my\nattention to their own country, they would send me to jail as\nthey sent Frank Harris. The fact is that the new men in England,\nthe lords of coal and iron and shipping and beer, have bought\ntheir way into the landed aristocracy for cash, just as our\nAmerican senators have done; they have bought the political\nparties with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; they have\ntaken over the press, whether by outright purchase like\nNorthcliffe, or by advertising subsidy--both of which methods we\nAmericans know. Within the last decade or two another group has\nbeen coming into control; and not merely is this the same class\nof men as in America, it frequently consists of the same\nindividuals. These are the big money-lenders, the international\nfinanciers who are the fine and final flower of the capitalist\nsystem. These gentlemen make the world their home--or, as\nShakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit\nthemselves to all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and\nVienna, country gentlemen in London, bons vivants in Paris,\ndemocrats in Chicago, Socialists in Petrograd, and Hebrews\nwherever they are.\n\nAnd of course, in buying the English government, these new\nclasses have bought the English Church. Skeptics and men of the\nworld as they are, they know that they must have a Religion. They\nhave read the story of the French revolution, and the shadow of\nthe guillotine is always over their thoughts; they see the giant\nof labor, restless in his torment, groping as in a nightmare for\nthe throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this giant,\nwho can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one\nagent, without rival--the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy\nof the Almighty Awfulness, the Giver and Withholder of Eternal\nLife. Tremble, slave! Fall down and bow your forehead in the\ndust! I can see in my memory the sight that thrilled my\nchildhood--my grim old Bishop, clad in his gorgeous ceremonial\nrobes, stretching out his hands over the head of the new priest,\nand pronouncing that most deadly of all the Christian curses:\n\n\"Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins\nthou dost retain, they are retained!\"\n\n\nBishops and Beer\n\nFor example, the International Shylocks wanted the diamond mines\nof South Africa--wanted them more firmly governed and less firmly\ntaxed than could be arranged with the Old Man of the Boers. So\nthe armies of England were sent to subjugate the country. You\nmight think they would have had the good taste to leave the lowly\nJesus out of this affair--but if so, you have missed the\nessential point about established religion. The bishops, priests,\nand deacons are set up for the populace to revere, and when the\nrobber-classes need a blessing upon some enterprise, then is the\nopportunity for the bishops, priests and deacons to earn their\n\"living.\" During the Boer war the blood-lust of the English\nclergy was so extreme that writers in the dignified monthly\nreviews felt moved to protest against it. When the pastors of\nSwitzerland issued a collective protest against cruelties to\nwomen and children in the South African concentration-camps, it\nwas the Right Reverend Bishop of Winchester who was brought\nforward to make reply. Nowadays all England is reading Bernhardi,\nand shuddering at Prussian glorification of war; but no one\nmentions Bishop Welldon of Calcutta, who advocated the Boer war\nas a means of keeping the nation \"virile\"; nor Archbishop\nAlexander, who said that it was God's way of making \"noble\nnatures\".\n\nThe British God had other ways of improving nations--for example,\nthe opium traffic. The British traders had been raising the poppy\nin India and selling its juice to the Chinese. They had made\nperhaps a hundred million \"noble natures\" by this method; and\nalso they were making a hundred million dollars a year. The\nChinese, moved by their new \"virility,\" undertook to destroy some\nopium, and to stop the traffic; whereupon it was necessary to use\nBritish battle-ships to punish and subdue them. Was there any\ndifficulty in persuading the established church of Jesus to bless\nthis holy war? There was not! Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most\ndevout of Anglicans, commented with horror upon the attitude of\nthe clergy, and wrote in his diary:\n\nI rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated.\nWe have triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and\nunfair struggles in the records of history; and Christians have\nshed more heathen blood in two years, than the heathens have shed\nof Christian blood in two centuries.\n\nThat was in 1843; for seventy years thereafter pious England\ncontinued to force the opium traffic upon protesting China, and\nonly in the last two or three years has the infamy been brought\nto an end. Throughout the long controversy the attitude of the\nchurch was such that Li Hung Chang was moved to assert in a\nletter to the Anti-Opium Society:\n\nOpium is a subject in the discussion of which England and China\ncan never meet on a common ground. China views the whole question\nfrom a moral standpoint, England from a fiscal.\n\nAnd just as the Chinese people were poisoned with opium, so the\nEnglish people are being poisoned with alcohol. Both in town and\ncountry, labor is sodden with it. Scientists and reformers are\nclamoring for restriction--and what prevents? Head and front of\nthe opposition for a century, standing like a rock, has been the\nEstablished Church. The Rev. Dawson Burns, historian of the early\ntemperance movement, declares that \"among its supporters I cannot\nrecall one Church of England minister of influence.\" When Asquith\nbrought in his bill for the restriction of the traffic in beer,\nhe was confronted with petitions signed by members of the clergy,\nprotesting against the act. And what was the basis of their\nprotest? That beer is a food and not a poison? Yes, of course;\nbut also that there was property invested in brewing it, Three\nhundred and thirty-two clergy of the diocese of Peterborough\ndeclared:\n\nWe do strongly protest against the main provisions of the present\nbill as creating amongst our people a sense of grave injustice as\namounting to a confiscation of private property, spelling ruin\nfor thousands of quite innocent people, and provoking deep and\nwidespread resentment, which must do harm to our cause and hinder\nour aims.\n\nI have come upon references to another and even more plainspoken\npetition, signed by 1,280 clergymen; but war-time facilities for\nresearch have not enabled me to find the text. In Prof. Henry C.\nVedder's \"Jesus Christ and the Social Question,\" we read:\n\nIt was authoritatively stated a short time ago that Mr. Asquith's\ntemperance bill was defeated in Parliament through the opposition\nof clergymen who had invested their savings in brewery stock, the\nprofits of which might have been lessened by the bill.\n\nAlso the power of the clergy, combined with the brewer, was\nsufficient to put through Parliament a provision that no\nprohibition legislation should ever be passed without providing\nfor compensation to the owners of the industry. Today, all over\nAmerica, appeals are being made to the people to eat less grain;\nthe grain is being shipped to England, some of it to be made into\nbeer; and a high Anglican prelate, his Grace the Archbishop of\nYork, comes to America to urge us to increased sacrifices, and in\nhis first newspaper interview takes occasion to declare that his\nchurch is not in favor of prohibition as a measure of war-time\neconomy!\n\n\nAnglicanism and Alcohol\n\nThis partnership of Bishops and Beer is painfully familiar to\nBritish radicals; they see it at work in every election--the\npublican confusing the voters with spirits, while the parson\nconfuses them with spirituality. There are two powerful societies\nin England employing this deadly combination--the \"Anti-Socialist\nUnion\" and the \"Liberty and Property Defense League.\" If you scan\nthe lists of the organizers, directors and subsidizers of these\nsatanic institutions, you find Tory politicians and landlords,\nprominent members of the higher clergy, and large-scale dealers\nin drunkenness. I attended in London a meeting called by the\n\"Liberty and Property Defense League,\" to listen to a\ndenunciation of Socialism by W. H. Mallock, a master sophist of\nRoman Catholicism; upon the platform were a bishop and half a\ndozen members of the Anglican clergy, together with the secretary\nof the Federated Brewers' Association, the Secretary of the Wine,\nSpirit, and Beer Trade Association, and three or four other\nalcoholic magnates.\n\nIn every public library in England and many in America you will\nfind an assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations,\nand scholarly volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock\nmisrepresentations of Socialism are perpetuated. Some of these\nwritings are brutal--setting forth the ethics of exploitation in\nthe manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, the English clergyman who\nsupplied for capitalist depredation a basis in pretended natural\nscience. Said this shepherd of Jesus:\n\nA man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot\nget subsistence from his parents, and if society does not want\nhis labor, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food,\nand in fact has no business to be where he is. At Nature's mighty\nfeast there is no cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and\nwill quickly execute her own orders.\n\nSuch was the tone of the ruling classes in the nineteenth\ncentury; but it was found that for some reason this failed to\nstop the growth of Socialism, and so in our time the clerical\ndefenders of Privilege have grown subtle and insinuating. They\ninform us now that they have a deep sympathy with our fundamental\npurposes; they burn with pity for the poor, and they would really\nand truly wish happiness to everyone, not merely in Heaven, but\nright here and now. However, there are so many complications--and\nso they proceed to set out all the anti-Socialist bug-a-boos.\nHere for example, is the Rev. James Stalker, D. D., expounding\n\"The Ethics of Jesus,\" and admonishing us extremists:\n\nEfforts to transfer money and property from one set of hands to\nanother may be inspired by the same passions as have blinded the\npresent holders to their own highest good, and may be accompanied\nwith injustice as extreme as has ever been manifested by the rich\nand powerful.\n\nAnd again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D. D., an especially popular\nclerical author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on\nwage-slavery:\n\nThe world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run through\nthem, of which this is one. Where God has been so patient, it is\nnot for us to be impatient.\n\nAnd again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a\nclergyman, author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing\nus back to the faith of our fathers:\n\nThe great bulk of human misery is due, not to social\narrangements, but to personal vices.\n\nI study Professor Flint's volume in the effort to find just what,\nif anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our\ntime. I find him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of\nDurham, as being the proper sort for clergymen to preach. Bishop\nWestcott, whether he is talking to a high society congregation,\nor to one of workingmen, shows \"an exquisite sense of knowing\nalways where to stop.\" So I consulted the Bishop's volume, \"The\nSocial Aspects of Christianity\" and I see at once why he is\npopular with the anti-Socialist propagandists--neither I or any\nother man can possibly discover what he really means, or what he\nreally wants done.\n\nI was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I\nkept on the good Bishop's trail, I might in the end find\nsomething a plain man could understand; so I got the beautiful\ntwo-volume \"Life of Brooke Westcott, by his Son\"--and there I\nfound an exposition of the social purposes of bishops! In the\nyear 1892 there was a strike in Durham, which is in the coal\ncountry; the employers tried to make a cut in wages, and some ten\nthousand men walked out, and there was a long and bitter\nstruggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was much\nconsultation and correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at\nlast the masters and men were got together, with the Bishop as\narbitrator, and the dispute was triumphantly settled--how do you\nsuppose? On the basis of a ten per cent reduction in wages!\n\nI know nothing quainter in the history of English graft than the\nnaivete with which the Bishop's biographer and son tells the\nstory of this episcopal venture into reality. The prelate came\nout from the conference \"all smiles, and well satisfied with the\nresult of his day's work.\" As for his followers, they were in\necstacies; they \"seized and waltzed one another around on the\ncarriage drive as madly as ever we danced at a flower show ball.\nHats and caps are thrown into the air, and we cheer ourselves\nhoarse.\" The Bishop proceeds to his palace, and sends one more\ncommunication on episcopal stationery--an order to all his clergy\nto \"offer their humble and hearty thanks to God for our happy\ndeliverance from the strife by which the diocese has been long\nafflicted.\" Strange to say, there were a few varlets in Durham\nwho did not appreciate the services of the bold Bishop, and one\nof them wrote and circulated some abusive verses, in which he\nmade reference to the Bishop's comfortable way of life. The\nbiographer then explains that the Bishop was so tender-hearted\nthat he suffered for the horses who drew his episcopal coach, and\nso ascetic that he would have lived on tea and toast if he had\nbeen permitted to. A curious condition in English society, where\nthe Bishop would have lived on tea and toast, but was not\npermitted to; while the working people, who didn't want to live\non tea and toast, were compelled to!\n\n\nDead Cats\n\nFor more than a hundred years the Anglican clergy have been\nfighting with every resource at their command the liberal and\nenlightened men of England who wished to educate the masses of\nthe people. In 1807 the first measure for a national\nschool-system was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury as\n\"derogatory to the authority of the Church.\" As a counter-\nmeasure, his supporters established the \"National Society for\nPromoting the Education of the Poor in the Doctrines of the\nEstablished Church\"; and the founder of the organization, a\nclergyman, advocated a barn as a good structure for a school, and\ninsisted that the children of the workers \"should not be taught\nbeyond their station.\" In 1840 a Committee of the Privy Council\nof Education was appointed, but bowed to the will of the\nArchbishops, setting forth the decree of \"their lordships\" that\n\"the first purpose of all instruction must be the regulation of\nthe thoughts and habits of the children by the doctrine and\nprecepts of revealed religion.\" In 1850 a bill for secular\neducation was denounced as presenting to the country \"a choice\nbetween Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil.\" In 1870, Forster,\nauthor of the still unpassed bill, wrote that while the parsons\nwere disputing, the children of the poor were \"growing into\nsavages.\"\n\nAs with Education, so with Social Reform. During the struggle to\nabolish slavery in the British colonies, some enthusiasts\nendeavored to establish the doctrine that Christian baptism\nconferred emancipation upon negroes who accepted it; whereupon\nthe Bishop of London laid down the formula of exploitation:\n\"Christianity and the embracing of the gospel do not make the\nleast alteration of civil property.\"\n\nGladstone, who was a democrat when he was not religious, spoke of\nthe cultured classes of England:\n\nIn almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest political\ncontroversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the\nfranchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected\nreligion, whether they affected the bad and abominable\ninstitution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these\nleisured classes, these educated classes, these titled classes\nhave been in the wrong.\n\nThe \"Great Commoner\" did not add \"these religious classes,\" for\nhe belonged to the religious classes himself; but a study of the\nrecord will supply the gap. The Church opposed all the reform\nmeasures which Gladstone himself put through. It opposed the\nReform Bill of 1832. It opposed all the social reforms of Lord\nShaftesbury. This noble-hearted Englishman complained that at\nfirst only a single minister of religion supported him, and to\nthe end only a few. He expressed himself as distressed and\npuzzled \"to find support from infidels and non-professors;\nopposition or coldness from religionists or declaimers.\"\n\nAnd to our own day it has been the same. In 1894 the House of\nBishops voted solidly against the Employers' Liability Law. The\nHouse of Bishops opposed Home Rule, and beat it; the House of\nBishops opposed Womans' Suffrage, and voted against it to the\nend. Concerning this establishment Lord Shaftesbury, himself the\nmost devout of Englishmen, used the vivid phrase: \"this vast\naquarium full of cold-blooded life.\" He told the Bishops that he\nwould give up preaching to them about ecclesiastical reform,\nbecause he knew that they would never begin. Another member of\nthe British aristocracy, the Hon. Geo. Russell, has written of\ntheir record and adventures:\n\nThey were defenders of absolutism, slavery, and the bloody penal\ncode; they were the resolute opponents of every political or\nsocial reform; and they had their reward from the nation outside\nParliament. The Bishop of Bristol had his palace sacked and\nburnt; the Bishop of London could not keep an engagement to\npreach lest the congregation should stone him. The Bishop of\nLitchfield barely escaped with his life after preaching at St.\nBride's, Fleet Street. Archbishop Howley, entering Canterbury for\nhis primary visitation, was insulted, spat upon, and only brought\nby a circuitous route to the Deanery, amid the execrations of the\nmob. On the 5th of November the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester\nwere burnt in effigy close to their own palace gates. Archbishop\nHowley's chaplain complained that a dead cat had been thrown at\nhim, when the Archbishop--a man of apostolic meekness--replied:\n\"You should be thankful that it was not a live one.\"\n\nThe people had reason for this conduct--as you will always find\nthey have, if you take the trouble to inquire. Let me quote\nanother member of the English ruling classes, Mr. Conrad Noel,\nwho gives \"an instance of the procedure of Church and State about\nthis period\":\n\nIn 1832 six agricultural labourers in South Dorsetshire, led by\none of their class, George Loveless, in receipt of 9s. a week\neach, demanded the 10s. rate of wages usual in the neighbourhood.\nThe result was a reduction to 8s. An appeal was made to the\nchairman of the local bench, who decided that they must work for\nwhatever their masters chose to pay them. The parson, who had at\nfirst promised his help, now turned against them, and the masters\npromptly reduced the wage to 7s., with a threat of further\nreduction. Loveless then formed an agricultural union, for which\nall seven were arrested, treated as convicts, and committed to\nthe assizes. The prison chaplain tried to bully them into\nsubmission. The judge determined to convict them, and directed\nthat they should be tried for mutiny under an act of George III,\nspecially passed to deal with the naval mutiny at the Nore. The\ngrand jury were landowners, and the petty jury were farmers; both\njudge and jury were churchmen of the prevailing type. The judge\nsummed up as follows: \"Not for anything that you have done, or\nthat I can prove that you intend to do, but for an example to\nothers I consider it my duty to pass the sentence of seven years'\npenal transportation across His Majesty's high seas upon each and\nevery one of you.\"\n\n\nSuffer Little Children\n\nThe founder of Christianity was a man who specialized in\nchildren. He was not afraid of having His discourses disturbed by\nthem, He did not consider them superfluous. \"Of such is the\nKingdom of Heaven\", He said; and His Church is the inheritor of\nthis tradition--\"feed my lambs\". There were children in Great\nBritain in the early part of the nineteenth century, and we may\nsee what was done with them by turning to Gibbin's \"Industrial\nHistory of England\":\n\nSometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the\nmanufacturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory\ndistrict, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar,\ntill they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands,\nwho would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily\ncapacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American\nmarkets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of\ntheir owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere\nslaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to\nfeed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their\nplaces could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the\nparish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one\nidiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane\nchildren. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than\nthat of the others. The secret of their final end has never been\ndisclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings\nfrom the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and\ncruelty. The hours of their labor were only limited by\nexhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavailingly\napplied to force continued work. Children were often worked\nsixteen hours a day, by day and by night.\n\nIn the year 1819 an act of Parliament was proposed limiting the\nlabor of children nine years of age to four-teen hours a day.\nThis would seem to have been a reasonable provision, likely to\nhave won the approval of Christ; yet the bill was violently\nopposed by Christian employers, backed by Christian clergymen. It\nwas interfering with freedom of contract, and therefore with the\nwill of Providence; it was anathema to an established Church,\nwhose function was in 1819, as it is in 1918, and was in 1918 B.\nC., to teach the divine origin and sanction of the prevailing\neconomic order. \"Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted\nprince, worshipper of the gods\".... so begins the oldest legal\ncode which has come down to us, from 2250 B. C.; and the\ncoronation service of the English church is made whole out of the\nsame thesis. The duty of submission, not merely to divinely\nchosen King, but to divinely chosen Landlord and divinely chosen\nManufacturer, is implicit in the church's every ceremony, and\nexplicit in many of its creeds. In the Litany the people petition\nfor increase of grace to hear meekly \"Thy Word\"; and here is this\n\"Word,\" as little children are made to learn it by heart. If\nthere exists in the world a more perfect summary of slave ethics,\nI do not know where to find it.\n\nMy duty towards my neighbour is.....\n To honour and obey the King, and all that are put in authority\nunder him;\n To submit myself to all my governours, teachers, spiritual\npastors, and masters:\n To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters ....\n Not to covet nor desire other men's goods;\n But to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do\nmy duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to\ncall me.\n\nA hundred years ago one of the most popular of British writers\nwas Hannah More. She and her sister Martha went to live in the\ncoal-country, to teach this \"catechism\" to the children of the\nstarving miners. The \"Mendip Annals\" is the title of a book in\nwhich they tell of their ten years' labors in a village popularly\nknown as \"Little Hell.\" In this place two hundred people were\ncrowded into nineteen houses. \"There is not one creature in it\nthat can give a cup of broth if it would save a life.\" In one\nwinter eighteen perished of \"a putrid fever\", and the clergyman\n\"could not raise a sixpence to save a life.\"\n\nAnd what did the pious sisters make of all this? From cover to\ncover you find in the \"Mendip Annals\" no single word of social\nprotest, not even of social suspicion. That wages of a shilling a\nday might have anything to do with moral degeneration was a\nproposition beyond the mental powers of England's most popular\nwoman writer. She was perfectly content that a woman should be\nsentenced to death for stealing butter from a dealer who had\nasked what the woman thought too high a price. When there came a\nfamine, and the children of these mine-slaves were dying like\nflies, Hannah More bade them be happy because God had sent them\nher pious self. \"In suffering by the scarcity, you have but\nshared in the common lot, with the pleasure of knowing the\nadvantage you have had over many villages in your having suffered\nno scarcity of religious instruction.\" And in another place she\nexplained that the famine was caused by God to teach the poor to\nbe grateful to the rich!\n\nLet me remind you that probably that very scarcity has been\npermitted by an all-wise and gracious Providence to unite all\nranks of people together, to show the poor how immediately they\nare dependent upon the rich, and to show both rich and poor that\nthey are all dependent upon Himself. It has also enabled you to\nsee more clearly the advantages you derive from the government\nand constitution of this country--to observe the benefits flowing\nfrom the distinction of rank and fortune, which has enabled the\nhigh to so liberally assist the low.\n\nIt appears that the villagers were entirely convinced by this\npious reasoning; for they assembled one Saturday night and burned\nan effigy of Tom Paine! This proceeding led to a tragic\nconsequence, for one of the \"common people,\" known as Robert,\n\"was overtaken by liquor,\" and was unable to appear at Sunday\nSchool next day. This fall from grace occasioned intense remorse\nin Robert. \"It preyed dreadfully upon his mind for many months,\"\nrecords Martha More, \"and despair seemed at length to take\npossession of him.\" Hannah had some conversation with him, and\nread him some suitable passages from \"The Rise and Progress\". \"At\nlength the Almighty was pleased to shine into his heart and give\nhim comfort.\"\n\nNor should you imagine that this saintly stupidity was in any way\nunique in the Anglican establishment. We read in the letters of\nShelley how his father tormented him with Archdeacon Paley's\n\"Evidences\" as a cure for atheism. This eminent churchman wrote a\nbook, which he himself ranked first among his writings, called\n\"Reasons for Contentment, addressed to the Labouring Classes of\nthe British Public.\" In this book he not merely proved that\nreligion \"smooths all inequalities, because it unfolds a prospect\nwhich makes all earthly distinctions nothing\"; he went so far as\nto prove that, quite apart from religion, the British exploiters\nwere less fortunate than those to whom they paid a shilling a\nday.\n\nSome of the conditions which poverty (if the condition of the\nlabouring part of mankind must be so called) imposes, are not\nhardships, but pleasures. Frugality itself is a pleasure. It is\nan exercise of attention and contrivance, which, whenever it is\nsuccessful, produces satisfaction..... This is lost among\nabundance.\n\nAnd there was William Wilberforce, as sincere a philanthropist as\nAnglicanism ever produced, an ardent supporter of Bible societies\nand foreign missions, a champion of the anti-slavery movement,\nand also of the ruthless \"Combination Laws,\" which denied to\nBritish wage-slaves all chance of bettering their lot.\nWilberforce published a \"Practical View of the System of\nChristianity\", in which he told unblushingly what the Anglican\nestablishment is for. In a chapter which he described as \"the\nbasis of all politics,\" he explained that the purpose of religion\nis to remind the poor:\n\nThat their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand\nof God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties,\nand contentedly to bear its inconveniences; that the objects\nabout which worldly men conflict so eagerly are not worth the\ncontest; that the peace of mind, which Religion offers\nindiscriminately to all ranks, affords more true satisfaction\nthan all the expensive pleasures which are beyond the poor man's\nreach; that in this view the poor have the advantage; that if\ntheir superiors enjoy more abundant comforts, they are also\nexposed to many temptations from which the inferior classes are\nhappily extempted; that, \"having food and raiment, they should be\ntherewith content,\" since their situation in life, with all its\nevils, is better than they have deserved at the hand of God; and\nfinally, that all human distinctions will soon be done away, and\nthe true followers of Christ will all, as children of the same\nFather, be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly\ninheritance. Such are the blessed effects of Christianity on the\ntemporal well-being of political communities.\n\nThe Court Circular\n\nThe Anglican system of submission has been transplanted intact to\nthe soil of America. When King George the Third lost the\nsovereignty of the colonies, the bishops of his divinely inspired\nchurch lost the control of the clergy across the seas; but this\nrevolution was purely one of Church politics--in doctrine and\nritual the \"Protestant Episcopal Church of America\" remained in\nevery way Anglican. The little children of our free republic are\ntaught the same slave-catechism, \"to order myself lowly and\nreverently to all my betters.\" The only difference is that\ninstead of being told \"to honour and obey the King,\" they are\ntold \"to honour and obey the civil authority.\"\n\nIt is the Church of Good Society in England, and it is the same\nin Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,\nCharleston. Just as our ruling classes have provided themselves\nwith imitation English schools and imitation English manners and\nimitation English clothes--so in their Heaven they have provided\nan imitation English monarch. I wonder how many Americans realize\nthe treason to democracy they are committing when they allow\ntheir children to be taught a symbolism and liturgy based upon\nabsolutist ideas. I take up the hymn-book--not the English, but\nthe sturdy, independent, democratic American hymn-book. I have\nnot opened it for twenty years, yet the greater part of its\ncontents is as familiar to me as the syllables of my own name. I\nread:\n\n Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,  Casting down their\ngolden crowns around the glassy sea;  Cherubim and seraphim\nbowing down before Thee,  Which wert, and art, and ever more\nshall be!\n\nOne might quote a hundred other hymns made thus out of royal\nimagery. I turn at random to the part headed \"General,\" and find\nthat there is hardly one hymn in which there is not \"king ... ..\nthrone,\" or some image of homage and flattery. The first hymn\nbegins--\n\n     Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory;\n      To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray.\n\nAnd the second--\n\n     Christ, whose glory fills the skies---\n\nAnd the third--\n\n     Lord of all being, throned afar,\n      Thy glory flames from sun and star.\n\nThere is a court in Heaven above, to which all good Britons look\nup, and about which they read with exactly the same thrills as\nthey read the Court Circular. The two courts have the same\nethical code and the same manners; their Sovereigns are jealous,\ngreedy of attention, self-conscious and profoundly serious,\npunctilious and precise; their existence consisting of an endless\nround of ceremonies, and they being incapable of boredom. No\nmember of the Royal Family can escape this regime even if he\nwishes; and no more can any member of the Holy Family--not even\nthe meek and lowly Jesus, who chose a carpenter's wife for his\nmother, and showed all his earthly days a preference for low\nsociety.\n\nThis unconventional Son lived obscurely; he never carried\nweapons, he could not bear to have so much as a human ear cut off\nin his presence. But see how he figures in the Court Circular:\n\n The Son of God goes forth to war,\n      A kingly crown to gain:\n  His blood-red banner streams afar:\n      Who follows in His train?\n\nThis carpenter's son was one of the most unpretentious men on\nearth; utterly simple and honest--he would not even let anyone\npraise him. When some one called him \"good Master,\" he answered,\nquickly, \"Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one,\nthat is, God.\" But this simplicity has been taken with\ndeprecation by his church, which persists in heaping compliments\nupon him in conventional, courtly style:\n\n The company of angels\n      Are praising Thee on high;\n  And mortal men, and all things\n      Created, make reply:  All Glory, laud and honour,\n      To Thee, Redeemer, King. . . . .\n\nThe impression a modern man gets from all this is the unutterable\nboredom that Heaven must be. Can one imagine a more painful\noccupation than that of the saints--casting down their golden\ncrowns around the glassy sea--unless it be that of the\nTriumvirate itself, compelled to sit through eternity watching\nthese saints, and listening to their mawkish and superfluous\ncompliments!\n\nBut one can understand that such things are necessary in a\nmonarchy; they are necessary if you are going to have Good\nSociety, and a Good Society church. For Good Society is precisely\nthe same thing as Heaven; that is, a place to which only a few\ncan get admission, and those few are bored. They spend their time\ngoing through costly formalities--not because they enjoy it, but\nbecause of its effect upon the populace, which reads about them\nand sees their pictures in the papers, and now and then is\nallowed to catch a glimpse of their physical Presences, as at the\nhorse-show, or the opera, or the coaching-parade.\n\n\nHorn-blowing\n\nI know the Church of Good Society in America, having studied it\nfrom the inside. I was an extraordinarily devout little boy; one\nof my earliest recollections--I cannot have been more than four\nyears of age--is of carrying a dust-brush about the house as the\nchoir-boy carried the golden cross every Sunday morning. I\nremember asking if I might say the \"Lord's prayer\" in this\nfascinating play; and my mother's reply: \"If you say it\nreverently.\" When I was thirteen, I attended service, of my own\nvolition and out of my own enthusiasm, every single day during\nthe forty days of Lent; at the age of fifteen I was teaching\nSunday-school. It was the Church of the Holy Communion, at Sixth\nAvenue and Twentieth Street, New York; and those who know the\ncity will understand that this is a peculiar location--precisely\nhalf way between the homes of some of the oldest and most august\nof the city's aristocracy, and some of the vilest and most filthy\nof the city's slums. The aristocracy were paying for the church,\nand occupied the best pews; they came, perfectly clad, aus dem Ei\ngegossen, as the Germans say, with the manner they so carefully\ncultivate, gracious, yet infinitely aloof. The service was made\nfor them--as all the rest of the world is made for them; the\npopulace was permitted to occupy a fringe of vacant seats.\n\nThe assistant clergyman was an Englishman, and a gentleman;\northodox, yet the warmest man's heart I have ever known. He could\nnot bear to have the church remain entirely the church of the\nrich; he would go persistently into the homes of the poor,\nvisiting the old slum women in their pitifully neat little\nkitchens, and luring their children with entertainments and\nChristmas candy. They were corralled into the Sunday-school,\nwhere it was my duty to give them what they needed for the health\nof their souls.\n\nI taught them out of a book of lessons; and one Sunday it would\nbe Moses in the Bulrushes, and next Sunday it would be Jonah and\nthe Whale, and next Sunday it would be Joshua blowing down the\nwalls of Jericho. These stories were reasonably entertaining, but\nthey seemed to me futile, not to the point. There were little\nmorals tagged to them, but these lacked relationship to the lives\nof little slum-boys. Be good and you will be happy, love the Lord\nand all will be well with you; which was about as true and as\npractical as the procedure of the Fijians, blowing horns to drive\naway a pestilence.\n\nI had a mind, you see, and I was using it. I was reading the\npapers, and watching politics and business. I, followed the fates\nof my little slum-boys--and what I saw was that Tammany Hall was\ngetting them. The liquor-dealers and the brothel-keepers, the\npanders and the pimps, the crap-shooters and the petty\nthieves--all these were paying the policeman and the politician\nfor a chance to prey upon my boys; and when the boys got into\ntrouble, as they were continually doing, it was the clergyman who\nconsoled them in prison--but it was the Tammany leader who saw\nthe judge and got them out. So these boys got their lesson even\nearlier in life than I got mine--that the church was a kind of\namiable fake, a pious horn-blowing; while the real thing was\nTammany.\n\nI talked about this with the vestrymen and the ladies of Good\nSociety; they were deeply pained, but I noticed that they did\nnothing practical about it; and gradually, as I went on to\ninvestigate, I discovered the reason--that their incomes came\nfrom real estate, traction, gas and other interests, which were\ncontributing the main part of the campaign expenses of the\ncorrupt Tammany machine, and of its equally corrupt rival. So it\nappeared that these immaculate ladies and gentlemen, aus dem Ei\ngegossen, were themselves engaged, unconsciously, perhaps, but\nnone the less effectively, in spreading the pestilence against\nwhich they were blowing their religious horns!\n\nSo little by little I saw my beautiful church for what it was and\nis: a great capitalist interest, an integral and essential part\nof a gigantic predatory system. I saw that its ethical and\ncultural and artistic features, however sincerely they might be\nmeant by individual clergymen, were nothing but a bait, a device\nto lure the poor into the trap of submission to their exploiters.\nAnd as I went on probing into the secret life of the great\nMetropolis of Mammon, and laying bare its infamies to the world,\nI saw the attitude of the church to such work; I met, not\nsympathy and understanding, but sneers and denunciation--until\nthe venerable institution which had once seemed dignified and\nnoble became to me as a sepulchre of corruption.\n\n\nTrinity Corporation\n\nThere stands on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street a towering\nbrown-stone edifice, one of the most beautiful and most famous\nchurches in America. As a child I have walked through its church\nyard and read the quaint and touching inscriptions on its\ngravestones; when I was a little older, and knew Wall Street, it\nseemed to me a sublime thing that here in the very heart of the\nworld's infamy there should be raised, like a finger of warning,\nthis symbol of Eternity and Judgment. Its great bell rang at\nnoon-time, and all the traders and their wage-slaves had to\nlisten, whether they would or no! Such was Old Trinity to my\nyoung soul; and what is it in reality?\n\nThe story was told some ten years ago by Charles Edward Russell.\nTrinity Corporation is the name of the concern, and it is one of\nthe great landlords of New York. In the early days it bought a\nnumber of farms, and these it has held, as the city has grown up\naround them, until in 1908 their value was estimated at anywhere\nfrom forty to a hundred million dollars. The true amount has\nnever been made public; to quote Russell's words:\n\nThe real owners of the property are the communicants of the\nchurch. For 94 years none of the owners has known the extent of\nthe property, nor the amount of the revenue therefrom, nor what\nis done with the money. Every attempt to learn even the simplest\nfact about these matters has been baffled. The management is a\nself perpetuating body, without responsibility and without\nsupervision.\n\nAnd the writer goes on to describe the business policy of this\ngreat corporation, which is simply the English land system\ncomplete. It refuses to sell the land, but rents it for long\nperiods, and the tenant builds the house, and then when the lease\nexpires, the Corporation takes over the house for a nominal sum.\nThus it has purchased houses for as low as $200, and made them\ninto tenements, and rented them to the swarming poor for a total\nof fifty dollars a month. The houses were not built for\ntenements, they have no conveniences, they are not fit for the\nhabitation of animals. The article, in Everybody's Magazine for\nJuly, 1908, gives pictures of them, which are horrible beyond\nbelief. To quote the writer again:\n\nDecay, neglect and squalor seem to brood wherever Trinity is an\nowner. Gladly would I give to such a charitable and benevolent\ninstitution all possible credit for a spirit of improvement\nmanifested anywhere, but I can find no such manifestation. I have\ntramped the Eighth Ward day after day with a list of Trinity\nproperties in my hand, and of all the tenement houses that stand\nthere on Trinity land, I have not found one that is not a\ndisgrace to civilization and to the City of New York.\n\nIt happens that I once knew the stately prelate who presided over\nthis Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have\nshivered and turned pale had some angel whispered to him what\ndevilish utterances were some day to proceed from the lips of the\nlittle cherub with shining face and shining robes who acted as\nthe bishop's attendant in the stately ceremonials of the Church!\nTruly, even into the goodly company of the elect, even to the\nmost holy places of the temple, Satan makes his treacherous way!\nEven under the consecrated hands of the bishop! For while the\nbishop was blessing me and taking me into the company of the\nsanctified, I was thinking about what the papers had reported,\nthat the bishop's wife had been robbed of fifty thousand dollars\nworth of jewels! It did not seem quite in accordance with the\ndoctrine of Jesus that a bishop's wife should possess fifty\nthousand dollars worth of jewels, or that she should be setting\nthe blood-hounds of the police on the train of a human being. I\nasked my clergyman friend about it, and remember his patient\nexplanation--that the bishop had to know all classes and\nconditions of men: his wife had to go among the rich as well as\nthe poor, and must be able to dress so that she would not be\nembarrassed. The Bishop at this time was making it his life-work\nto raise a million dollars for the beginning of a great Episcopal\ncathedral; and this of course compelled him to spend much time\namong the rich!\n\nThe explanation satisfied me; for of course I thought there had\nto be cathedrals--despite the fact that both St. Stephen and St.\nPaul had declared that \"the Lord dwelleth not in temples made\nwith hands.\" In the twenty-five years which have passed since\nthat time the good Bishop has passed to his eternal reward, but\nthe mighty structure which is a monument to his visitations among\nthe rich towers over the city from its vantage-point on\nMorningside Heights. It is called the Cathedral of St. John the\nDivine; and knowing what I know about the men who contributed its\nfunds, and about the general functions of the churches of the\nMetropolis of Mammon, it would not seem to me less holy if it\nwere built, like the monuments of ancient ravagers, out of the\nskulls of human beings.\n\n\nSpiritual Interpretation\n\nThere remains to say a few words as to the intellectual functions\nof the Fifth Avenue clergy. Let us realize at the outset that\nthey do their preaching in the name of a proletarian rebel, who\nwas crucified as a common criminal because, as they said, \"He\nstirreth up the people.\" An embarrassing \"Savior\" for the church\nof Good Society, you might imagine; but they manage to fix him up\nand make him respectable.\n\nI remember something analogous in my own boyhood. All day\nSaturday I ran about with the little street rowdies, I stole\npotatoes and roasted them in vacant lots, I threw mud from the\nroofs of apartment-houses; but on Saturday night I went into a\ntub and was lathered and scrubbed, and on Sunday I came forth in\na newly brushed suit, a clean white collar and a shining tie and\na slick derby hat and a pair of tight gloves which made me\nimpotent for mischief. Thus I was taken and paraded up Fifth\nAvenue, doing my part of the duties of Good Society. And all\nchurch-members go through this same performance; the oldest and\nmost venerable of them steal potatoes and throw mud all week\n--and then take a hot bath of repentance and put on the clean\nclothing of piety. In this same way their ministers of religion\nare occupied to scrub and clean and dress up their disreputable\nFounder--to turn him from a proletarian rebel into a\nstained-glass-window divinity.\n\nThe man who really lived, the carpenter's son, they take out and\ncrucify all over again. As a young poet has phrased it, they nail\nhim to a jeweled cross with cruel nails of gold. Come with me to\nthe New Golgotha and witness this crucifixion; take the nails of\ngold in your hands, try the weight of the jeweled sledges! Here\nis a sledge, in the form of a dignified and scholarly volume,\npublished by the exclusive house of Scribner, and written by the\nBishop of my boyhood, the Bishop whose train I carried in the\nstately ceremonials: \"The Citizen in His Relation to the\nIndustrial Situation,\" by the Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter,\nD. D., L. L. D., D. C. L.--a course of lectures delivered before\nthe sons of our predatory classes at Yale University, under the\nendowment of a millionaire mining king, founder of the\nPhelps-Dodge corporation, which the other day carried out the\ndeportation from their homes of a thousand striking miners at\nBisbee, Arizona. Says my Bishop:\n\nChrist did not denounce wealth any more than he denounced\npauperism. He did not abhor money; he used it. He did not abhor\nthe company of rich men; he sought it. He did not invariably\nscorn or even resent a certain profuseness of expenditure.\n\nAnd do you think that the late Bishop of J. P. Morgan and Company\nstands alone as an utterer of scholarly blasphemy, a driver of\ngolden nails? In the course of this book there will march before\nus a long line of the clerical retainers of Privilege, on their\nway to the New Golgotha to crucify the carpenter's son: the\nRector of the Money Trust, the Preacher of the Coal Trust, the\nPriest of the Traction Trust, the Archbishop of Tammany, the\nChaplain of the Millionaires' Club, the Pastor of the\nPennsylvania Railroad, the Religious Editor of the New Haven, the\nSunday-school Superintendent of Standard Oil. We shall try the\nweight of their jewelled sledges--books, sermons,\nnewspaper-interviews, after-dinner speeches--wherewith they pound\ntheir golden nails of sophistry into the bleeding hands and feet\nof the proletarian Christ.\n\nHere, for example, is Rev. F. G. Peabody, Professor of Christian\nMorals at Harvard University. Prof. Peabody has written several\nbooks on the social teachings of Jesus; he quotes the most rabid\nof the carpenter's denunciations of the rich, and says:\n\nIs it possible that so obvious and so limited a message as this,\na teaching so slightly distinguished from the curbstone rhetoric\nof a modern agitator, can be an adequate reproduction of the\nscope and power of the teaching of Jesus?\n\nThe question answers itself: Of course not! For Jesus was a\ngentleman; he is the head of a church attended by gentlemen, of\nuniversities where gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of\nChristian Morals proceeds to make a subtle analysis of Jesus'\nactions; demonstrating therefrom that there are three proper uses\nto be made of great wealth: first, for almsgiving--\"The poor ye\nhave always with you!\"; second, for beauty and culture--buying\nwine for wedding-feasts, and ointment-boxes and other objets de\nvertu; and third, \"stewardship,\" \"trusteeship\"--which in plain\nEnglish is \"Big Business.\"\n\nI have used the illustration of soap and hot water; one can\nimagine he is actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the\nproletarian Founder emerging all new and respectable under the\nbrush of this capitalist professor. The professor has a rule all\nhis own for reading the scriptures; he tells us that when there\nare two conflicting sayings, the rule of interpretation is that\n\"the more spiritual is to be preferred.\" Thus, one gospel makes\nJesus say: \"Blessed are ye poor.\" Another puts it: \"Blessed are\nthe poor in spirit.\" The first one is crude and literal;\nobviously the second must be what Jesus meant! In other words,\nthe professor and his church have made for their economic masters\na treacherous imitation virtue to be taught to wage-slaves, a\nquality of submissiveness, impotence and futility, which they\ncall by the name of \"spirituality\". This virtue they exalt above\nall others, and in its name they cut from the record of Jesus\neverything which has relation to the realities of life!\n\nSo here is our Professor Peabody, sitting in the Plummer chair at\nHarvard, writing on \"Jesus Christ and the Social Question,\" and\nexplaining:\n\nThe fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its radicalism,\nbut in its externalism. It proposes to accomplish by economic\nchange what can be attained by nothing less than spiritual\nregeneration.\n\nAnd here is \"The Churchman,\" organ of the Episcopalians of New\nYork, warning us:\n\nIt is necessary to remember that something more than material and\ntemporal considerations are involved. There are things of more\nimportance to the purposes of God and to the welfare of humanity\nthan economic readjustments and social amelioration.\n\nAnd again:\n\nWithout doubt there is a strong temptation today, bearing upon\nclergy and laity alike, to address their religious energies too\nexclusively to those tasks whereby human life may be made more\nabundant and wholesome materially..... We need constantly to be\nreminded that spiritual things come first.\n\nThere come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen\nfor whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen\nand pillars of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid\ngloves and shiny top-hats; the ladies of Good Society with their\nEaster costumes in pastel shades, their gracious smiles and their\nsweet intoxicating odors. I picture them as I have seen them at\nSt. George's, where that aged wild boar, Pierpont Morgan, the\nelder, used to pass the collection plate; at Holy Trinity, where\nthey drove downtown in old-fashioned carriages with grooms and\nfootmen sitting like twin statues of insolence; at St. Thomas',\nwhere you might see all the \"Four Hundred\" on exhibition at once;\nat St. Mary the Virgin's, where the choir paraded through the\naisles, swinging costly incense into my childish nostrils, the\nstout clergyman walking alone with nose upturned, carrying on his\nback a jewelled robe for which some adoring female had paid sixty\nthousand dollars. \"Spiritual things come first?\" Ah, yes! \"Seek\nfirst the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall be added\nunto you!\" And it is so dreadful about the French and German\nSocialists, who, as the \"Churchman\" reports, \"make a creed out of\nmaterialism.\" But then, what is this I find in one issue of the\norgan of the \"Church of Good Society\"?\n\nBusiness men contribute to the Y. M. C. A. because they realize\nthat if their employes are well cared for and religiously\ninfluenced, they can be of greater service in business!\n\nWho let that material cat out of the spiritual bag?\n\n\n\nBOOK THREE\n\nThe Church of the Servant-girls\n\n Was it for this--that prayers like these\n      Should spend themselves about thy feet,\n  And with hard, overlabored knees\n      Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat\n  Bosoms too lean to suckle sons\n  And fruitless as their orisons?\n\n Was it for this--that men should make\n     Thy name a fetter on men's necks,\n  Poor men made poorer for thy sake,\n      And women withered out of sex?\n  Was it for this--that slaves should be--\nThy word was passed to set men free?\n                          Swinburne.\n\n\nCharity\n\nAs everyone knows, the \"society lady\" is not an independent and\nself-sustaining phenomenon. For every one of these exquisite,\nsweet-smelling creatures that you meet on Fifth Avenue, there\nmust be at home a large number of other women who live sterile\nand empty lives, and devote themselves to cleaning up after their\nluckier sisters. But these \"domestics\" also are human beings;\nthey have emotions--or, in religious parlance, \"souls;\" it is\nnecessary to provide a discipline to keep them from appropriating\nthe property of their mistresses, also to keep them from becoming\nenceinte. So it comes about that there are two cathedrals in New\nYork: one, St. John the Divine, for the society ladies, and the\nother, St. Patrick's, for the servant-girls. The latter is\nlocated on Fifth Avenue, where its towering white spires divide\nwith the homes of the Vanderbilts the interest of the crowds of\nsight-seers. Now, early every Sunday morning, before \"Good\nSociety\" has opened its eyes, you may see the devotees of the\nIrish snake-charmer hurrying to their orisons, each with a little\nblack prayer-book in her hand. What is it they do inside? What\nare they taught about life? This is the question to which we have\nnext to give attention.\n\nSome years ago Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, traction and insurance magnate\nof New York, favored me with his justification of his own career\nand activities. He mentioned his charities, and, speaking as one\nman of the world to another, he said: \"The reason I put them into\nthe hands of Catholics is not religious, but because I find they\nare efficient in such matters. They don't ask questions, they do\nwhat you want them to do, and do it economically.\"\n\nI made no comment; I was absorbed in the implications of the\nremark--like Agassiz when some one gave him a fossil bone, and\nhis mind set to work to reconstruct the creature.\n\nWhen a man is drunk, the Catholics do not ask if it was long\nhours and improper working-conditions which drove him to\ndesperation; they do not ask if police and politicians are\ngetting a rake-off from the saloon, or if traction magnates are\nusing it as an agency for the controlling of votes; they do not\nplunge into prohibition movements or good government\ncampaigns--they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and\nthe patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then\nturn him out for society to make him drunk again. That is\n\"charity,\" and it is the special industry of Roman Catholicism.\nThey have been at it for a thousand years, cleaning up loathsome\nand unsightly messes--\"plague, pestilence and famine, battle and\nmurder and sudden death.\" Yet--puzzling as it would seem to\nanyone not religious--there were never so many messes, never so\nmany different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the thousand\nyears of charitable activity!\n\nBut the Catholics go on and on; like the patient spider, building\nand rebuilding his web across a doorway; like soldiers under the\ncommand of a ruling class with a \"muddling through\" tradition--\n\n Theirs not to reason why,\n  Theirs but to do and die.\n\nAnd so of course all magnates and managers of industry who have\nmesses to be cleaned up, human garbage-heaps to be carted away\nquickly and without fuss, turn to the Catholic Church for this\nservice, no matter what their personal religious beliefs or lack\nof beliefs may be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of every\nsteel-mill, every coal-mine or other place of industrial danger,\nyou will find a Catholic hospital, with its slave-sisters and\nattendants. Once when I was \"muck-raking\" near Pittsburgh, I went\nto one of these places to ask information as to the frequency of\nindustrial accidents and the fate of the victims. The \"Mother\nSuperior\" received me with a look of polite dismay. \"These\nconcerns pay us!\" she said. \"You must see that as a matter of\nbusiness it would not do for us to talk about them.\"\n\nObey and keep silence: that is the Catholic law. And precisely as\nit is with the work of nursing and almsgiving, so it is with the\nwork of vote-getting, the elaborate system of policemen and\nsaloon-keepers and ward-heelers which the Catholic machine\ncontrols. This industry of vote-getting is a comparatively new\none; but the Church has been handling the masses for so many\ncenturies that she quickly learned this new way of \"democracy,\"\nand has established her supremacy over all rivals. She has the\nschools for training the children, the confessional for\ncontrolling the women; she has the intellectual machinery, the\npurgatory and the code of slave-ethics. She has the supreme\nadvantage that the rank and file of her mighty host really\nbelieve what she teaches; they do not have to listen to\ntable-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings\nin order to bolster their hope of the survival of personality\nafter death!\n\nSo it comes about that our captains of industry and finance have\nbeen driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy.\nThe Church is here, and her followers are here, before the war\nseveral hundred thousand of them pouring into the country every\nyear. It is no longer possible to do without Catholics in\nAmerica; not merely do ditches have to be dug, roads graded, coal\nmined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be granted,\ntariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police\ntrained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system,\nfor these purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes\nbelong to people of a score of nationalities--Irish and German\nand Italian and French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and\nPortuguese and Polish and Hungarian. Who but the Catholic Church\ncan handle these polyglot hordes? Who can furnish teachers and\neditors and politicians familiar with all these languages?\n\nConsidering how complex is the service, the price is extremely\nmoderate--the mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of\nred fire and torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper\nadvertisements. The rest may come out of the public till, in the\nform of exemption from taxation of church buildings and lands, a\nshare of the public funds for charities and schools, the control\nof the police for saloon-keepers and district leaders, the\ncontrol of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal\nadministrations and boards of education, of legislatures and\ngovernors; with a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our\nsacred self-esteem, a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court\nBench; and on state occasions, to keep up our necessary prestige,\nsome cabinet-members and legislators and justices to attend High\nMass, and be blessed in public by Catholic prelates and\ndignitaries.\n\nYou think this is empty rhetoric--you comfortable, easy-going,\nultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades,\nabsorbed in \"the passionless pursuit of passionless\nintelligence\"--while the world about you slides down into the\npit! You ladies of Good Society, practicing your \"sweet little\ncharities,\" pursuing your \"dear little ideals,\" raising your\nfamilies of one or two lovely children--while Irish and\nFrench-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are\nbreeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out\nof your country!\n\n\nGod's Armor\n\nYou remember \"Bishop Blougram's Apology,\" Browning's study of the\npsychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware\nof modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants\nto have beauty about him, to be a \"cabin passenger\":\n\n  There's power in me and will to dominate\n  Which I must exercise, they hurt me else;\n  In many ways I need mankind's respect,\n  Obedience, and the love that's born of fear.\n\nHe wishes that he had faith--faith in anything; he understands\nthat faith is all-important--\n\n Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat.\n\nBut you cannot get faith just by wishing for it--\n\n     But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn!\n\nHe tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he\nasks what there would be in it for him--\n\n     State the facts,\n  Read the text right, emancipate the world--\nThe emancipated world enjoys itself\n  With scarce a thank-you.\n Blougram told it first\n  It could not owe a farthing,--not to him\n  More than St. Paul!\n\nSo the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of\nthe contempt of intellectual people.\n\n  I pine among my million imbeciles\n  (You think) aware some dozen men of sense\n  Eye me and know me, whether I believe\n  In the last winking virgin as I vow,\n  And am a fool, or disbelieve in her,\n  And am a knave.\n\nBut, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of\nfaith, that is what\n\n  Gives all the advantage, makes the difference,\n  With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule.\n  We are their lords, or they are free of us,\n  Just as we tighten or relax that hold.\n\nSo he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of\nshepherd to those whom he calls \"King Bomba's lazzaroni,\" and\n\"ragamuffin saints.\"\n\nI wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop\nBlougram is doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints\nhere in this new country of the far West. It is easy to acquire\nthe information, for the saleswoman is polite and the prices fit\nmy purse. America is going to war, and Catholic boys are being\ndrafted to be trained for battle; so for ten cents I obtain a\nfirmly bound little pamphlet called \"God's Armor, a Prayer Book\nfor Soldiers.\" It is marked \"Copyright by the G. R. C.\nCentral-Verein,\" and bears the \"Nihil Obstat\" of the \"Censor\nTheolog.\" and the \"Imprimatur\" of \"Johannes Josephus,\nArchiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici\"--which last you may at first fail\nto recognize as a well-known city on the Mississippi River. Do\nyou not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic of the past\ncreeping over you, as you read those Latin trade-marks? Such is\nthe Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis\nsound mysterious!\n\nIn this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes\nof war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have\nplayed throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not\neven find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the\nresolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule.\nInstead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and\nwho, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body\nand soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with\ncrosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the\ntrenches--how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter\nby the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since\nfirst this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts of\nmen!\n\nI quote from this little book:\n\nStart this day well by lifting up your heart to God. Offer\nyourself to Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin. Make\nthe sign of the cross. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost, behold me in Thy Divine Presence. I adore Thee and give\nThee thanks. Grant that all I do this day be for Thy Glory, and\nfor the salvation of my immortal soul.\n\nDuring the day lift your heart frequently to God. Your prayers\nneed not be long nor read from a book. Learn a few of these short\nejaculations by heart and frequently repeat them. They will serve\nto recall God to your heart and will strengthen you and comfort\nyou.\n\nYou remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the\nThibetans. The Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan,\nand is less progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices\nfor saving labor. You have to use your own vocal apparatus to\nkeep yourself from hell; but the process has been made as\neconomical as possible by kindly dispensations of the Pope. Thus,\neach time that you say \"My God and my all,\" you get fifty days\nindulgence; the same for \"My Jesus, mercy,\" and the same for\n\"Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things.\" For \"Jesus, Mary,\nJoseph,\" you get three hundred days--which would seem by all odds\nthe best investment of your spare breath.\n\nAnd then come prayers for all occasions: \"Prayer before Battle\";\n\"Prayer for a Happy Death\"; \"Prayer in Temptation\"; \"Prayer\nbefore and after Meals\"; \"Prayer when on Guard\"; \"Prayer before a\nlong March\"; \"Prayer of Resignation to Death\"; \"Prayer for Those\nin their Agony\"--I cannot bear to read them, hardly to list them.\nI remember standing in a cathedral \"somewhere in France\" during\nthe celebration of some special Big Magic. There was brilliant\nwhite light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the thunder of a\nhuge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of young\nboys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching\nup, trying to climb over the top of one another. It sent a\nshudder into the depths of my soul. There is nothing left in the\nmodern world which can carry the mind so far back into the\nancient nightmare of anguish and terror which was once the mental\nlife of mankind, as these Roman Catholic incantations with their\nfrantic and ceaseless importunity. They have even brought in the\nsex-spell; and the poor, frightened soldier-boy, who has perhaps\nspent the night with a prostitute, now prostrates himself before\na holy Woman-being who is lifted high above the shames of the\nflesh, and who stirs the thrills of awe and affection which his\nmother brought to him in early childhood. Read over the phrases\nof this \"Litany of the Blessed Virgin\":\n\nHoly Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God. Holy Virgin of\nVirgins. Mother of Christ. Mother of divine grace. Mother most\npure. Mother most chaste. Mother inviolate. Mother undefiled.\nMother most amiable. Mother most admirable. Mother of good\ncounsel. Mother of our Creator. Mother of our Savior. Virgin most\nprudent. Virgin most venerable. Virgin most renowned. Virgin most\npowerful. Virgin most merciful. Virgin most faithful. Mirror of\njustice. Seat of wisdom. Cause of our Joy. Spiritual vessel.\nVessel of honor. Singular vessel of devotion. Mystical rose.\nTower of David. Tower of ivory. House of gold. Ark of the\ncovenant. Gate of heaven. Morning Star. Health of the sick.\nRefuge of sinners. Comforter of the afflicted. Help of\nChristians. Queen of Angels. Queen of Patriarchs. Queen of\nProphets. Queen of Apostles. Queen of Martyrs. Queen of\nConfessors. Queen of Virgins. Queen of all Saints. Queen\nconceived without original sin. Queen of the most holy Rosary.\nQueen of Peace, Pray for us.\n\n\nThanksgivings\n\nFor another five cents--how cheaply a man of insight can obtain\nthrills in this fantastic world!--I purchase a copy of the\n\"Messenger of the Sacred Heart\", a magazine published in New\nYork, the issue for October, 1917. There are pages of\nadvertisements of schools and colleges with strange titles:\n\"Immaculata Seminary\", \"Holy Cross Academy\", \"Holy Ghost\nInstitute\", \"Ladycliff\", \"Academy of Holy Child Jesus\". The\nleading article is by a Jesuit, on \"The Spread of the Apostleship\nof Prayer among the Young\"; and then \"Sister Clarissa\" writes a\npoem telling us \"What are Sorrows\"; and then we are given a story\ncalled \"Prayer for Daddy\"; and then another Jesuit father tells\nus about \"The Hills that Jesus Loved\". A third father tells us\nabout the \"Eucharistic Propaganda\"; and we learn that in July,\n1917, it distributed 11,699 beads, and caused the expenditure of\n57,714 hours of adoration; and then the faithful are given a form\nof letter which they are to write to the Honorable Baker,\nSecretary of War, imploring him to intimate to the French\ngovernment that France should withdraw from one of her advances\nin civilization, and join with mediaeval America in exempting\npriests from being drafted to fight for their country. And then\nthere is a \"Question Box\"--just like the Hearst newspapers, only\ninstead of asking whether she should allow him to kiss her before\nhe has told her that he loves her, the reader asks what is the\nPauline Privilege, and what is the heroic Act, and is Robert a\nsaint's name, and if food remains in the teeth from the night\nbefore, would it break the fast to swallow it before Holy\nCommunion. (No, I am not inventing this.)\n\nI quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how\ndeftly the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly\nprosperity. But the Catholic Church does not show any\nsqueamishness in dealing with its \"million imbeciles\", its\n\"rough, purblind mass\". There is a department of the little\nmagazine entitled \"Thanksgiving\", and a statement at the top that\n\"the total number of Thanksgivings for the month is 2,143,911.\" I\nam suspicious of that, as of German reports of prisoners taken;\nbut I give the statement as it stands, not going through the list\nand picking out the crudest, but taking them as they come,\nclassified by states:\n\nGENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Mass and publication\nwere promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used,\nfor others the prayers of the Associates had been asked.\n\nAlabama--Jewelry found, relief from pain, protection during\nstorm.\n\nAlaska--Safe return, goods found.\n\nArizona--Two recoveries, suitable boarding place, illness\naverted, safe delivery.\n\nBritish Honduras--Successful operation.\n\nCalifornia--Seventeen recoveries, six situations, two successful\nexaminations, house rented, stocks sold, raise in salary, return\nto religious duties, sight regained, medal won, Baptism,\npreservation from disease, contract obtained, success in\nbusiness, hearing restored, Easter duty made, happy death,\nautomobile sold, mind restored, house found, house rented,\nsuccessful journey, business sold, quarrel averted, return of\nfriends, two successful operations.\n\nAnd for all these miraculous performances the Catholic machine is\nharvesting the price day by day--harvesting with that ancient\nfervor which the Latin poet described as \"auri sacra fames\". As\nChristopher Columbus wrote from Jamaica in 1503: \"Gold is a\nwonderful thing. By means of gold we can even get souls into\nParadise.\"\n\n\nThe Holy Roman Empire\n\nThe system thus self-revealed you admit is appalling in its\nsqualor; but you say that at least it is milder and less perilous\nthan the Church which burned Giordano Bruno and John Huss. But\nthe very essence of the Catholic Church is that it does not\nchange; semper eadem is its motto: the same yesterday, today and\nforever--the same in Washington as in Rome or Madrid--the same in\na modern democracy as in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church is\nnot primarily a religious organization; it is a political\norganization, and proclaims the fact, and defies those who would\nshut it up in the religious field, The Rev. S. B. Smith, a\nCatholic doctor of divinity, explains in his \"Elements of\nEcclesiastical Law\":\n\nProtestants contend that the entire power of the Church consists\nin the right to teach and exhort, but not in the right to\ncommand, rule, or govern; whence they infer that she is not a\nperfect society or sovereign state. This theory is false; for the\nChurch, as was seen, is vested Jure divino with power, (1) to\nmake laws; (2) to define and apply them (potestas judicialis);\n(3) to punish those who violate her laws (potestas coercitiva).\n\nAnd this is not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated\nproclamation of infallible popes. Here is the \"Syllabus of\nErrors\", issued by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in\nprecise language that\n\nThe state has not the right to leave every man free to profess\nand embrace whatever religion he shall deem true.\n\nIt has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall\nrequire the permission of the civil power in order to the\nexercise of its authority.\n\nThen in the same Syllabus the rights and powers of the Church are\naffirmed thus:\n\nShe has the right to require the state not to leave every man\nfree to profess his own religion.\n\nShe has the right to exercise her power without the permission or\nconsent of the state.\n\nShe has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state.\n\nShe has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be\nthe only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others.\n\nShe has the right to prevent the state from granting the public\nexercise of their own worship to persons immigrating from it.\n\nShe has the power of requiring the state not to permit free\nexpression of opinion.\n\nYou see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who\nthink that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization,\nought at least to know what the Catholic Church has to say about\nthe matter. Here is Mgr. Segur, in his \"Plain Talk About\nProtestantism of Today\", a book published in Boston and\nextensively circulated by American Catholics:\n\nFreedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise\nthe soul of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those\nimpossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can\nregard as admissable. But a sound mind, that does not feed on\nempty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply\nabsurd, and, what is more, as sinful.\n\nYou take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe\nbecause the Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this\n\"Law\" applies to your Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that\nthey are bound by the restraints that bind you? Here is Pope Leo\nXIII, in his Encyclical of 1890--and please remember that Leo\nXIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist statesmen and editors,\nas wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever roasted a\nheretic. He says:\n\nIf the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of\nGod--if they inflict injury upon the Church--or set at naught the\nauthority of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff,\nthen indeed it becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render\nobedience.\n\nAnd consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a\ndemocratic state do and forever must contravene the \"laws of God\"\nas interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that\nthe Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that all persons\nwho have been married by civil authorities or by Protestant\nclergymen are living in \"filthy concubinage\"! Consider, in the\nsame way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline,\nblasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious\nendowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by\nGladstone, one might add many issues, such as birth control,\nwhich have arisen since his time.\n\nWhat the Church means is to rule. Her literature is full of\nexpressions of that intention, set forth in the boldest and\nhaughtiest and most uncompromising manner. For example, Cardinal\nManning, in the Pro-Cathedral at Kensington, speaking in the name\nof the Pope:\n\nI acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; I\nclaim more than this--I claim to be the supreme judge and\ndirector of the consciences of men---of the peasant that tills\nthe field, and of the prince that sits upon the throne; of the\nhousehold of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for\nkingdoms; I am the sole, last supreme judge of what is right and\nwrong.\n\n\nTemporal Power\n\nWhat this means is, that here in our American democracy the\nCatholic Church is a rebel; a prisoner of war who bides his time,\nwatching for the moment to rise in revolt, and meantime making no\nsecret of his intentions. The pious Leo XIII, addressing all true\nbelievers in America, instructed them as to their attitude in\ncaptivity:\n\nThe Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and\ngovernment of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation,\nprotected against violence by the common laws and the\nimpartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without\nhindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very\nerroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought\nthe type of the most desirable status of the church, or that it\nwould be universally lawful or expedient for state and church to\nbe, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that\nCatholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying\na prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the\nfecundity with which God has endowed His Church .... But she\nwould bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to\nliberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and patronage of the\npublic authority.\n\nAccordingly, here is Father Phelan of St. Louis, addressing his\nflock in the \"Western Watchman\", June 27, 1913:\n\nTell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen\nafterwards; of course we are. Tell us, in the conflict between\nthe church and the civil government we take the side of the\nchurch; of course we do. Why, if the government of the United\nStates were at war with the church, we would say tomorrow, To\nhell with the government of the United States; and if the church\nand all the governments of the world were at war, we would say,\nTo hell with all the governments of the world .... Why is it that\nin this country, where we have only seven per cent of the\npopulation, the Catholic church is so much feared? She is loved\nby all her children and feared by everybody. Why is it that the\nPope has such tremendous power? Why, the Pope is the ruler of the\nworld. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the\npresidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. The\nPope is the ruler of the world.\n\nYou recall what I said at the outset about Power; the ability to\ncontrol the lives of other men, to give laws and moral codes, to\nshape fashions and tastes, to be revered and regarded. Here is a\nman swollen to bursting with this Power. Dressed in his holy\nrobes, with his holy incense in his nostrils, and the faces of\nthe faithful gazing up at him awe-stricken, hear him proclaim:\n\nThe Church gives no bonds for her good behavior. She is the judge\nof her own rights and duties, and of the rights and duties of the\nstate.\n\nAnd lest you think that an extreme example of ultramontanist\narrogance, listen to the Boston \"Pilot\", April 6, 1912, speaking\nfor Cardinal O'Connell, whose official organ it is:\n\nIt must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley,\nO'Connell and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and\nmembers of an American hierachy, yet they are as cardinals\nforeign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one\nof the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to\nconcede the same honors that they receive abroad.\n\nThus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he\nwould be entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for\na foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainment at\nWashington the Cardinal will outrank not merely every cabinet\nofficer, the speaker of the house and the vice-president, but\nalso the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the\nchief magistrate himself.\n\nIncidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not\nof sovereign rank visits New York it is his duty to make the\nfirst call on Cardinal Farley.\n\nKnights of Slavery\n\nSuch is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus.\nAnd what is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the\nrank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels\nof the ecclesiastical machine? His Holiness, the Pope, sent over\na delegate to represent him in America, and at a convention of\nthe Federation of Catholic Societies held in New Orleans in\nNovember, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered\nhimself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the\nslave-code of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary\ncarpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples:\n\nHuman society has its origin from God and is constituted of two\nclasses of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively\nrepresent Capital and Labor.\n\nHence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human\nsociety is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and\nservants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and\nplebeians.\n\nAnd lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second\nrepresentative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general\nmeeting of the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917,\ndeclared:\n\nOne of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is\nthe spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic\nChurch must be ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be\nready to prevent the spread of Socialism and to work against it.\nAs I understand, you have a society of wealthy people in St.\nLouis ready for such a campaign. You have experienced leaders who\nare masters in their kind of work. They are always insistent to\nshow that this wealth was and is in close touch with the Church,\nand therefore it will not fail.\n\nThis, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book,\nwhich therefore no doubt will be entitled to the \"Nihil Obstat\"\nof the \"Censor Theolog.\", and the \"Imprimatur\" of \"Johannes\nJosephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici.\" No wonder that the\n\"experienced leaders\" of America, our captains of industry and\nexploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be,\nto make use of this system of subjection. A few years ago we read\nin our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was\npresenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its\nwar upon Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most\nfar-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said\nthat in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a\ncapitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic\nchurch that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy\nwas widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and\nrailway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you\nwatched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman\nHierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get\nan expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any\nnewspaper of importance. The Associated Press does not handle\nnews unfavorable to the Church, and from top to bottom, the\npolitician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. Said\nArchbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary\nSodality:\n\nI'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the\nchurch in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed.\n\n\nPriests and Police\n\nAnd how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our\nliberties? As a means of demonstrating the power of the church\nand the subservience of our politicians, the Catholics have\ninvented what they call the \"Cardinal's Day Mass\": An elaborate\nprocession of high ecclesiastics, dressed in gorgeous robes and\njewels, through the streets of Washington, accompanied by a small\narmy of policemen, paid by non-Catholic taxpayers. The Cardinal\nseats himself upon a throne, and our political rulers make\nobeisance before him. On Sunday, January 14, 1917, there were\npresent at this political mass the following personages: Four\ncabinet members and their wives; the speaker of the House; a\nlarge group of senators and representatives; a general of the\narmy and his wife; an admiral of the navy and his wife; the Chief\nJustice of the Supreme Court and his wife, and another Justice of\nthe Supreme Court and his wife.\n\nAnd understand that the church makes no secret of its purpose in\nconducting such public exhibitions. Here is the pious Pope Leo\nXIII again, in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885:\n\nAll Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in\ndaily political life in the countries where they live. They must\npenetrate, wherever possible, in the administration of civil\naffairs; must constantly exert the utmost vigilance and energy to\nprevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed\nby God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause\nthe constitutions of states and legislation to be modeled on the\nprinciples of the true Church.\n\nAnd following these instructions, the Catholics are organized for\npolitical work. There are the various Catholic Societies, such as\nthe Knights of Columbus, secret, oath-bound organizations, the\nmilitary arm of the Papal Power. These societies boast some three\nmillion members, and control not less than that many votes. The\none thing that you can be certain about these votes is that on\nevery public question, of whatever nature, they will be cast on\nthe side of ignorance and reaction. Thus, it was the influence of\nthe Catholic Societies which put upon our national statute books\nthe infamous law providing five years imprisonment and five\nthousand dollars fine for the sending through the mail of\ninformation about the prevention of conception. It is their\ninfluence which keeps upon the statute-books of New York state\nthe infamous law which permits divorce only for infidelity, and\nmakes it \"collusion\" if both parties desire the divorce. It is\nthese societies which, in every city and town in America, are\npushing and plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so\nthat the public may not have a chance to read scientific books;\nto get Catholics into the public schools and on school-boards, so\nthat children may not hear about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to\nhave Catholics in control of police and on magistrates benches,\nso that priests who are caught in brothels may not be exposed or\npunished.\n\nYou are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but\nduring a period of \"vice raids\" in New York I was told by a\ncaptain of police, himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing\nfor them to get priests in their net. \"Of course,\" the official\nadded, good-naturedly, \"we let them slip out.\" I understood that\nhe had to do that; for the Pope, in his \"Motu Proprio\" decree,\nhas forbidden Catholics to bring a priest into court for any\ncivil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden Catholic policemen to\narrest, Catholic judges to try, and Catholic law-makers to make\nlaws affecting any priest of the Church of Rome. And of course we\nknow, upon the authority of a cardinal, that the Pope is \"the\nsole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong.\" He has\nheld that position for a thousand years and more; and wherever\nyou consult the police records throughout the thousand years, you\nfind the same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn\nto Riley's \"Illustrations of London Life from Original\nDocuments,\" and I find in the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose\nname is considerately suppressed, had a breviary stolen from him\nby a loose woman, because he has not given her any money, either\non that night or the one previous. In 1320 John de Sloghtre, a\npriest, is put in the tower \"for being found wandering about the\ncity against the peace\", and Richard Heyring, a priest, is\nindicted in the ward of Farringdon and in the ward of Crepelgate\n\"as being a bruiser and nightwalker.\" That this has been going on\nfor six hundred years is due, not to any special corruption of\nthe Catholic heart, but to the practice of clerical celibacy,\nwhich is contrary to nature, a transgression of fundamental\ninstinct. It should be noted that the purpose of this\ntransgression, which pretends to be spiritual, is really\neconomic; it was the means whereby the church machine built up\nits power through the Middle Ages. The priests had children then,\nas they have them today; but these children not being recognized,\nthe church machine remained the sole heir of the property of its\nclergy.\n\nThe Church Militant\n\nKnowing what we know today, we marvel that it was possible for\nGermany to prepare through so many years for her assault on\ncivilization, and for England to have slept through it all. In\nexactly the same way, the historian of a generation from now will\nmarvel that America should have slept, while the New Inquisition\nwas planning to strangle her. For we are told with the utmost\nexplicitness precisely what is to be done. We are to see wiped\nout these gains of civilization for which our race has bled and\nagonized for many centuries; the very gains are to serve as the\nmeans of their own destruction! Have we not heard Pope Leo tell\nhis faithful how to take advantage of what they find in\nAmerica--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty,\nour open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met\ndemocracy?\n\nWe see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and\nwe can read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the\nPrussian military caste had its slogan \"Deutschland ueber Alles!\"\nso the Knights of Slavery have their slogan: \"Make America\nCatholic!\"\n\nTheir attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact\nthat none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to\n\"deeply deplore the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the\nPope.\" Their subjection to priestly domination is indicated by\nsuch resolutions as this, bearing date of May 13th, 1914:\n\nThe Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention assembled,\nprostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, present filial regards\nwith assurances of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See and\nrequest the Papal blessing.\n\nOn June 10th, 1912, one T. J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to\nArchbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: \"Must I, as a\nCatholic, surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by\nthis I mean the right to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or\nRepublican parties when and where I please?\" The answer was: \"You\nshould submit to the decisions of the Church, even at the cost of\nsacrificing political principles.\" And to the same effect Mgr.\nPreston, In New York City, Jan. 1, 1888: \"The man who says, 'I\nwill take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics\nfrom Peter,' is not a true Catholic.\"\n\nSuch is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not\ndiscover some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a \"Catholic\nbattle-ship\" in the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all\nships of the navy; Catholic holidays---such as Columbus Day--to\nbe celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million\ndollars worth of church property exempted from taxation in New\nYork City; mission bells to be set up at the expense of the state\nof California; state support for parish schools--or, if this\ncannot be had, exemption of Catholics from taxation for school\npurposes. So on through the list which might continue for pages.\n\nMore than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is\nconcerned with education, or rather, with the preventing of\neducation. It was in its childish days that the race fell under\nthe spell of the Priestly Lie; it is in his childish days that\nthe individual can be most safely snared. Suffer little children\nto come unto the Catholic priest, and he will make upon their\nsensitive minds an impression which nothing in after life can\neradicate. So the mainstay of the New Inquisition is the\nparish-school, and its deadliest enemy is the American school\nsystem. Listen to the Rev. James Conway, of the Society of Jesus,\nin his book, \"The Rights of Our Little Ones\":\n\nCatholic parents cannot, in conscience send their children to\nAmerican public schools, except for very grave reasons approved\nby the ecclesiastical authorities.\n\nWhile state education removes illiteracy and puts a limited\namount of knowledge within the reach of all, it cannot be said to\nhave a beneficial influence on civilization in general.\n\nThe state cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in\ncase of utter illiteracy, so long as the essential physical and\nmoral education are sufficiently provided for.\n\nAnd so, at all times and in all places, the Catholic Church is\nfighting the public school. Eternal vigilance is necessary; as\n\"America\", the organ of the Jesuits, explains:\n\nSometimes it is a new building code, or an attempt at taxing the\nschool buildings, which creates hardships to the parochial and\nother private schools. Now it is the free text book law that puts\na double burden on the Catholics. Then again it is the unwise\nextension of the compulsory school age that forces children to be\nin school until they are 16 to 18 years old.\n\nAnd if you wish to know the purpose of the Catholic schools, hear\nArchbishop Quigley of Chicago, speaking before the children of\nthe Mary Sodality in the Holy Name Parish-School:\n\nWithin twenty years this country is going to rule the world.\nKings and emperors will pass away, and the democracy of the\nUnited States will take their place. The West will dominate the\ncountry, and what I have seen of the Western parochial schools\nhas proved that the generation which follows us will be\nexclusively Catholic. When the United States rules the world the\nCatholic Church will rule the world.\n\n\nThe Church Triumphant\n\nThe question may be asked, What of it? What if the Church were to\nrule? There are not a few Americans who believe that there have\nto be rich and poor, and that rule by Roman Catholics might be\npreferable to rule by Socialists. Before you decide, at least do\nnot fail to consider what history has to tell about priestly\ngovernment. We do not have to use our imaginations in the matter,\nfor there was once a Golden Age such as Archbishop Quigley dreams\nof, when the power of the church was complete, when emperors and\nprinces paid homage to her, and the civil authority made haste to\ncarry out her commands. What was the condition of the people in\nthose times? We are told by Lea, in his \"History of the\nInquisition\" that:\n\nThe moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved.\nUniformity of faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and its\nmethods, and so long as faith was preserved, crime and sin was\ncomparatively unimportant except as a source of revenue to those\nwho sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie tersely puts it, hell and\npurgatory would be emptied if enough money could be found. The\nartificial standard thus created is seen in a revelation of the\nVirgin to St. Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no\nmatter how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he\nhas the absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are many\nwicked popes plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts on earth\nare accepted and confirmed by God, and all priests who are not\nheretics administer true sacraments, no matter how depraved they\nmay be. Correctness of belief was thus the sole essential; virtue\nwas a wholly subordinate consideration. How completely under such\na system religion and morals came to be dissociated is seen in\nthe remarks of Pius II, that the Franciscans were excellent\ntheologians, but cared nothing about virtue.\n\nThis, in fact, was the direct result of the system of persecution\nembodied in the Inquisition. Heretics who were admitted to be\npatterns of virtue were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of\nChrist, while in the same holy name the orthodox could purchase\nabsolution for the vilest of crimes for a few coins. When the\nonly unpardonable offence was persistence in some trifling error\nof belief, such as the poverty of Christ; when men had before\nthem the example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and\ndebauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions of\nmorality were destroyed and the confusion between right and wrong\nbecame hopeless. The world has probably never seen a society more\nvile than that of Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth\ncenturies. The brilliant pages of Froissart fascinate us with\ntheir pictures of the artificial courtesies of chivalry; the\nmystic reveries of Rysbroek and of Tauler show us that spiritual\nlife survived in some rare souls, but the mass of the population\nwas plunged into the depths of sensuality and the most brutal\noblivion of the moral law. For this Alvaro Pelayo tells us that\nthe priesthood were accountable, and that, in comparison with\nthem, the laity were holy. What was that state of comparative\nholiness he proceeds to describe, blushing as he writes, for the\nbenefit of confessors, giving a terrible sketch of universal\nimmorality which nothing could purify but fire and brimstone from\nheaven. The chroniclers do not often pause in their narrations to\ndwell on the moral aspects of the times, but Meyer, in his annals\nof Flanders, under date of 1379, tells us that it would be\nimpossible to describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries,\nblasphemies, adulteries, hatreds, quarrels, brawls, murder,\nrapine, thievery, robbery, gambling, whoredom, debauchery,\navarice, oppression of the poor, rape, drunkenness: and similar\nvices, and he illustrates his statement with the fact that in the\nterritory of Ghent, within the space of ten months, there\noccurred no less than fourteen hundred murders committed in the\nbagnios, brothels, gambling-houses, taverns, and other similar\nplaces. When, in 1396, Jean sans Peur led his Crusaders to\ndestruction at Micopolis, their crimes and cynical debauchery\nscandalized even the Turks, and led to the stern rebuke of\nBajazet himself, who as the monk of St. Denis admits was much\nbetter than his Christian foes. The same writer, moralizing over\nthe disaster at Agincourt, attributes it to the general\ncorruption of the nation. Sexual relations, he says, were an\nalternation of disorderly lust and of incest; commerce was nought\nbut fraud and treachery; avarice withheld from the Church her\ntithes, and ordinary conversation was a succession of\nblasphemies. The Church, set up by God as a model and protector\nof the people, was false to all its obligations. The bishops,\nthrough the basest and most criminal of motives, were habitual\naccepters of persons; they annointed themselves with the last\nessence extracted from their flocks, and there was in them\nnothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of decent.\n\n\nGod in the Schools\n\nBut that, you may say, was a long time ago. If so, let us take a\nmodern country in which the Catholic Church has worked its will.\nUntil recently, Spain was such a country. Now the people are\nturning against the clerical machine; and if you ask why, turn to\nRafael Shaw's \"Spain From Within\":\n\nOn every side the people see the baleful hand of the Church,\ninterfering or trying to interfere in their domestic life,\nordering the conditions of employment, draining them of their\nhard-won livelihood by trusts and monopolies established and\nmaintained in the interest of the Religious Orders, placing\nobstacles in the way of their children's education, hindering\nthem in the exercise of their constitutional rights, and\ndeliberately ruining those of them who are bold enough to run\ncounter to priestly dictation. Riots suddenly break out in\nBarcelona; they are instigated by the Jesuits. The country goes\nto war in Morocco; it is dragged into it solely in defense of the\nmines owned, actually, if not ostensibly, by the Jesuits. The\nconsumos cannot be abolished because the Jesuits are financially\ninterested in their continuance.\n\nWe have read the statement of a Jesuit father, that \"the state\ncannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of utter\nilliteracy.\" How has that doctrine worked out in Spain? There was\nan official investigation of school conditions, the report\nappearing in the \"Heraldo de Madrid\" for November, 1909. In 1857\nthere had been passed a law requiring a certain number of schools\nin each of the 79 provinces: this requirement being below the\nvery low standards prevailing at that time in other European\ncountries. Yet in 1909 it was found that only four provinces had\nthe required number of elementary schools, and at the rate of\nincrease then prevailing it would have taken 150 years to catch\nup. Seventy-five per cent of the population were wholly\nilliterate, and 30,000 towns and villages had no government\nschools at all. The government owed nearly a million and a half\ndollars in unpaid salaries to the teachers. The private schools\nwere nearly all \"nuns' schools\", which taught only needle-work\nand catechism; the punishments prevailing in them were \"cruel and\ndisgusting.\"\n\nAs to the location of the schools, a report of the Minister of\nEducation to the Cortes, the Parliament of Spain, sets forth as\nfollows:\n\nMore than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these\nare absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are\nschools mixed up with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughter\nhouses, with stables. One school forms the entrance to a\ncemetery, and the corpses are placed on the master's table while\nthe last responses are being said. There is a school into which\nthe children cannot enter until the animals have been sent out to\npasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weather\nbegins the boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school\nis a manure-heap in process of fermentation, and one of the local\nauthorities has said that in this way the children are warmer in\nwinter. One school in Cataluna adjoins the prison. Another, in\nAndalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the bulls when there\nis a bull-fight in the town.\n\nThese conditions excited the indignation of a Spanish educator by\nthe name of Francesco Ferrer. He founded what he called a \"modern\nschool\", in which the pupils should be taught science and common\nsense. He drew, of course, the bitter hatred of the Catholic\nhierarchy, which saw in the spread of his principles the end of\ntheir mastery of the people. When the Barcelona insurrection took\nplace, they had Ferrer seized upon a charge of having been its\ninstigator; they had him tried in secret before a military\ntribunal, convicted upon forged documents, and shot beneath the\nwalls of the fortress of Montjuich. The case was thoroughly\ninvestigated by William Archer, one of England's leading critics,\na man of scrupulous rectitude of mind. His conclusion is that\nFerrer was absolutely innocent of the charges against him, and\nthat his execution was the result of a clerical plot. Of Ferrer's\ncharacter Archer writes:\n\nFragmentary though they be, the utterances which I have quoted\nform a pretty complete revelation. From first to last we see in\nhim an ardent, uncompromising, incorruptible idealist. His ideals\nare narrow, and his devotion to them fanatical; but it is devoid,\nif not of egoism, at any rate of self-interest and self-seeking.\nAs he shrank from applying the money entrusted him to ends of\npersonal luxury, so also he shrank from making his ideas and\nconvictions subserve any personal ambition or vanity.\n\n\nThe Menace\n\nThere are, of course, many people in America who will not rest\nidle while their country falls into the condition of Spain. There\nare anti-Catholic propaganda societies, which send out lecturers\nto discuss the Church and its records; and this is exasperating\nto devout believers, who regard the Church as holy, and any\ncriticism of it as blasphemy. So we have opportunity to observe\nthe working out of the doctrine that the Church is superior to\nthe civil law.\n\nOn June 12th, 1913, there came to the little town of Oelwein,\nIowa, a former priest of the Catholic Church, named Jeremiah J.\nCrowley, to deliver a lecture exposing the Papal propaganda. The\nCatholics of the town made efforts to intimidate the owner of the\nplace in which the lecture was to be given; the priest of the\ntown, Father O'Connor, preached a sermon furiously denouncing the\nlecturer; and after the lecture the unfortunate Crowley was\nsurrounded by a mob of men, women and boys, and although he was\nsix feet three in size, he was beaten almost to death. At the\ntrial which followed it developed that Father O'Connor and also\nhis brother, a judge on the Superior Bench, were accessories\nbefore the fact.\n\nNor is this a solitary instance. The Catholic military societies,\nwith their uniforms and their armories, are not maintained for\nnothing. As Archbishop Quigley declared before the German\nCatholic Central Verein:\n\nWe have well ordered and efficient organizations, all at the beck\nand nod of the hierarchy and ready to do what the church\nauthorities tell them to do. With these bodies of loyal Catholics\nready to step into the breach at any time and present an unbroken\nfront to the enemy we may feel secure.\n\nAnd so, on the evening of April 15th, 1914, a group of Catholics\nentered the Pierce Hotel in Denver, Colorado, overpowered a\npolice guard and seized the Rev. Otis L. Spurgeon, an\nanti-Catholic lecturer. They bound and gagged him, took him to a\nlonely woods, and beat him to insensibility. The same thing\nhappened to the Rev. Augustus Barnett, at Buffalo; the Rev.\nWilliam Black was killed at Marshall, Texas. In each case the\nassailants avowed themselves Knights of Columbus, and efforts to\npunish them failed, because no jury can be got to convict a\nCatholic, fighting for his Pope against a godless state. The most\npious Leo XIII has laid down:\n\nIt is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus Christ for the\npurpose of obeying the magistrates, or to transgress the law of\nthe Church under the pretext of observing the civil law.\n\nThere are papers published to warn Americans against the plotting\nof this political Church. One of them, \"The Menace,\" has a\ncirculation of more than a million; and naturally the Knights of\nSlavery do not enjoy reading it. Year after year they have\nmarshalled their power to have this paper barred from the\nmails--so far, in vain. They caused an obscenity prosecution,\nwhich failed; so finally the press rooms of the paper were blown\nup with dynamite. At the present time there is a \"Catholic Truth\nSociety\" with a publication called \"Truth\", to oppose the\nanti-Catholic campaign; and that is all right, of course--except\nwhen the agents who collect the two-dollar subscriptions to this\npublication make use of Untruth in their labors--promising\nabsolution and salvation to the families, dead and living, of\nthose who \"come across\" with subscriptions. In the \"Bulletin of\nthe American Federation of Catholic Societies\" for September,\n1915, I find a record of the ceaseless plotting to bar criticism\nof the Catholic Church from the mails. Fitzgerald, a Tammany\nCatholic congressman, proposes a bill in Washington; and Judge\nSt. Paul, of New Orleans, a member of the Federation's \"law\ncommittee\", points out the difficulties in the way of such\nlegislation. You cannot pass a law against ridiculing religion,\nbecause the Catholics want to ridicule Christian Science,\nMormonism, and the \"Holy Ghost and Us\" Society! The Judge thinks\nthe purpose of the Papal plotters will be accomplished if they\ncan slip into the present law the words \"scurrilous and\nslanderous\"; he hopes that this much can be done without the\nAmerican people catching on!\n\nYou read these things for the first time, perhaps, and you want\nto start an American \"Kultur-kampf.\" I make haste, therefore, to\nrestate the main thesis of this book. It is not the New\nInquisition which is our enemy today; it is hereditary Privilege.\nIt is not Superstition, but Big Business which makes use of\nSuperstition as a wolf makes use of sheep's clothing.\n\nYou remember how, when Americans first awakened to the universal\ncorruption of our politics, we used to attribute it to the\n\"ignorant foreign vote.\" Turn to Lecky's \"Democracy and Liberty\"\nand you will see how reformers twenty years ago explained our\npolitical depravity. But we probed deeper, and discovered that\nthe purely American communities, such as Rhode Island, were the\nmost corrupt of all. It dawned upon us that wherever there was a\npolitical boss paying bribes on election day, there was a captain\nof industry furnishing the money for the bribes, and taking some\npublic privilege in return. So we came to realize that political\ncorruption is merely a by-product of Big Business.\n\nAnd when we come to probe this problem of the spread of\nSupersition in America, this amazing renascence of Romanism in a\ndemocracy, we find precisely the same phenomenon. It is not the\npoor foreigner who troubles us. Our human magic would win\nhim--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, our\nopen-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met democracy. We\nshould break down the Catholic machine, and not all the priests\nin the hierarchy could stop us--were it not for the Steel Trust\nand the Coal Trust and the Beef Trust, the Liquor Trust and the\nTraction Trust and the Money Trust--those masters of America who\ndo not want citizens, free and intelligent and self-governing,\nbut who want the slave-hordes as they come, ignorant, inert,\nphysically, mentally and morally helpless!\n\nNo, do not let yourself be lured into a Kultur-kampf. It is not\nthe pennies of the servant-girls which build the towering\ncathedrals; it is not the two-dollar contributions for the\nsalvation of souls which support the Catholic Truth Society and\nthe Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society and the Mary\nSodality and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and\nall the rest of the machinery of the Papal propaganda. These\nhelp, of course; but the main sources of growth are, first, the\nsubsidies of industrial exploiters, the majority of whom are\nnon-Catholic, and second, the privilege of public plunder granted\nas payment for votes by politicians who are creatures and puppets\nof Big Business.\n\n\nKing Coal\n\nThe proof of these statements is written all over the industrial\nlife of America. I will stop long enough to present an account of\none industry, asking the reader to accept my statement that if\nspace permitted I could present the same sort of proof for a\ndozen other industries which I have studied--the steel-mills of\nWestern Pennsylvania, the meat-factories of Chicago, the\nglass-works of Southern Jersey, the silk-mills of Paterson, the\ncotton-mills of North Carolina, the woolen-mills of\nMassachusetts, the lumber-camps of Louisiana, the copper-mines of\nMichigan, the sweat-shops of New York.\n\nIn a lonely part of the Rocky Mountains lies a group of\nenormously valuable coal-mines owned by the Rockefellers and\nother Protestant exploiters. The men who work these mines, some\ntwelve or fifteen thousand in number, come from all the nations\nof Europe and Asia, and their fate is that of the average\nwage-slave. I do not ask anyone to take my word, but present\nsworn testimony, taken by the United States Commission on\nIndustrial Relations in 1914. Here is the way the Italian miners\nlive, as described in a doctor's report:\n\nHouses up the canyon, so-called, of which eight are habitable,\nand forty-six simply awful; they are disreputably disgraceful. I\nhave had to remove a mother in labor from one part of the shack\nto another to keep dry.\n\nAnd here is the testimony of the Rev. Eugene S. Gaddis, former\nsuperintendent of the Sociological Department of the Colorado\nFuel and Iron Company:\n\nThe C. F. & I. Company now own and rent hovels, shacks and\ndug-outs that are unfit for the habitation of human beings and\nare little removed from the pig-sty make of dwellings. And the\npeople in them live on the very level of a pig-sty. Frequently\nthe population is so congested that whole families are crowded\ninto one room; eight persons in one small room was reported\nduring the year.\n\nAnd here is what this same clergyman has to say about the bosses\nwhom the Rockefellers employ:\n\nThe camp superintendents as a whole impressed me as most uncouth,\nignorant, immoral, and in many instances, the most brutal set of\nmen that I have ever met. Blasphemous bullies.\n\nSometimes the miner grows tired of being robbed of his weights,\nand applies for the protection which the law of the state allows\nhim. What happens then?\n\n\"When a man asked for a checkweighman, in the language of the\nsuper he was getting too smart.\"\n\n\"And he got what?\"\n\n\"He got it in the neck, generally.\"\n\nAnd when these wage-slaves, goaded beyond endurance, went on\nstrike, in the words of the Commission's report:\n\nFive strikers, one boy, and thirteen women and children in the\nstrikers' tent colony were shot to death by militiamen and guards\nemployed by the coal companies, or suffocated and burned to death\nwhen these militiamen and guards set fire to the tents in which\nthey made their homes.\n\nAnd now, what is the position of education in such camps? The\nRev. James McDonald, a Methodist preacher, testified that the\nschool building was dilapidated and unfit. One year there were\nfour teachers, the next three, and the next only two. The teacher\nof the primary grade had a hundred and twenty children enrolled,\nninety per cent of whom could not speak a word of English.\n\nEvery little bench was seated with two or three. It was\nover-crowded entirely, and she could hardly get walking room\naround there.\n\nAnd as to the political use made of this deliberately cultivated\nignorance, former United States Senator Patterson testified that\nthe companies controlled all elections and all nominations:\n\nElection returns from the two or three counties in which the\nlarge companies operate show that in the precincts in which the\nmining camps are located the returns are nearly unanimous in\nfavor of the men or measures approved by the companies,\nregardless of party.\n\nAnd now comes the all-important question. What of the Catholic\nChurch and these evils? The majority of these mine-slaves are\nCatholics, it is this Church which is charged with their\nprotection. There are priests in every town, and in nearly every\ncamp. And do we find them lifting their voices in behalf of the\nminers, protesting against the starving and torturing of thirty\nor forty thousand human beings? Do we find Catholic papers\nprinting accounts of the Ludlow massacre? Do we find Catholic\njournalists on the scene reporting it, Catholic lawyers defending\nthe strikers, Catholic novelists writing books about their\ntroubles? We do not!\n\nThrough the long agony of the fourteen months strike, I know of\njust one Catholic priest, Father Le Fevre, who had a word to say\nfor the strikers. One of the first stories I heard when I reached\nthe strike-field was of a priest who had preached on the text\nthat \"Idleness is the root of all evil,\" and had been reported as\na \"scab\" and made to shut up. \"Who made him?\" I asked, naively,\nthinking of his church superiors. My informant, a union miner,\nlaughed. \"We made him!\" he said.\n\nI talked with another priest who was prudently saving souls and\ncould not be interested in questions of worldly greed. Max\nEastman, reporting the strike in the \"Masses\", tells of an\ninterview with a Catholic sister.\n\n\"Has the Church done anything to try to help these people, or to\nbring about peace?\" we asked. \"I consider it the most useless\nthing in the world to attempt it,\" she replied.\n\nThe investigating committee of Congress came to the scene, and\nseveral clergymen of the Protestant Church appeared and bore\ntestimony to the outrages which were being committed against the\nstrikers; but of all the Catholic priests in the district not one\nappeared--not one! Several Protestant clergymen testified that\nthey had been driven from the coal-camps--not because they\nfavored the unions, but because the companies objected to having\ntheir workers educated at all; but no one ever heard of the\nCatholic Church having trouble with the operators. To make sure\non this point I wrote to a former clergyman of Trinidad who\nwatched the whole strike, and is now a first lieutenant in the\nFirst New Mexico Infantry. He answered:\n\nThe Catholic Church seemed to get along with the companies very\ncordially. The Church was permitted in all the camps. The\nimpression was abroad that this was due to favoritism. I honor\nwhat good the Church does, but I know of no instance, during the\nColorado coal-strike or at any other time or place, when the\nCatholic Church has taken any special interest in the cause of\nthe laboring men. Many Catholics, especially the men, quit the\nchurch during the coal-strike.\n\n\nThe Unholy Alliance\n\nEverywhere throughout America today the ultimate source of all\npower, political, social, and religious, is economic\nexploitation. To all other powers and all other organizations it\nspeaks in these words: \"Help us, and you will thrive; oppose us,\nand you will be destroyed.\" It has spoken to the Catholic Church,\nfor sixteen hundred years the friend and servant of every ruling\nclass; and the Church has hastened to fit itself into the\nsituation, continuing its pastoral role as shepherd to the\nwage-slave vote.\n\nIn New York and Boston and Chicago the Church is \"Democratic\"; so\nin the Blaine campaign it was possible for a Republican clergyman\nto describe the issue as \"Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.\" But the\nHoly Office was shrewd and socially ambitious, and the Grand Old\nParty was desperately in need of votes, so under the regime of\nMark Hanna, the President-Maker, there began a rapprochement\nbetween Big Business and the New Inquisition. Under Hanna the\nCatholic Church got representation in the Cabinet; under him the\nCardinal's Mass became a government institution, a Catholic\nCollege came to the fore in Washington, and Catholic prelates\nwere introduced in the role of eminent publicists, their\nreactionary opinions on important questions being quoted with\ngrave solemnity by a prostitute press. It was Mark Hanna himself\nwho founded the National Civic Federation, upon whose executive\ncommittee Catholic cardinals and archbishops might work hand in\nglove with Catholic labor-leaders for the chloroforming of the\nAmerican working-class. Hanna's biographer naively calls\nattention to the President-maker's popularity among Catholics,\nhigh and low, and the support they gave him. \"Archbishop Ireland\nwas in frequent correspondence with him, and used his influence\nin Mr. Hanna's behalf.\"\n\nAnd this tradition, begun under Hanna, was continued under\nRoosevelt, and reached its finest flower in the days of Taft, the\nmost pliant tool of the forces of evil who has occupied the White\nHouse since the days of the Slave Power. President Taft was\nhimself a Unitarian; yet it was under his administration that the\nCatholic Church achieved one of its dearest ambitions, and broke\ninto the Supreme Court. Why not? We can imagine the powers of the\ntime in conference. It is desired to pack the Court against the\npossibility of progress; it is desired to find men who will stand\nlike a rock against change--and who better than those who have\nbeen trained from childhood in the idea of a divine sanction for\ndoctrine and morals? After all, what is it that Hereditary\nPrivilege wants in America? A Roman Catholic code of property\nrights, with a supreme tribunal to play the part of an infallible\nPope!\n\nUnder this Taft administration the country was governed by the\nstrangest legislative alliance our history ever saw; a\ncombination of the Old Guard of the Republican Party with the\nleaders of the Tammany Democracy of New York. \"Bloody shirt\"\nForaker, senator from Ohio, voting with the sons of those Irish\nCatholic mob-leaders whom the Federal troops shot down in the\ndraft-riots! By this unholy combination a pledge to reduce the\ntariff was carried out by a bill which greatly increased its\nburdens; by this combination the public lands and resources of\nthe country were fed to a gang of vultures by a thievish\nSecretary of the Interior. And of course under such an\nadministration the cause of \"Religion\" made tremendous strides.\nCatholic officials were appointed to public office, Catholic\necclesiastics were accorded public honors, and Catholic favor\nbecame a means to political advancement. You might see a\nhard-swearing old political pirate like \"Uncle Joe\" Cannon,\ntaking his cigar out of the corner of his blasphemous mouth and\nbetaking himself to the \"Cardinal's Day Mass\", to bend his stiff\nknees and bow his hoary unrepentant head before a jeweled prelate\non a throne. You might see an emissary of the United States\ngovernment proceeding to Rome, prostrating himself before the\nPope, and paying over seven million dollars of our taxes for\nlands which the filthy and sensual friars of the Philippine\nIslands had filched from the wretched serfs of that country and\nwhich the wretched serfs had won back by their blood in a\nrevolution.\n\n\nSecret Service\n\nThis Taft administration, urged on by the Catholic intrigue, made\nthe most determined efforts to prevent the spread of radical\nthought. Because the popular magazines were opposing the\nplundering of the country, a bill was introduced into Congress to\nput them out of business by a prohibitive postal tax; the\nPresident himself devoted all his power to forcing the passage of\nthis bill. At the same time the Socialist press was handicapped\nby every sort of persecution. I was at that time in intimate\ntouch with the \"Appeal to Reason\", and I know that scarcely a\nmonth passed that the Post Office Department did not invent some\nnew \"regulation\" especially designed to limit its circulation. I\nrecall one occasion when I met the editor on his way to\nWashington with a trunkful of letters from subscribers who\ncomplained that their postmasters refused to deliver the paper to\nthem; and later on this same editor was prosecuted by a Catholic\nAttorney General and sentenced to prison for seeking to awaken\nthe people concerning the Moyer-Haywood case.\n\nFrom my personal knowledge I can say that under the\nadministration of President Taft the Roman Catholic Church and\nthe Secret Service of the Federal Government worked hand in hand\nfor the undermining of the radical movement in America. Catholic\nlecturers toured the country, pouring into the ears of the public\nvile slanders about the private morality of Socialists; while at\nthe same time government detectives, paid out of public funds,\nspent their time seeking evidence for these Catholic lecturers to\nuse. I know one man, a radical labor-leader, whose morals\nhappened to approach those of the average capitalist politician,\nand who was prevented by threats of exposure and scandal from\naccepting the Socialist nomination for President. I know a dozen\nothers who were shadowed and spied upon; I know one\ncase--myself--a man who was asking a divorce from his wife, and\nwhose mail was opened for months.\n\nThis subject is one on which I naturally speak with extreme\nreluctance. I will only say that my opponent in the suit made no\ncharge of misconduct against me; but those in control of our\npolitical police evidently thought it likely that a man who was\nnot living with his wife might have something to hide; so for\nmonths my every move was watched and all my mail intercepted. In\nsuch a case one might at first suspect one's private opponent;\nbut it soon became evident that this net was cast too wide for\nany private agency. Not merely was my own mail opened, but the\nmail of all my relatives and friends--people residing in places\nas far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile\nof a government official to whom I complained about this matter:\n\"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.\" My answer\nwas that a study of many labor cases had taught me the methods of\nthe agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real evidence\nif he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself with\nthe affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be\nconvincing when exploited by the yellow press. In my own case,\nthe matter was not brought to a test, for I went abroad to live;\nwhen I made my next attack on Big Business, the Taft\nadministration had been repudiated at the polls, and the Secret\nService of the government was no longer at the disposal of the\nCatholic machine.\n\n\nTax Exemption\n\nToday the Catholic Church is firmly established and everywhere\nrecognized as one of the main pillars of American capitalism. It\nhas some fifteen thousand churches, fourteen million\ncommunicants, and property valued at half a billion dollars. Upon\nthis property it pays no taxes, municipal, state or national;\nwhich means, quite obviously, that you and I, who do not go to\nchurch, but who do pay taxes, furnish the public costs of\nCatholicism. We pay to have streets paved and lighted and cleaned\nin front of Catholic churches; we pay to have thieves kept away\nfrom them, fires put out in them, records preserved for them--all\nthe services of civilization given to them gratis, and this in a\nland whose constitution provides that Congress (which includes\nall state and municipal legislative bodies) \"shall make no law\nrespecting a religious establishment.\" When war is declared, and\nour sons are drafted to defend the country, all Catholic monks\nand friars, priests and dignitaries are exempted. They are\n\"ministers of religion\"; whereas we Socialists may not even have\nthe status of \"conscientious objectors.\" We do not teach\n\"religion\"; we only teach justice and humanity, decency and\ntruth.\n\nIn defense of this tax-exemption graft, the stock answer is that\nthe property is being used for purposes of \"education\" or\n\"charity\". It is a school, in which children are being taught\nthat \"liberty of conscience is a most pestiferous error, from\nwhich arises revolution, corruption, contempt of sacred things,\nholy institutions, and laws.\" (Pius IX). It is a \"House of\nRefuge\", to which wayward girls are committed by Catholic\nmagistrates, and in which they are worked twelve hours a day in a\nlaundry or a clothing sweat-shop. Or it is a \"parish-house\", in\nwhich a celibate priest lives under the care of an attractive\nyoung \"house-keeper\". Or it is a nunnery, in which young girls\nare held against their will and fed upon the scraps from their\nsisters' plates to teach them humility, and taught to lie before\nthe altar, prostrate in the form of a cross, while their\n\"Superiors\" walk upon their bodies to impress the religious\nvirtues. \"I was a teacher in the Catholic schools up to a very\nrecent period,\" writes the woman friend who tells me of these\ncustoms, \"and I know about the whole awful system which endeavors\nto throttle every genuine impulse of the human will.\"\n\nConcerning a large part of this church property, the claim of\n\"religious\" use has not even the shadow of justification. In\nevery large city of America you will find acres of land owned by\nthe Catholic machine, and supposed to be the future site of some\ninstitution; but as time goes on and property values increase,\nthe church decides to build on a cheaper site, and proceeds to\ncash in the profits of its investment, precisely as does any\nother real estate speculator. Everywhere you turn in the history\nof Romanism you find it at this same game, doing business under\nthe cloak of philanthropy and in the holy name of Christ. Read\nthe letter which the Catholic Bishop of Mexico sent to the Pope\nin 1647, complaining of the Jesuit fathers and their boundless\ngraft. In McCabe's \"Candid History of the Jesuits\" appears a\nsummary:\n\nA remarkable account is given of the worldly property of the\nfathers. They hold, it seems, the greater part of the wealth of\nMexico. Two of their colleges own 300,000 sheep, besides cattle\nand other property. They own six large sugar refineries, worth\nfrom half a million to a million crowns each, and making an\nannual profit of 100,000 crowns each, while all the other monks\nand clergy of Mexico together own only three small refineries.\nThey have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops and\nbutcheries, and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue\nfor legacies--a woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns--and\nthey refuse to pay the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to\nadd to this authoritative description that the Jesuit\ncongregation at Rome were still periodically forbidding the\nfathers to engage in commerce, and Jesuit writers still gravely\nmaintain that the society never engaged in commerce. It should be\nadded that the missionaries were still heavily subsidized by the\nKing of Spain, that there were (the Bishop says) only five or six\nJesuits to each of their establishments, and that they conducted\nonly ten colleges.\n\n\n\"Holy History\"\n\nAnd if you think this tax-exemption privilege should be taken\naway from the church grafters, let me suggest a course of\nprocedure. Write a letter about it to your daily newspaper; and\nif the letter is not published, go and see the editor and ask\nwhy; so you will learn something about the partnership between\nSuperstition and Big Business!\n\nIt is not too much to say that today no daily newspaper in any\nlarge American city dares to attack the emoluments of the\nCatholic Church, or to advocate restrictions upon the\necclesiastical machine. As I write, they are making a new\nCatholic bishop in Los Angeles, and all the newspapers of that\ngraft-ridden city herald it as an important social event. Each\npaper has the picture of the new prelate, with his shepherd's\ncrook upraised, his empty face crowned with a rhomboidal fool's\ncap, and enough upholstery on him to outfit a grand opera\ncompany. The Los Angeles \"Examiner\", the only paper in the city\nwith a pretense to radicalism, turns loose its star-writer--one\nof those journalist virtuosos who will describe you a Wild West\n\"rodeo\" one day, and a society elopement the next, and a G. O. P.\nconvention the next; and always with his picture, one inch\nsquare, at the head of his effusion. He takes in the Catholic\nfestivity; and does it phaze him? It does not! He is a newspaper\nman, and if his city editor sent him to hell, he would take the\nassignment and write like the devil. To read him now you might\nthink he had been reared in a convent; his soul is uplifted, and\nhe bursts forth in pure spontaneous ecstacy:\n\nSolemnly magnificent, every brilliant detail symbolically\npicturing the holy history of the Roman Catholic Church in the\ninexorable progress of its immense structure, which rises from\nthe rock of Peter, with its beacons of faith and devotion\npiercing the fog of doubt and fear which surround the world and\nthe worldly, was the ceremony yesterday at the Cathedral of St.\nVibiana, whereby Bishop John J. Cantwell was installed in his\ndiocese of Monterey and Los Angeles.\n\nAnd then, a month later, comes another occasion of state--the\nTwenty-third Annual-Banquet of the Merchants' and Manufacturers'\nAssociation of Los Angeles. I should have to write a little essay\nto make clear the sociological significance of that function;\nexplaining first, a nation-wide organization which has been\nproven by congressional investigation and by the publication of\nits secret documents to be a machine for the corruption of our\npolitical life; and then exhibiting our \"City of the Angels\",\nfrom which all Angels have long since fled; a city in the first\ncrude stage of land speculation, without order, dignity or charm;\na city of real estate agents, who exist by selling climate to new\narrivals from the East; a city whose intellectual life is\n\"boosting\", whose standards of truth are those of the\nhorse-trade. Its newspapers publish a table of temperatures,\nshowing the daily contrast between Southern California and the\nEast. This device is effective in the winter-time; but last June,\nwhen for five days and nights the temperature was over 110, and\nseveral times 114--the Los Angeles space was left empty!\n\nIn the same way, there is a rule that our earthquake shocks are\nnever mentioned, unless they destroy whole towns. On the\nafternoon of Jan. 26th, 1918, a cyclone hit Pasadena, of violence\nsufficient to lift a barn over a church-steeple and deposit it in\nthe pastor's front yard. That evening a friend of mine in Los\nAngeles called up the office of the \"Times\" to make inquiry; and\nalthough they are only thirteen miles away, and have a branch\noffice and a special correspondent in Pasadena, the answer was\nthat they had heard nothing about the cyclone! And next morning I\nmade a careful search of their columns. On the front page I read:\n\"Fourth Blizzard of Season Raging in East\"; also: \"Another\nEarthquake in Guatemala\". But not a line about the Pasadena\ncyclone That there was plenty of space in that issue, you may\njudge from the fact that there were twenty headlines like the\nfollowing--many of them representing full page and half page\nillustrated \"write-ups\":\n\nWhere Spring is January; Wealth Waits in California; The Bright\nSide of Sunshine Land; Come to California: Southland's Arms\nOutstretched in Cordial Invitation to the East; Flower Stands\nMake Gay City Streets; Southland Climate Big Manufacturing\nFactor; Joy of Life Demonstrated in Los Angeles' Beautiful Homes;\nNymphs Knit and Bathe at Ocean's Sunny Beach; etc.\n\nNow we are in the War and our business is booming, we are making\nmoney hand over fist. It is all the more delightful, because we\nare putting our souls into it, we are lending our money to the\ngovernment and saving the world for Democracy! Our labor\nunionists have been driven to other cities, and our Mexican\nagitators and I. W. W.'s are in jail; so, in the gilt ball-room\nof our palatial six-dollar-a-day hotel the four hundred masters\nof our prosperity meet to pat themselves on the back, and they\ninvite the new Catholic bishop to come and confer the grace of\nGod upon their eating.\n\nThe Bishop comes; and I take up the \"Times\"--the labor-hating,\nlabor-baiting, fire-and-slaughter-breathing \"Times\"--and here is\nthe episcopal picture on the front page, the arms stretched four\ncolumns wide in oratorical beneficence. How the shepherd of Jesus\ndoes love the Merchants and Manufacturers! How his eloquence is\npoured out upon them! \"You represent, gentlemen, the largest and\nthe most civilizing secular body in the country. You are the\npioneers of American civilization..... I am glad to be among you;\nglad that my lines have fallen in this glorious land by the\nsunset sea, and honored to meet in intimate acquaintance the big\nmen who have raised here in a few years a city of metropolitan\nproportions.\"\n\nAnd then, bearing in mind his responsibilities as guardian of\nExploitation, the Bishop goes on to tell them about the coming\nclass-war. \"On the one side a statesman preaching patience and\nrespect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith; on\nthe other a demagog speaking about the tyranny of capitalists and\nusurers.\" And then, of course, the inevitable religious tag: \"How\nwill men obey you, if they believe not in God, who is the author\nof all authority?\" At which, according to the \"Times\", \"prolonged\napplause and cheers\" from the Merchants and Manufacturers! The\neditor of the \"Times\" goes back to his office, and inspired by\nthis episcopal eloquence writes a \"leader\" with the statement\nthat: \"We have no proletariat in America!\"\n\n\nDas Centrum\n\nIn order to see clearly the ultimate purpose of this Unholy\nAlliance, this union of Superstition and the Merchants' and\nManufacturers' Association, we have to go to Europe, where the\narrangement has been working for a thousand years. In Europe\nto-day we see the whole world in conflict with a band of\ncriminals who have been able to master the minds and lives of a\nhundred million highly civilized people. As I write, the Junker\naristocracy is at bay, and soon to have its throat cut; but there\ncomes a Holy Father to its rescue, with the cross of Jesus\nuplifted, and a series of pleas for mercy, written in Vienna,\nedited in Berlin, and sent out from Rome. The Holy Father loves\nall mankind with a tender and touching love; his heart bleeds at\nthe sight of bloodshed and suffering, and he pleads the sacred\ncause of peace on earth and good-will toward men.\n\nBut what was the Holy Father doing through the forty-three years\nthat the Potsdam gang were preparing for their assault on the\nworld? How was the Holy Father manifesting his love of peace and\ngood will? He is, you understand, the \"sole, last, supreme judge\nof what is right and wrong,\" and his followers obey him with the\nutmost promptness and devotion--they express themselves as\n\"prostrate at his feet.\" And when the masters of Prussia came to\nhim and said: \"Give us the power to turn this nation into the\nworld's greatest military empire\"--what did the Roman Church\nanswer? Did it speak boldly for the gentle Jesus, and the cause\nof peace on earth and good-will towards men? No, it did not. To\nBismarck in Germany it said, precisely as it said to Mark Hanna\nin America: \"Give us honors and prestige; give us power over the\nminds of the young, so that we may plunder the poor and build our\ncathedrals and feed fat our greed; and in return we will furnish\nyou with votes, so that you may rule the state and do what you\nwill.\"\n\nYou think there is exaggeration in that statement? Why, we know\nthe very names of the prelates with whom the master-cynic of the\nJunkerthum made his \"deal.\" He had tried the method of the\nKultur-kampf, and had failed; but before he repealed the\nanti-Catholic laws, he made sure that the Church had learned its\nlesson, and would nevermore oppose the Prussian ruling caste. We\nknow how this bargain was carried out; we have the record of the\nCentrum, the Catholic party of Germany, whose hundred deputies\nwere the solid rock upon which the military regime of Prussia was\nerected. Not a battle-ship nor a Zeppelin was built for which the\nBlack Terror did not vote the funds; not a school-child was\nbeaten in Posen or Alsace that the New Inquisition did not shout\nits \"Hoch!\" The writer sat in the visitors' gallery of the\nReichstag when the Socialists were protesting against the\ntorturing of miserable Herreros in Africa, and he heard the\ndeputies of the Holy Father's political party screaming their\nrage like jaguars in a jungle night. All over Europe the Catholic\nChurch organized fake labor unions, the \"yellows,\" as they were\ncalled, to scab upon the workers and undermine the revolutionary\nmovement. The Holy Father himself issued precise instructions for\nthe management of these agencies of betrayal. Hear the most pious\nand benevolent Leo XIII:\n\n\"They must pay special and principal attention to piety and\nmorality, and their internal discipline must be directed\nprecisely by these considerations; otherwise they entirely lose\ntheir special character, and come to be very little better than\nthose societies which take no account of Religion at all.\"\n\nIt is so hard, you see, to keep a man thinking about piety and\nmorality while he is starving! I am quoting from the Encyclical\nLetter on \"The Condition of Labor,\" issued in 1891, and addressed\n\"to our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops\nand Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the\nApostolic See.\" The purpose of the letter is \"to refute false\nteaching,\" and the substance of its message is:\n\nThis great labor question cannot be solved except by assuming as\na principle that private property must be held sacred and\ninviolable.\n\nAnd again, the purpose of churches proclaimed in language as\nfrank as any used in the present book:\n\nThe chief thing to be secured is the safe-guarding, by legal\nenactment and policy, of private property. Most of all it is\nessential in these times of covetous greed, to keep the multitude\nwithin the line of duty; for if all may justly strive to benefit\ntheir condition, yet neither justice nor the common good allows\nany one to seize that which belongs to another, or, under the\npretext of futile and ridiculous equality, to lay hands on other\npeoples' fortunes.\n\nAnd this, you understand, in lands where rapine and conquest,\nclass-tyranny and priestly domination have been the custom since\nthe dawn of history; in which no property-right can possibly\ntrace back to any other basis than force. In Austria, for\nexample--Austria, the leader and guardian of the Holy\nAlliance--Austria, which had no Reformation, no Revolution, no\nKultur-kampf--Austria, in which the income of the Catholic\nPrimate is $625,000 a year! In other words, Austria is still to a\nlarge extent a \"Priestly Empire;\" and it was Austria which began\nthe war--began it in a religious quarrel, with a Slav people\nwhich does not acknowledge the Holy Father as the ruler of the\nworld, but persists in adhering to the Eastern Church. So of\ncourse to-day, when Austria is learning the bitter lesson that\nthey who draw the sword shall perish by the sword, the heart of\nthe Holy Father is wrung with grief, and he sends out these\neloquent peace-notes, written in Vienna and edited in Berlin. And\nat the same time his private chaplain is convicted and sentenced\nto prison for life as Austria's Master-Spy in Rome!\n\nIt is a curious thing to observe--the natural instinct which, all\nover the world, draws Superstition and Exploitation together.\nThis war, which is hailed as a war against autocracy, might\nalmost as accurately be described as a war against the clerical\nsystem. Wherever in the world you find the Papal power strong,\nthere you find sympathy with the Prussian infamy and there you\nfind German intrigue. In Spain, for example; in Ireland and\nQuebec, and in the Argentine. The treatment of Belgium was a\nlittle too raw--too many priests were shot at the outset, and so\nCardinal Mercier denounces the Germans; but you notice that he\npleads in vain with the Vatican, which stands firm by its beloved\nAustria, and against the godless kingdom of Italy. The Kaiser\nallows the hope of restoration of the temporal power at the peace\nsettlement; and meantime the law forbidding the presence of the\nJesuits in Germany has been repealed, and all over the world the\npropagandists of this order are working for the Kaiser. Sir Roger\nCasement was raised a Catholic, and so also \"Jim\" Larkin, the\nIrish labor-leader who is touring America denouncing the Allies.\nThe Catholic Bishop of Melbourne opposed and beat conscription in\nAustralia, and it was Catholic propaganda of treachery among the\nignorant peasant-soldiers from Sicily which caused the breaking\nof the Italian line at Tolmino. So deeply has this instinct\nworked that, in the fall of 1917 while the Socialist party in New\nYork was campaigning for immediate peace, the Catholic Irish\nsuddenly forgot their ancient horrors. The Catholic \"Freeman's\nJournal\" published nine articles favoring Socialism in a single\nissue; while even \"The Tablet,\" the diocesan paper, began to\ndiscover that the Socialists were not such bad fellows after all.\nThe same \"Tablet\" which a few years ago allowed Father Belford to\ndeclare that Socialists were mad dogs who should be \"stopped with\na bullet\"!\n\nNote to second edition: Since the above was written, the war\nfervor has swept America, including even the rank and file of the\nCatholics, and what has here been said might seem unfair to\npersons who have forgotten the attitude of the Church during the\nearly part of the conflict, and the struggle it cost to bring the\nhierarchy into line. It is one of the ironies of history that the\nmost reactionary organization in the world should be lending its\naid to the destruction of the second most reactionary. When the\nCatholic Church marches forth to war for Democracy, it is not\ndrawing America down into the pit, but is letting America pull it\nout of the pit--at least for a time, and the spectacle is one in\nwhich all lovers of progress will rejoice.\n\n\n\nBOOK FOUR\n\nThe Church of the Slavers\n\n See, underneath the Crown of Thorn,\n      The eye-balls fierce, the features grim!\n  And merrily from night to morn\n      We chaunt his praise and worship him--\nGreat Christus-Jingo, at whose feet\n  Christian and Jew and Atheist meet!\n\n A wondrous god! most fit for those\n      Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer;\n  Blood on his heavenly altar flows,\n      Hell's burning incense fills the air,\n  And Death attests in street and lane\n  The hideous glory of his reign.\n\n\nFace of Caesar\n\nThe thesis of this book is the effect of fixed dogma in producing\nmental paralysis, and the use of this mental paralysis by\nEconomic Exploitation. From that standpoint the various\nProtestant sects are better than the Catholic, but not much\nbetter. The Catholics stand upon Tradition, the Protestants upon\nan Inspired Word; but since this Word is the entire literary\nproduct, history and biography, science and legislation, poetry,\ndrama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand\nyears, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove\nanything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to\ndo. The \"Holy Book\" being full of polygamy, slavery, rape and\nwholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the\ndirect orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the\nProtestant Slavers to construct a Bible defense of their system.\n\nThey get poor Jesus because he was given to irony, that most\ndangerous form of utterance. If he could come back to life, and\nsee what men have done with his little joke about the face of\nCaesar on the Roman coin, I think he would drop dead. As for\nPaul, he was a Roman bureaucrat, with no nonsense in his make-up;\nwhen he ordered, \"Servants obey your masters,\" he meant exactly\nwhat he said. The Roman official stamp which he put upon the\ngospel of Jesus has been the salvation of the Slavers from the\nReformation on.\n\nIn the time of Martin Luther, the peasants of Germany were\nsuffering the most atrocious and awful misery; Luther himself\nknew about it, he had denounced the princely robbers and the\npriestly land-exploiters with that picturesque violence of which\nhe was a master. But nothing had been done about it, nothing ever\nis done about it--until at last the miserable peasants attempted\nto organize and win their own rights. Their demands do not seem\nto us so very criminal as we read them today; the privilege of\nelecting their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the\nright to hunt and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction\nof exorbitant rents, extra payment for extra labor, and--that\nuniversal cry of peasant communes whether in Russia, England,\nMexico or sixteenth century Germany--the restoration to the\nvillage of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear nothing of\nslaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge in the Pauline\nsociology: If they really wished to follow Christ, they would\ndrop the sword and resort to prayer; the gospel has to do with\nspiritual, not temporal, affairs; earthly society cannot exist\nwithout inequalities, etc.\n\nAnd when the peasants went on in spite of this, he turned upon\nthem and denounced them to the princes; he issued proclamations\nwhich might have been the instructions of Mr. John Wanamaker to\nthe police-force of his \"City of Brotherly Love\": \"One cannot\nanswer a rebel with reason, but the best answer is to hit him\nwith the fist until blood flows from the nose.\" He issued a\nletter: \"Against the Murderous and Thieving Mob of Peasants,\"\nwhich might have come from the Reverend Woelfkin, Fifth Avenue\nPastor of Standard Oil: \"The ass needs to be beaten, and the\npopulace needs to be controlled with a strong hand. God knew this\nwell, and therefore he gave the rulers, not a fox's tail, but a\nsword.\" He implored these rulers, after the fashion of Methodist\nChancellor Day of the University of Syracuse: \"Do not be troubled\nabout the severity of their repression, for it will save many\nsouls.\" With such pious exhortations in their ears the princes\nset to work, and slaughtered a hundred thousand of the miserable\nwretches; they completely aborted the social hopes of the\nReformation, and cast humanity into the pit of wage-slavery and\nmilitarism for four centuries. As a church scholar, Prof.\nRauschenbusch, puts it:\n\nThe glorious years of the Lutheran Reformation were from 1517 to\n1525, when the whole nation was in commotion, and a great\nrevolutionary tidal wave seemed to be sweeping every class and\nevery higher interest one step nearer to its ideal of life. . . .\nThe Lutheran Reformation had been most truly religious and\ncreative when it embraced the whole of human life and enlisted\nthe enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became\n\"religious\" in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny,\nquarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and noble\nlife.\n\n\nDeutschland ueber Alles\n\nAs a result of Luther's treason to humanity, his church became\nthe state church of Prussia, and Bible-worship and Devil-terror\nplayed their part, along with the Mass and the Confessional, in\nbuilding up the Junker dream. A court official--the\nOberhofprediger--was set up, and from that time on the\nHohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. Frederick\nthe Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer,\nbut he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said:\n\"If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in\nthe ranks.\" And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells\nwith jocular approval how he kept them from thinking:\n\nHe recognizes the uses of Religion; takes a good deal of pains\nwith his Preaching Clergy; will suggest texts to them; and for\nthe rest expects to be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and\nCorporals. Indeed, the reverend men feel themselves to be a body\nof Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals, and Captains, to whom\nobedience is the rule, and discontent a thing not to be indulged\nin by any means.\n\nSo the soldiers stayed in the ranks, and Frederick raided Silesia\nand Poland. His successors ordered all the Protestant sects into\none, so that they might be more easily controlled; from which\ntime the Lutheran Church has been a department of the Prussian\nstate, in some cases a branch of the municipal authority.\n\nIn 1848, when the people of various German states demanded their\nliberty, it was an ultra-pious king of Prussia who sent his\ntroops and shot them down--precisely as Luther had advised to\nshoot down the peasants. At this time the future maker of the\nGerman Empire rose in the Landtag and made his bow before the\nworld; a young Prussian land-magnate, Otto von Bismarck by name,\nhe shook his fist in the face of the new German liberalism, and\nincidentally of the new German infidelity:\n\nChristianity is the solid basis of Prussia; and no state erected\nupon any other foundation can permanently exist.\n\nThe present Hohenzollern has diligently maintained this tradition\nof his line. It was his custom to tour the Empire in a train of\nblue and white cars, carrying as many costumes as any stage\nfavorite, most of them military; with him on the train went the\nPrussian god, and there was scarcely a performance at which this\ngod did not appear, also in military costume. After the failure\nof the \"Kultur-kampf,\" the official Lutheran religion was ordered\nto make friends with its ancient enemy, the Catholic Church. Said\nthe Kaiser:\n\nI make no difference between the adherents of the Catholic and\nProtestant creeds. Let them both stand upon the foundation of\nChristianity, and they are both bound to be true citizens and\nobedient subjects. Then the German people will be the rock of\ngranite upon which our Lord God can build and complete his work\nof Kultur in the world.\n\nAnd here is the oath required of the Catholic clergy, upon their\nadmission to equality of trustworthiness with their Protestant\nconfreres:\n\nI will be submissive, faithful and obedient to his Royal\nMajesty,--and his lawful successors in the government,--as my\nmost gracious King and Sovereign; promote his welfare according\nto my ability; prevent injury and detriment to him; and\nparticularly endeavor carefully to cultivate in the minds of the\npeople under my care a sense of reverence and fidelity towards\nthe King, love for the Fatherland, obedience to the laws, and all\nthose virtues which in a Christian denote a good citizen; and I\nwill not suffer any man to teach or act in a contrary spirit. In\nparticular I vow that I will not support any society or\nassociation, either at home or abroad, which might endanger the\npublic security, and will inform His Majesty of any proposal\nmade, either in my diocese or elsewhere, which might prove\ninjurious to the State.\n\nAnd later on this heaven-guided ruler conceived the scheme of a\nBerlin-Bagdad railway, for which he needed one religion more; he\npaid a visit to Constantinople, and made another debut and\nproduced another god--with the result that millions of Turks are\nfighting under the belief that the Kaiser is a convert to the\nfaith of Mohammed!\n\n\nDer Tag.\n\nAll this was, of course, in preparation for the great event to\nwhich all good Germans looked forward--to which all German\nofficers drank their toasts at banquets--the Day.\n\nThis glorious day came, and the field-gray armies marched forth,\nand the Pauline-Lutheran God marched with them. The Kaiser, as\nusual, acted as spokesman:\n\nRemember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the\nGerman emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His sword,\nHis weapon and His viceregent. Woe to the disobedient and death\nto cowards and unbelievers.\n\nAs to the Prussian state religion, its attitude to the war is set\nforth in a little book written by a high clerical personage, the\nHerr Consistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, containing prayers and\nhymns for the soldiers, and for the congregations at home. Here\nis an appeal to the Lord God of Battles:\n\nThough the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death\nand tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful\nlong-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark.\nLead us not into the temptation of letting our wrath be too tame\nin carrying out Thy divine judgment. Deliver us and our ally from\nthe Infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine is the\nkingdom, the German land; may we, by the aid of Thy steel-clad\nhand, achieve the fame and the glory.\n\nIt is this Herr Consistorialrat who has perpetrated the great\nmasterpiece of humor of the war--the hymn in which he appeals to\nthat God who keeps guard over Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins.\nYou have to say over the German form of these words in order to\nget the effect of their delicious melody--\"Cherubinen,\nSeraphinen, Zeppelinen!\" And lest you think that this too-musical\nclergyman is a rara avis, turn to the little book which has been\npublished in English under the same title as Herr Vorwerk's\n\"Hurrah and Hallelujah.\" Here is the Reverend S. Lehmann:\n\nGermany is the center of God's plans for the world. Germany's\nfight against the whole world is in reality the battle of the\nspirit against the whole world's infamy, falsehood and devilish\ncunning.\n\nAnd here is Pastor K. Koenig:\n\nIt was God's will that we should win the war.\n\nAnd Pastor J. Rump:\n\nOur defeat would mean the defeat of His Son in humanity. We fight\nfor the cause of Jesus within mankind.\n\nAnd here is an eminent theological professor:\n\nThe deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is the\nGerman God. Not the national God such as the lower nations\nworship, but \"our God,\" who is not ashamed of belonging to us,\nthe peculiar acquirement of our heart.\n\n\nKing Cotton\n\nIt is a cheap way to gain applause in these days, to denounce the\nPrussian system; my only purpose is to show that Bible-worship,\nprecisely as saint-worship or totem-worship, delivers the\nworshipper up to the Slavers. This truth has held in America,\nprecisely as in Prussia. During the middle of the last century\nthere was fought out a mighty issue in our free republic; and\nwhat was the part played in this struggle by the Bible-cults?\nHear the testimony of William Lloyd Garrison: \"American\nChristianity is the main pillar of American slavery.\" Hear Parker\nPillsbury: \"We had almost to abolish the Church before we could\nreach the dreadful institution at all.\"\n\nIn the year 1818 the Presbyterian General Assembly, which\nrepresented the churches of the South as well as of the North,\npassed by a unanimous vote a resolution to the effect that\n\"Slavery is utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which\nrequires us to love our neighbor as ourselves.\" But in a\ngeneration the views of the entire South, including the\nPresbyterian Church, had changed entirely. What was the reason?\nHad the \"law of God\" been altered? Had some new \"revelation\" been\nhanded down? Nothing of the kind; it was merely that a Yankee by\nthe name of Eli Whitney had perfected a machine to take the seeds\nout of short staple cotton. The cotton crop of the South\nincreased from four thousand bales in 1791 to four hundred and\nfifty thousand in 1820 and five million, four hundred thousand in\n1860.\n\nThere was a new monarch, King Cotton, and his empire depended\nupon slaves. According to the custom of monarchs since the dawn\nof history, he hired the ministers of God to teach that what he\nwanted was right and holy. From one end of the South to the other\nthe pulpits rang with the text: \"Cursed be Canaan; a servant to\nservants shall he be to his brethren.\" The learned Bishop\nHopkins, in his \"Bible View of Slavery\", gave the standard\ninterpretation of this text:\n\nThe Almighty, forseeing the total degredation of the Negro race,\nordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of\nShem and Japheth, doubtless because he judged it to be their\nfittest condition.\n\nI might fill the balance of this volume with citations from\ndefenses of the \"peculiar institution\" in the name of Jesus\nChrist--and not only from the South, but from the North. For it\nmust be understood that leading families of Massachusetts and New\nYork owed their power to Slavery; their fathers had brought\nmolasses from New Orleans and made it into rum, and taken it to\nthe coast of Africa to be exchanged for slaves for the Southern\nplanters. And after this trade was outlawed, the slave-grown\ncotton had still to be shipped to the North and spun; so the\ntraders of the North must have divine sanction for the Fugitive\nSlave law. Here is the Bishop of Vermont declaring: \"The slavery\nof the negro race appears to me to be fully authorized both in\nthe Old and New Testaments.\" Here in the \"True Presbyterian\", of\nNew York, giving the decision of a clerical man of the world:\n\"There is no debasement in it. It might have existed in Paradise,\nand it may continue through the Millenium.\"\n\nAnd when the slave-holding oligarchy of the South rose in arms\nagainst those who presumed to interfere with this divine\ninstitution, the men of God of the South called down blessings\nupon their armies in words which, with the proper change of\nnames, might have been spoken in Berlin in August, 1914. Thus Dr.\nThornwell, one of the leading Presbyterian divines of the South:\n\"The triumph of Lincoln's principles is the death-knell of\nslavery...... Let us crush the serpent in the egg.\" And the\nReverend Dr. Smythe of Charleston: \"The war is a war against\nslavery, and is therefore treasonable rebellion against the Word,\nProvidence and Government of God.\" I read in the papers, as I am\nwriting, how the clergy of Germany are thundering against\nPresident Wilson's declaration that that country must become\ndemocratic. Here is a manifesto of the German Evangelical League,\nmade public on the four hundredth anniversary of the Reformation:\n\nWe especially warn against the heresy, promulgated from America,\nthat Christianity enjoins democratic institutions, and that they\nare an essential condition of the kingdom of God on earth.\n\nIn exactly the same way the religious bodies of the entire South\nunited in an address to Christians throughout the world, early in\nthe year 1863:\n\nThe recent proclamation of the President of the United States,\nseeking the emancipation of the slaves of the South, is in our\njudgment occasion of solemn protest on the part of the people of\nGod.\n\n\nWitches and Women\n\nTo whatever part of the world you travel, to whatever page of\nhistory you turn, you find the endowed and established clergy\nusing the word of God in defense of whatever form of\nslave-driving may then be popular and profitable. Two or three\nhundred years ago it was the custom of Protestant divines in\nEngland and America to burn poor old women as witches; only a\nhundred and fifty years ago we find John Wesley, founder of\nMethodism, declaring that \"the giving up of witchcraft is in\neffect the giving up of the Bible.\" And if you investigate this\nwitch-burning, you will find that it is only one aspect of a blot\nupon civilization, the Christian Mysogyny. You see, there were\ntwo Hebrew legends--one that woman was made out of a man's rib,\nand the other that she ate an apple; therefore in modern England\na wife must be content with a legal status lower than a domestic\nservant.\n\nPerhaps the most comical of the clerical claims is this--that\nChristianity has promoted chivalry and respect for womanhood. In\nancient Greece and Rome the woman was the equal and helpmate of\nman; we read in Tacitus about the splendid women of the Germans,\nwho took part in public councils, and even fought in battles. Two\nthousand years before the Christian era we are told by Maspero\nthat the Egyptian woman was the mistress of her house; she could\ninherit equally with her brothers, and had full control of her\nproperty. We are told by Paturet that she was \"juridically the\nequal of man, having the same rights and being treated in the\nsame fashion.\" But in present-day England, under the common law,\nwoman can hold no office of trust or power, and her husband has\nthe sole custody of her person, and of her children while minors.\nHe can steal her children, rob her of her clothing, and beat her\nwith a stick provided it is no thicker than his thumb. While I\nwas in London the highest court handed down a decision on the law\nwhich does not permit a woman to divorce her husband for\ninfidelity, unless it has been accompanied by cruelty; a man had\nbrought his mistress into his home and--compelled his wife to\nwork for and wait upon her, and the decision was that this was\nnot cruelty in the meaning of the law!\n\nAnd if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do\nwith religion--that ancient Hebrew fables do not control modern\nEnglish customs--then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching\nat St. Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why\nwomen must cover their heads in church:\n\n(1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve.\n\n(2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the\nwoman of the man.\n\n(3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the\nwoman, but the woman for the man.\n\n(4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the glory of\nGod, but woman is the glory of man.\n\n(5) Woman's priority in the fall. Adam was not deceived; but the\nwoman, being deceived, was in the transgression.\n\n(6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ, so\nlet the wives be to their husbands.\n\n(7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is\nChrist, but the head of the woman is man.\n\nI say there is no modern evil which cannot be justified by these\nancient texts; and there is nowhere in Christendom a clergy which\ncannot be persuaded to cite them at the demand of ruling classes.\nIn the city where I write, three clergymen are being sent to jail\nfor six months for protesting against the use of the name of\nJesus in the wholesale slaughter of men. Now, I am backing this\nwar. I know that it has to be fought, and I want to see it fought\nas hard as possible; but I want to leave Jesus out of it, for I\nknow that Jesus did not believe in war, and never could have been\nbrought to support a war. I object to clerical cant on the\nsubject; and I note that an eminent theological authority,\n\"Billy\" Sunday, appears to agree with me; for I find him on the\nfront page of my morning paper, assailing the three pacifist\nclergymen, and making his appeal not to Jesus, but to the\nblood-thirsty tribal diety of the ancient Hebrews:\n\nI suppose they think they know more than God Almighty, who\ncommanded the sun to stand still while Joshua won the battle for\nthe Lord; more than the God who made Samson strong so he could\nslay thousands of his nation's enemies in a righteous cause.\n\nRight you are, Billy! And if the capitalist system continues to\ndevelop unchecked, we shall some day see it dawn upon the masters\nof the world how wasteful it is to permit the superannuated\nworkers to perish by slow starvation. So much more sensible to\nmake use of them! So we shall have a Bible defense of\ncannibalism; we shall hear our evangelists quoting Leviticus:\n\"They shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters.\" Or\nperhaps some of our leisure-class ladies might make the discovery\nthat the flesh of working-class babies is relished by pomeranians\nand poodles. If so, the Billy Sundays of the twenty-first century\nmay discover the text: \"Happy shall be he that taketh and dasheth\nthy little ones against the stones.\"\n\n\nMoth and Rust\n\nIt is especially interesting to notice what happens when the\nBible texts work against the interests of the Slavers and their\nclerical retainers. Then they are null and void--and no matter\nhow precise and explicit and unmistakable they may be! Take for\nexample the Sabbath injunction: \"Six days shalt thou labor and do\nall that thou hast to do.\" Karl Marx records of the pious England\nof his time that\n\nOccasionally in rural districts a day-labourer is condemned to\nimprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath by working in his front\ngarden. The same labourer is punished for breach of contract if\nhe remains away from his metal, paper or glass works on the\nSunday, even if it be from a religious whim. The orthodox\nParliament will hear nothing of Sabbath-breaking if it occurs in\nthe process of expanding capital.\n\nOr consider the attitude of the Church in the matter of usury.\nThroughout ancient Hebrew history the money-lender was an\noutcast; both the law and the prophets denounced him without\nmercy, and it was made perfectly clear that what was meant was,\nnot the taking of high interest, but the taking of any interest\nwhatsoever. The early church fathers were explicit, and the\nCatholic Church for a thousand years consigned money-lenders\nunhesitatingly to hell. But then came the modern commercial\nsystem, and the money-lenders became the masters of the world!\nThere is no more amusing illustration of the perversion of human\nthought than the efforts of the Jesuit casuists to escape from\nthe dilemma into which their Heavenly Guides had trapped them.\n\nHere, for example is Alphonso Ligouri, a Spanish Jesuit of the\neighteenth century, a doctor of the Church, now worshipped as St.\nAlphonsus, presenting a long and elaborate theory of \"mental\nusury\"; concluding that, if the borrower pay interest of his own\nfree will, the lender may keep it. In answer to the question\nwhether the lender may keep what the borrower pays, not out of\ngratitude, but out of fear that otherwise loans will be refused\nto him in future, Ligouri says that \"to be usury, it must be paid\nby reason of a contract, or as justly due; payment by reason of\nsuch a fear does not cause interest to be paid as an actual\nprice,\" Again the great saint and doctor tells us that \"it is not\nusury to exact something in return for the danger and expense of\nregaining the principal!\" Could the house of J. P. Morgan and\nCompany ask more of their ecclesiastical department?\n\nThe reader may think that such sophistications are now out of\ndate; but he will find precisely the same knavery in the efforts\nof present-day Slavers to fit Jesus Christ into the system of\ncompetitive commercialism. Jesus, as we have pointed out, was a\ncarpenter's son, a thoroughly class-conscious proletarian. He\ndenounced the exploiters of his own time with ferocious\nbitterness, he drove the money-changers out of the temple with\nwhips, and he finally died the death of a common criminal. If he\nhad forseen the whole modern cycle of capitalism and\nwage-slavery, he could hardly have been more precise in his\nexortations to his followers to stand apart from it. But did all\nthis avail him? Not in the least!\n\nI place upon the witness-stand an exponent of Bible-Christianity\nwhom all readers of our newspapers know well: a scholar of\nlearning, a publicist of renown; once pastor of the most famous\nchurch in Brooklyn; now editor of our most influential religious\nweekly; a liberal both in theology and politics; a modernist, an\nadvocate of what he calls industrial democracy. His name is Lyman\nAbbott, and he is writing under his own signature in his own\nmagazine, his subject being \"The Ethical Teachings of Jesus\".\nSeveral times I have tried to persuade people that the words I am\nabout to quote were actually written and published by this\neminent doctor of divinity, and people have almost refused to\nbelieve me. Therefore I specify that the article may be found in\nthe \"Outlook\", the bound volumes of which are in all large\nlibraries: volume 94, page 576. The words are as follows, the\nbold face being Dr. Abbott's, not mine:\n\nMy radical friend declares that the teachings of Jesus are not\npracticable, that we cannot carry them out in life, and that we\ndo not pretend to do so. Jesus, he reminds us, said, 'Lay not up\nfor yourself treasures upon earth;' and Christians do universally\nlay up for themselves treasures upon earth; every man that owns a\nhouse and lot, or a share of stock in a corporation, or a life\ninsurance policy, or money in a savings bank, has laid up for\nhimself treasure upon earth. But Jesus did not say, \"Lay not up\nfor yourselves treasures upon earth.\" He said, \"Lay not up for\nyourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt\nand where thieves break through and steal.\" And no sensible\nAmerican does. Moth and rust do not get at Mr. Rockefeller's oil\nwells, nor at the Sugar Trust's sugar, and thieves do not often\nbreak through and steal a railway or an insurance company or a\nsavings bank. What Jesus condemned was hoarding wealth.\n\nStrange as it may sound to some of the readers of this book, I\ncount myself among the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. His\nexample has meant more to me than that of any other man, and all\nthe experiences of my revolutionary life have brought me nearer\nto him. Living in the great Metropolis of Mammon, I have felt the\npower of Privilege, its scourge upon my back, its crown of thorns\nupon my head. When I read that article in the \"Outlook\", I felt\njust as Jesus himself would have felt; and I sat down and wrote a\nletter--\n\nTo Lyman Abbott\n\nThis discovery of a new method of interpreting the Bible is one\nof such very great interest and importance that I cannot forbear\nto ask space to comment upon it. May I suggest that Dr. Abbott\nelaborate this exceedingly fruitful idea, and write us another\narticle upon the extent to which the teachings of the Inspired\nWord are modified by modern conditions, by the progress of\ninvention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr.\nAbbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I\nhad therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of\nJesus on the question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical\nfriends who are still laboring under error.\n\nJesus goes on to bid his hearers: \"Consider the lilies of the\nfield, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.\" What\nan apt simile is this for the \"great mass of American wealth,\" in\nDr. Abbott's portrayal of it! \"It is serving the community,\" he\ntells us; \"it is building a railway to open a new country to\nsettlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway to carry\ngrain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions of the\nEast,\" etc. Incidentally, it is piling up dividends for its pious\nowners; and so everybody is happy--and Jesus, if he should come\nback to earth, could never know that he had left the abodes of\nbliss above.\n\nTruly, there should be a new school of Bible interpretation\nfounded upon this brilliant idea. Jesus says, \"Therefore when\nthou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the\nhypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may\nhave glory of men.\" Verily not; for of what avail are trumpets,\ncompared with the millions of copies of newspapers which daily go\nforth to tell of Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions? How transitory\nare they, compared with the graven marble or granite which Mr.\nCarnegie sets upon the front of each of his libraries!\n\nThere is the paragraph, \"Neither shalt thou swear by thy head,\nbecause thou canst not make one hair white or black.\" I have\nseveral among my friends who are Quakers; presumably Dr. Abbott\nhas also; and he should not fail to point out to them the changes\nwhich scientific discovery has wrought in the significance of\nthis command against swearing. We can now make our hair either\nwhite or black, or a combination of both. We can make it a\nbrilliant peroxide golden; we could, if pushed to an extreme,\nmake it purple or green. So we are clearly entitled to swear all\nwe please by our head.\n\nNor should we forget to examine other portions of the Bible\naccording to this method. \"Look not upon the wine when it is\nred,\" we are told. Thanks to the activities of that Capitalism\nwhich Dr. Abbott praises so eloquently, we now make our beverages\nin the chemical laboratory, and their color is a matter of\nchoice. Also, it should be pointed out that we have a number of\npleasant drinks which are not wine at all--\"high-balls\" and \"gin\nrickeys\" and \"peppered punches\"; also vermouthe and creme de\nmenthe and absinthe, which I believe, are green in hue, and\ntherefore entirely safe.\n\nThen there are the Ten Commandments. \"Thou shalt not make unto\nthee any graven image.\" See how completely our understanding of\nthis command is changed, so soon as we realize that we are free\nto make images of molten metal! And that we may with impunity bow\ndown to them and worship them and serve them--even, for instance,\na Golden Calf!\n\n\"The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou\nshalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy\nmanservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the\nstranger that is within thy gates.\" This, again, it will be\nnoted, is open to new interpretations. It specifies maidservants,\nbut does not prevent one's employing as many married women as he\npleases. It also says nothing about the various kinds of\nlabor-saving machinery which we have now taught to work for\nus--sail-boats, naptha launches, yachts, automobiles, and private\ncars--all of which may be busily occupied during the seventh day\nof the week. The men who run these machines--the guides, boatmen,\nstokers, pilots, chauffeurs, and engineers--would all indignantly\nresent being regarded as \"servants\", and so they do not come\nunder the prohibition any more than the machines.\n\n\"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet\nthy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor\nhis ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.\" I read\nthis paragraph over for the first time in quite a while, and I\ncame with a jolt to its last words. I had been intending to point\nout that it said nothing about a neighbor's automobile, nor a\nneighbor's oil wells, sugar trusts, insurance companies and\nsavings banks. The last words, however, stop one off abruptly.\nOne is almost tempted to imagine that the Divine Intelligence\nmust have foreseen Dr. Abbott's ingenious method of\ninterpretation, and taken this precaution against him. And this\nwas a great surprise to me--for, truly, I had not supposed it\npossible that such an interpretation could have been foreseen,\neven by Omniscience itself. I will conclude this communication by\nventuring the assertion that it could not have been foreseen by\nany other person or thing, in the heavens above, on the earth\nbeneath, or the waters under the earth. Dr. Abbott may accept my\ncongratulations upon having achieved the most ingenious and\nmasterful exhibition of casuistical legerdemain that it has ever\nbeen my fortune to encounter in my readings in the literatures of\nsome thirty centuries and seven different languages.\n\nAnd I will also add that I respectfully challenge Dr. Abbott to\npublish this letter. And I announce to him in advance that if he\nrefuses to publish it, I will cause it to be published upon the\nfirst page of the \"Appeal to Reason\", where it will be read by\nsome five hundred thousand Socialists, and by them set before\nseveral million followers of Jesus Christ, the world's first and\ngreatest revolutionist, whom Dr. Lyman Abbott has traduced and\nbetrayed by the most amazing piece of theological knavery that it\nhas ever been my fortune to encounter.\n\n\nThe Octopus\n\nDr. Lyman Abbott published this letter! In his editorial comment\nthereon he said that he did not know which of two biblical\ninjunctions to follow: \"Answer not a fool according to his folly,\nlest thou be thought like unto him\"; or \"Answer a fool according\nto his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit\". I replied by\npointing out a third text which the Reverend Doctor had possibly\noverlooked: \"He that calleth his neighbor a fool shall be in\ndanger of hell-fire.\" But the Reverend Doctor took refuge in his\ndignity, and I bided my time and waited for that revenge which\ncomes sooner or later to us muck-rakers. In this case it came\nspeedily. The story is such a perfect illustration of the\nfunctions of religion as oil to the machinery of graft that I ask\nthe reader's permission to recite it at length.\n\nFor a couple of decades the political and financial life of New\nEngland has been dominated by a gigantic aggregation of capital,\nthe New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It is a \"Morgan\"\nconcern; its popular name, \"The New Haven\", stands for all the\nrailroads of six states, nearly all the trolley-lines and\nsteamship-lines, and a group of the most powerful banks of Boston\nand New York. It is controlled by a little group of insiders, who\nfollowed the custom of rail-road-wrecking familiar to students of\nAmerican industrial life: buying up new lines, capitalizing them\nat fabulous sums, and unloading them on the investing public;\npaying dividends out of capital, \"passing\" dividends as a means\nof stock manipulation, accumulating surpluses and cutting\n\"melons\" for the insiders, while at the same time crushing labor\nunions, squeezing wages, and permitting rolling-stock and\nequipment to go to wreck.\n\nAll these facts were perfectly well known in Wall Street, and\ncould not have escaped the knowledge of any magazine editor\ndealing with current events. In eight years the \"New Haven\" had\nincreased its capitalization 1501 per cent; and what that meant,\nany office boy in \"the Street\" could have told. What attitude\nshould a magazine editor take to the matter?\n\nAt that time there were still two or three free magazines in\nAmerica. One of them was Hampton's, and the story of its wrecking\nby the New Haven criminals will some day serve in school\ntext-books as the classic illustration of that financial piracy\nwhich brought on the American social revolution. Ben Hampton had\nbought the old derelict \"Broadway Magazine\", with twelve thousand\nsubscribers, and in four years, by the simple process of straight\ntruth-telling, had built up for it a circulation of 440,000. In\ntwo years more he would have had a million; but in May, 1911, he\nannounced a series of articles dealing with the New Haven\nmanagement.\n\nThe articles, written by Charles Edward Russell, were so exact\nthat they read today like the reports of the Interstate Commerce\nCommission, dated three years later. A representative of the New\nHaven called upon the editor of Hampton's with a proof of the\nfirst article--obtained from the printer by bribery--and was\ninvited to specify the statements to which he took exception; in\nthe presence of witnesses he went over the article line by line,\nand specified two minor errors, which were at once corrected. At\nthe end of the conference he announced that if the articles were\npublished, Hampton's Magazine would be \"on the rocks in ninety\ndays.\"\n\nWhich threat was carried out to the letter. First came a campaign\namong the advertisers of the magazine, which lost an income of\nthousands of dollars a month, almost over night. And then came a\ncampaign among the banks--the magazine could not get credit.\nAnyone familiar with the publishing business will understand that\na magazine which is growing rapidly has to have advances to meet\neach month's business. Hampton undertook to raise the money by\nselling stock; whereupon a spy was introduced into his office as\nbookkeeper, his list of subscribers was stolen, and a campaign\nwas begun to destroy their confidence.\n\nIt happened that I was in Hampton's office in the summer of 1911,\nwhen the crisis came. Money had to be had to pay for a huge new\nedition; and upon a property worth two millions of dollars, with\nendorsements worth as much again, it was impossible to borrow\nthirty thousand dollars in the city of New York. Bankers,\npersonal friends of the publisher, stated quite openly that word\nhad gone out that any one who loaned money to him would be\n\"broken\". I myself sent telegrams to everyone I knew who might by\nany chance be able to help; but there was no help, and Hampton\nretired without a dollar to his name, and the magazine was sold\nunder the hammer to a concern which immediately wrecked it and\ndiscontinued publication.\n\n\nThe Industrial Shelley\n\nSuch was the fate of an editor who opposed the \"New Haven\". And\nnow, what of those editors who supported it? Turn to \"The\nOutlook, a Weekly Journal of Current Events,\" edited by Lyman\nAbbott--the issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years\nafter Christ came down to bring peace on earth and good-will\ntoward Wall Street. You will there find an article by Sylvester\nBaxter entitled \"The Upbuilding of a Great Railroad.\" It is the\nfamiliar \"slush\" article which we professional writers learn to\nknow at a glance. \"Prodigious\", Mr. Baxter tells us, has been the\nprogress of the New Haven; this was \"a masterstroke\", that was\n\"characteristically sagacious\". The road had made \"prodigious\nexpenditures\", and to a noble end: \"Transportation efficiency\nepitomizes the broad aim that animated these expenditures and\nother constructive activities.\" There are photographs of bridges\nand stations--\"vast terminal improvements\", \"a masterpiece of\nmodern engineering\", \"the highest, greatest and most\narchitectural of bridges\". Of the official under whom these\nmiracles were being wrought--President Mellen--we read:\n\"Nervously organized, of delicate sensibility, impulsive in\nutterance, yet with an extraordinarily convincing power for\nvividly logical presentation.\" An industrial Shelley, or a\nMilton, you perceive; and all this prodigious genius poured out\nfor the general welfare! \"To study out the sort of transportation\nservice best adapted to these ends, and then to provide it in the\nmost efficient form possible, that is the life-task that\nPresident Mellen has set himself.\"\n\nThere was no less than sixteen pages of these raptures--quite a\nsection of a small magazine like the \"Outlook\". \"The New Haven\nramifies to every spot where industry flourishes, where business\nthrives.\" \"As a purveyor of transportation it supplies the public\nwith just the sort desired.\" \"Here we have the new efficiency in\na nutshell.\" In short, here we have what Dr. Lyman Abbott means\nwhen he glorifies \"the great mass of American wealth\". \"It is\nserving the community; it is building a railway to open a new\ncountry to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway\nto carry grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed\nmillions of the East,\" etc. The unfed millions--my typewriter\nstarted to write \"underfed millions\"--are humbly grateful for\nthese services, and hasten to buy copies of the pious weekly\nwhich tells about them.\n\nThe \"Outlook\" runs a column of \"current events\" in which it tells\nwhat is happening in the world; and sometimes it is compelled to\ntell of happenings against the interests of \"the great mass of\nAmerican wealth\". The cynical reader will find amusement in\nfollowing its narrative of the affairs of the New Haven during\nthe five years subsequent to the publication of the Baxter\narticle.\n\nFirst came the collapse of the road's service; a series of\naccidents so frightful that they roused even clergymen and\nchambers of commerce to protest. A number of the \"Outlook's\"\nsubscribers are New Haven \"commuters\", and the magazine could not\nfail to refer to their troubles. In the issue of Jan. 4th, 1913,\nthree years and ten days after the Baxter rhapsody, we read:\n\nThe most numerous accidents on a single road since the last\nfiscal year have been, we believe, those on the New Haven. In the\nopinion of the Connecticut Commission, the Westport wreck would\nnot have occurred if the railway company had followed the\nrecommendation of the Chief Inspector of Safety Appliances of the\nInterstate Commerce Commission in its report on a similar\naccident at Bridgeport a year ago.\n\nAnd by June 28th, matters had gone farther yet; we find the\n\"Outlook\" reporting:\n\nWithin a few hours of the collision at Stamford, the wrecked\nPullman car was taken away and burned. Is this criminal\ndestruction of evidence?\n\nThis collapse of the railroad service started a clamor for\ninvestigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of\ncourse brought terror to the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec.\n20, 1913, we find the \"Outlook\" \"putting the soft pedal\" on the\npublic indignation. \"It must not be forgotten that such a road as\nthe New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a National possession,\nand as it goes down or up, public interests go down or up with\nit,\" But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate\nCommerce Commission yielded to the public clamor, and an\ninvestigation was made--revealing such conditions of rottenness\nas to shock even the clerical retainers of Privilege. \"Securities\nwere inflated, debt was heaped upon debt\", reports the horrified\n\"Outlook\"; and when its hero, Mr. Mellen--its industrial Shelley,\n\"nervously organized, of delicate sensibility\"--admitted that he\nhad no authority as to the finances of the road and no\nunderstanding of them, but had taken all his orders from Morgan,\nthe \"Outlook\" remarks, deeply wounded: \"A pitiable position for\nthe president of a great railway to assume.\" A little later, when\nthings got hotter yet, we read:\n\nIn the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many\nobstacles, such as the burning of books, letters and documents,\nand the obstinacy of witnesses, who declined to testify until\ncriminal proceedings were begun. The New Haven system has more\nthan three hundred subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling\nalliances, many of which were seemingly planned, created and\nmanipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of\nconcealment or deception.\n\nBut do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of\ntheir offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious\nstomach. A compromise was patched up between the government and\nthe thieves who were too big to be prosecuted; this bargain was\nnot kept by the thieves, and President Wilson declared in a\npublic statement that the New Haven administration had \"broken an\nagreement deliberately and solemnly entered into,\" in a manner to\nthe President \"inexplicable and entirely without justification.\"\nWhich, of course, seemed to the \"Outlook\" dreadfully impolite\nlanguage to be used concerning a \"National possession\"; it\nhastened to rebuke President Wilson, whose statement was \"too\nsevere and drastic.\"\n\nA new compromise was made between the government and the thieves\nwho were too big to be prosecuted, and the stealing went on. Now,\nas I work over this book, the President takes the railroads for\nwar use, and reads to Congress a message proposing that the\nsecurities based upon the New Haven swindles, together with all\nthe mass of other railroad swindles, shall be sanctified and\nsecured by dividends paid out of the Public purse. New Haven\nsecurities take a big jump; and the \"Outlook\", needless to say,\nis enthusiastic for the President's policy. Here is a chance for\nthe big thieves to baptize themselves--or shall we say to have\nthe water in their stocks made \"holy\"? Says our pious editor, for\nthe government to take property without full compensation \"would\nbe contrary to the whole spirit of America.\"\n\n\nThe Outlook for Graft\n\nAnyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such\ncrooked work as this, continued over a long period, is not done\nfor nothing. Any magazine writer would know, the instant he saw\nthe Baxter article, that Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and\nthat the \"Outlook\" also was paid by the New Haven. Generally he\nhas no way of proving such facts, and has to sit in silence; but\nwhen his board bill falls due and his landlady is persistent, he\nexperiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of\njournalism who thrive at his expense. If he is a Socialist, he\nlooks forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications' Graft\nCommission, with access to all magazine books which have not yet\nbeen burned!\n\nIn the case of the New Haven, we know a part of the price--thanks\nto the labors of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Needless to\nsay, you will not find the facts recorded in the columns of the\nOutlook; you might have read it line by line from the palmy days\nof Mellen to our own, and you would have got no hint of what the\nCommission revealed about magazine and newspaper graft. Nor would\nyou have got much more from the great metropolitan dailies, which\nsystematically \"played down\" the expose, omitting all the really\ndamaging details. You would have to go to the reports of the\nCommission--or to the files of \"Pearson's Magazine\", which is out\nof print and not found in libraries!\n\nAccording to the New Haven's books, and by the admission of its\nown officials, the road was spending more than four hundred\nthousand dollars a year to influence newspapers and magazines in\nfavor of its policies. (President Mellen stated that this was\nrelatively less than any other railroad in the country was\nspending). There was a professor of the Harvard Law School, going\nabout lecturing to boards of trade, urging in the name of\neconomic science the repeal of laws against railroad\nmonopolies--and being paid for his speeches out of railroad\nfunds! There was a swarm of newspaper reporters, writing on\nrailroad affairs for the leading papers of New England, and\ngetting twenty-fivedollars weekly, or two or three hundred on\nspecial occasions. Sums had been paid directly to more than a\nthousand newspapers--$3,000 to the Boston \"Republic\", and when\nthe question was asked \"Why?\" the answer was, \"That is Mayor\nFitzgerald's paper.\" Even the ultra-respectable \"Evening\nTranscript\", organ of the Brahmins of culture, was down for $144\nfor typing, mimeographing and sending out \"dope\" to the country\npress. There was an item of $381 for 15,000 \"Prayers\"; and when\nasked about that President Mellen explained that it referred to a\npamphlet called \"Prayers from the Hills\", embodying the yearnings\nof the back-country people for trolley-franchises to be issued to\nthe New Haven. Asked why the pamphlet was called \"Prayers\", Mr.\nMellen explained that \"there was lots of biblical language in\nit.\"\n\nAnd now we come to the \"Outlook\"; after five years of waiting, we\ncatch our pious editors with the goods on them! There appears on\nthe pay-roll of the New Haven, as one of its regular\npress-agents, getting sums like $500 now and then--would you\nthink it possible?--Sylvester Baxter! And worse yet, there\nappears an item of $938.64 to the \"Outlook\", for a total of 9,716\ncopies of its issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years\nafter Christ came to bring peace on earth and good will towards\nWall Street!\n\nThe writer makes a specialty of fair play, even when dealing with\nthose who have never practiced it towards him. He wrote a letter\nto the editor of the \"Outlook\", asking what the magazine might\nhave to say upon this matter. The reply, signed by Lawrence F.\nAbbott, President of the \"Outlook\" Company, was that the\n\"Outlook\" did not know that Mr. Baxter had any salaried\nconnection with the New Haven, and that they had paid him for the\narticle at the usual rates. Against this statement must be set\none made under oath by the official of the New Haven who had the\ndisbursing of the corruption fund--that the various papers which\nused the railroad material paid nothing for it, and \"they all\nknew where it came from.\" Mr. Lawrence Abbott states that \"the\nNew Haven Railroad bought copies of the 'Outlook' without any\nprevious understanding or arrangement as anybody is entitled to\nbuy copies of the 'Outlook'.\" I might point out that this does\nnot really say as much as it seems to; for the President of every\nmagazine company in America knows without any previous\nunderstanding or arrangement that any time he cares to print an\narticle such as Mr. Baxter's, dealing with the affairs of a great\ncorporation, he can sell ten thousand copies to that corporation.\nThe late unlamented Elbert Hubbard wrote a defense of the\nRockefeller slaughter of coal-miners, published it in \"The Fra,\"\nand came down to New York and unloaded several tons at 26\nBroadway; he did the same thing in the case of the copper strike\nin Michigan, and again in the case of \"The Jungle\"--and all this\nwithout the slightest claim to divine inspiration or authority!\n\nMr. Abbott answers another question: \"We certainly did not return\nthe amount to the railroad company.\" Well, a sturdy conscience\nmust be a comfort to its possessor. The President of the\n\"Outlook\" is in the position of a pawnbroker caught with stolen\ngoods in his establishment. He had no idea they were stolen; and\nwe might believe it, if the thief were obscure. But when the\nthief is the most notorious in the city--when his picture has\nbeen in the paper a thousand times? And when the thief swears\nthat the broker knew him? And when the broker's shop is full of\nother suspicious goods? Why did the \"Outlook\" practically take\nback Mr. Spahr's revelations concerning the Powder barony of\nDelaware? Why did it support so vigorously the Standard Oil\nticket for the control of the Mutual Life Insurance Company--and\nwith James Stillman, one of the heads of Standard Oil, president\nof Standard Oil's big bank in New York, secretly one of its\nbiggest stockholders!\n\nAlso, why does the magazine refuse to give its readers a chance\nto judge its conduct? Why is it that a search of its columns\nreveals no mention of the revelations concerning Mr. Baxter--not\neven any mention of the $400,000 slush fund of its paragon, of\ntransportation virtues? I asked that question in my letter, and\nthe president of the \"Outlook\" Company for some reason failed to\nnotice it. I wrote a second time, courteously reminding him of\nthe omission; and also of another, equally significant--he had\nnot informed me whether any of the editors of the \"Outlook\", or\nthe officers or directors of the Company, were stockholders in\nthe New Haven. His final reply was that the questions seem to him\n\"wholly unimportant\"; he does not know whether the \"Outlook\"\npublished anything about the Baxter revelations, nor does he know\nwhether any of the editors or officers or directors of the\n\"Outlook\" Company are or ever have been stockholders of the New\nYork, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. The fact \"would\nnot in the slightest degree affect either favorably or\nunfavorably our editorial treatment of that corporation.\"\nCaesar's wife, it appears is above suspicion--even when she is\ncaught in a brothel!\n\n\nClerical Camouflage\n\nI have seen a photograph from \"Somewhere in France\", showing a\nwayside shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary, innocent and\nloving, with her babe in her arms. If you were a hostile aviator,\nyou might sail over and take pictures to your heart's content,\nand you would see nothing but a saintly image; you would have to\nbe on the enemy's side, and behind the lines, to make the\ndiscovery that under the image had been dug a hole for a\nmachine-gun. When I saw that picture, I thought to myself--there\nis capitalist Religion!\n\nYou see, if cannon and machine-guns are out in the open, they are\nalmost instantly spotted and put out of action; and so with\nmagazines like \"Leslie's Weekly\", or \"Munsey's\", or the \"North\nAmerican Review\", which are frankly and wholly in the interest of\nBig Business. If an editor wishes really to be effective in\nholding back progress, he must protect himself with a camouflage\nof piety and philanthropy, he must have at his tongue's end the\nphrases of brotherhood and justice, he must be liberal and\nprogressive, going a certain cautious distance with the\nreformers, indulging in carefully measured fair play--giving a\ndime with one hand, while taking back a dollar with the other!\n\nLet us have an illustration of this clerical camouflage. Here are\nthe wives and children of the Colorado coal-miners being shot and\nburned in their beds by Rockefeller gun-men, and the press of the\nentire country in a conspiracy of silence concerning the matter.\nIn the effort to break down this conspiracy, Bouck White,\nCongregational clergyman, author of \"The Call of the Carpenter\",\ngoes to the Fifth Avenue Church of Standard Oil and makes a\nprotest in the name of Jesus. I do not wish to make extreme\nstatements, but I have read history pretty thoroughly, and I\nreally do not know where in nineteen hundred years you can find\nan action more completely in the spirit and manner of Jesus than\nthat of Bouck White. The only difference was that whereas Jesus\ntook a real whip and lashed the money-changers, White politely\nasked the pastor to discuss with him the question whether or not\nJesus condemned the holding of wealth. He even took the\nprecaution to write a letter to the clergyman announcing in\nadvance what he intended to do! And how did the clergyman prepare\nfor him? With the sword of truth and the armor of the spirit?\nNo--but with two or three dozen strong-arm men, who flung\nthemselves upon the Socialist author and hurled him out of the\nchurch. So violent were they that several of White's friends,\nalso one or two casual spectators, were moved to protest; what\nhappened then, let us read in the New York \"Sun\", the most\nbitterly hostile to radicalism of all the metropolitan\nnewspapers. Says the \"Sun's\" report:\n\nA police billy came crunching against the bones of Lopez's legs.\nIt struck him as hard as a man could swing it eight times. A fist\nplanted on Lopez's jaw knocked out two teeth. His lip was torn\nopen. A blow in the eye made it swell and blacken instantly. A\nminute later Lopez was leaning against the church with blood\nrunning to the doorsill.\n\nAnd now, what has the clerical camouflage to say on this\nproceeding? Does it approve it? Oh no! It was \"a mistake\", the\n\"Outlook\" protests; it intensifies the hatred which these\nextremists feel for the church. The proper course would have been\nto turn the disturber aside with a soft answer; to give him some\nplace, say in a park, where he could talk his head off to people\nof his own sort, while good and decent Christians continued to\nworship by themselves in peace, and to have the children of their\nmine-slaves shot and burned in their beds. Says our pious editor:\n\nThe true way to repress cranks is not to suppress them; it is to\ngive them an opportunity to air their theories before any who\nwish to learn, while forbidding them to compel those to listen\nwho do not wish to do so.\n\nOr take another case. Twelve years ago the writer made an effort\nto interest the American people in the conditions of labor in\ntheir packing-plants. It happened that incidentally I gave some\nfacts about the bedevilment of the public's meat-supply, and the\npublic really did care about that. As I phrased it at the time, I\naimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the\nstomach. There was a terrible clamor, and Congress was forced to\npass a bill to remedy the evils. As a matter of fact this bill\nwas a farce, but the public was satisfied, and soon forgot the\nmatter entirely. The point to be noted here is that so far as\nconcerned the atrocious miseries of the working-people, it was\nnot necessary even to pretend to do anything. The slaves of\nPackingtown went on living and working as they were described as\ndoing in \"The Jungle\", and nobody gave a further thought to them.\nOnly the other day I read in my paper--while we are all making\nsacrifices in a \"War for Democracy\"--that Armour and Company had\npaid a dividend of twenty-one per cent, and Swift and Company a\ndividend of thirty-five per cent.\n\nThis prosperity they owe in good part to their clerical\ncamouflage. Listen to our pious \"Outlook\", engaged in\ncountermining \"The Jungle\". The \"Outlook\" has no doubt that there\nare genuine evils in the packing-plants; the conditions of the\nworkers ought of course to be improved; BUT--\n\nTo disgust the reader by dragging him through every conceivable\nhorror, physical and moral, to depict with lurid excitement and\nwith offensive minuteness the life in jail and brothel--all this\nis to overreach the object .... Even things actually terrible may\nbecome distorted when a writer screams them out in a sensational\nway and in a high pitched key...... More convincing if it were\nless hysterical.\n\nDon't you see what these clerical crooks are for?\n\n\nThe Jungle\n\nA four years' war was fought in America, a million men were\nkilled and half a continent was devastated, in order to abolish\nchattel slavery and put wage slavery in its place. I have made a\nthorough study of both these industrial systems, and I freely\nadmit that there is one respect in which the lot of the wage\nslave is better than that of the chattel slave. The wage slave is\nfree to think; and by squeezing a few drops of blood from his\nstarving body, he may possess himself of machinery for the\ndistribution of his ideas. Taking his chances of the policeman's\nclub and the jail, he may found revolutionary organizations, and\nso he has the candle of hope to light him to his death-bed. But\nexcepting this consideration, and taking the circumstances of the\nwage slave from the material point of view alone, I hold it\nbeyond question that the average lot of the chattel slave of 1860\nwas preferable to that of the modern slave of the Beef Trust, the\nSteel Trust, or the Coal Trust. It was the Southern master's real\nconcern, his business interest, that the chattel slave should be\nkept physically sound; but it is nobody's business to care\nanything about the wage slave. The children of the chattel slave\nwere valuable property, and so they got plenty to eat, and a\nhappy outdoor life, and medical attention if they fell ill. But\nthe children of the sweat-shop or the cotton-mill or the\ncanning-factory are raised in a city slum, and never know what it\nis to have enough to eat, never know a feeling of security or\nrest--\n\n We are weary in our cradles\n      From our mother's toil untold;\n  We are born to hoarded weariness\n      As some to hoarded gold.\n\nThe system of competitive commercialism, of large-scale\ncapitalist industry in its final flowering! I quote from \"The\nJungle\":\n\nHere in this city tonight, ten thousand women are shut up in foul\npens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. Tonight\nin Chicago there are ten thousand men, homeless and wretched,\nwilling to work and begging for a chance, yet starving, and\nfronting with terror the awful winter cold! Tonight in Chicago\nthere are a hundred thousand children wearing out their strength\nand blasting their lives in the effort to earn their bread! There\nare a hundred thousand mothers who are living in misery and\nsqualor, struggling to earn enough to feed their little ones!\nThere are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless,\nwaiting for death to take them from their torments! There are a\nmillion people, men and women and children, who share the curse\nof the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see,\nfor just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the\nend of their days to monotony and weariness, to hunger and\nmisery, to heat and cold, to dirt and disease, to ignorance and\ndrunkenness and vice! And then turn over the page with me, and\ngaze upon the other side of the picture. There are a\nthousand--ten thousand, maybe--who are the masters of these\nslaves, who own their toil. They do nothing to earn what they\nreceive, they do not even have to ask for it---it comes to them\nof itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in\npalaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance--such as no words\ncan describe, as makes the imagination reel and stagger, makes\nthe soul grow sick and faint. They spend hundreds of dollars for\na pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions\nfor horses and automobiles and yachts, for palaces and banquets,\nfor little shiny stones with which to deck their bodies. Their\nlife is a contest among themselves for supremacy in ostentation\nand recklessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary\nthings, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their\nfellow-creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat\nand tears and blood of the human race! It is all theirs--it comes\nto them; just as all the springs pour into streamlets, and the\nstreamlets into rivers, and the rivers into the ocean--so,\nautomatically and inevitably, all the wealth of society comes to\nthem. The farmer tills the soil, the miner digs in the earth, the\nweaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone, the clever man\ninvents, the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the\ninspired man sings--and all the results, the products of the\nlabor of brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous\nstream and poured into their laps!\n\nThis is the system. It is the crown and culmination of all the\nwrongs of the ages; and in proportion to the magnitude of its\nexploitation, is the hypocrisy and knavery of the clerical\ncamouflage which has been organized in its behalf. Beyond all\nquestion, the supreme irony of history is the use which has been\nmade of Jesus of Nazareth as the Head God of this blood-thirsty\nsystem; it is a cruelty beyond all language, a blasphemy beyond\nthe power of art to express. Read the man's words, furious as\nthose of any modern agitator that I have heard in twenty years of\nrevolutionary experience: \"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on\nearth!--Sell that ye have and give alms!--Blessed are ye poor,\nfor yours is the kingdom of Heaven!--Woe unto you that are rich,\nfor ye have received your consolation!--Verily, I say unto you,\nthat a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of\nHeaven!--Woe unto you also, you lawyers!--Ye serpents, ye\ngeneration of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?\"\n\n\"And this man\"--I quote from \"The Jungle\" again--\"they have made\ninto the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a\ndivine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern\ncommercial civilization! Jewelled images are made of him, sensual\npriests burn insense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring\ntheir dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and\nchildren, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats\nand listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty\ndivinity!\"\n\n\n\nBOOK FIVE\n\nThe Church of the Merchants\n\n               Mammon led them on--\n Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell\n  From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and\n      thoughts\n  Were always downward bent, admiring more\n  The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,\n  Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed\n  In vision beatific.....\n Let none admire\n  That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best\n  Deserve the precious bane.\n                 Milton.\n\nThe Head Merchant\n\nOurs is the era of commerce, as its propagandists never weary of\ntelling us. Business is the basis of our material lives, and\nconsequently of our culture. Business men control our politics\nand dictate our laws; business men own our newspapers and direct\ntheir policy; business men sit on our school boards, and endow\nand manage our universities. The Reformation was a revolt of the\nnewly-developing merchant classes against the tyrannies and\nabuses of feudal clericalism: so in all Protestant Christianity\none finds the spirit, ideals, and language of Trade. We have\nshown how the symbolism of the Anglican Church is of the palace\nand the throne; in the same way that of the non-conformist sects\nmay be shown to be of the counting-house. In the view of the\nmiddle-class Britisher, the nexus between man and man is cent per\ncent; and so in their Sunday services the worshippers sing such\nhymns as this:\n\n Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee,\n  Repaid a thousand fold shall be;\n  Then gladly will we give to Thee,\n           Who givest all.\n\nThe first duty of every man under the competitive system is to\nsecure the survival of his own business; so on the Sabbath, when\nhe comes to deal with eternity, he is practical and explicit:\n\n Nothing is worth a thought beneath\n  But how I may escape the death\n     That never, never dies;\n  How make mine own election sure,\n  And when I fail on earth secure\n      A mansion in the skies.\n\nJust as the priest of the aristocratic caste figures God as a\nmighty Conqueror--\n\n          Marching as to war\n  With the cross of Jesus\n           Going on before\n\nso the preacher to the trader figures the divinity as a glorified\nMerchant keeping books. This Head Merchant has a monopoly in His\nline; He knows all His rivals' secrets, so there is no getting\nahead of Him, and nothing to do but obey His Word, as revealed\nthrough His clerical staff. The system is oily with protestations\nof divine love; but when you read the comments of Luther upon\nCalvin and of Calvin upon Luther, you understand that this love\nis confined to the inside of each denomination. And even so\nrestricted, there is not always enough to go around. Recently I\nmet a Presbyterian clergyman, to whom I remarked, \"I see by the\npapers that you have just finished a church building.\" \"Yes,\" he\nanswered; \"and I have had three offers of a new church.\" I did\nnot see the connection, and asked, \"Because you were so\nsuccessful with this one?\" The reply was, \"They always take it\nfor granted that you want to change when you've finished a new\nbuilding, because you make so many enemies!\"\n\nThe business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts\nup the money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business\nman is that when he puts up the money for a thing he \"runs\" that\nthing. Of course he sees that it spreads his own views of life,\nit helps to maintain his tradition. In the days of Anu and Baal\nwe heard the proclamation of the divine right of Kings; in these\ndays of Mammon we hear the proclamation of the divine right of\nMerchants. Some fifteen years ago the head of our Coal Trust\nannounced during a great strike that the question would be\nsettled \"by the Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom\nhas given control of the property interests of this country\". And\non that declaration all pious merchants stand; whatever their\ndenominations, Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist,\nPresbyterian or Hebrew, their Sabbath doctrines are alike, as\ntheir week-day practices are alike; whether it is Rockefeller\nshooting his Bayonne oil-workers and burning alive the little\nchildren of his miners; or smooth John Wanamaker, paying\nstarvation wages to department-store girls and driving them to\nthe streets; or that clergyman who, at a gathering of society\nladies, members of the \"Law and Order League\" of Denver, declared\nin my hearing that if he could have his way he would blow up the\nhome of every coal-striker with dynamite; or the Rev. R. A.\nTorrey, Dean of the Bible institute of Los Angeles, who refused\nto employ union labor on the million dollar building of the\nInstitute, declaring that \"the Church cannot afford to have any\ndealings with a band of fire-bugs and murderers!\"\n\n\n\"Herr Beeble\"\n\nThe business of the Clerical Department of the Merchants' and\nManufacturers' Association is to justify the processes of trade,\nand to preach to clerks and employees the slave-virtues of\nfrugality, humility, and loyalty to the profit system. The depths\nof sociological depravity to which some of the agents of this\nAssociation have sunk is difficult of belief. Twelve years ago I\nwas invited to address the book-sellers of New York, in company\nwith a well-known clergyman of the city, the Reverend Madison C.\nPeters. This gentleman's address made such an impression upon me\nthat I recall it even at this distance: a string of jokes spoken\nwith an effect of rapid-fire smartness, and simply reeking with\ncommercialism. I could not describe it better than to say that it\nwas on the ethical level of the \"Letters of a Self-Made Merchant\nto His Son\". Again, I attended a debate on Socialism, in which\nthe capitalist end was taken by another famous clergyman, pastor\nof the Metropolitan Temple, the Rev. J. Wesley Hill. He was so\nignorant that when he wished to prove that Socialism means free\nlove, he quoted a writer by the name of \"Herr Beeble\"; he was so\ndishonest that he garbled the writings of this \"Herr Beeble\",\nmaking him say something quite different from what he had meant\nto say. I could name several clergymen of various denominations\nwho have stooped to that device against the Socialists; including\nthe Catholic Father Belford, who says that we are mad dogs and\nshould be stopped with bullets.\n\nOr consider the Reverend Thomas Dixon. This gentleman's\npulpit-slang used to be the talk of New York when I was a boy;\nand when I grew up, and came into the Socialist movement--behold,\nhere he was, chief inquisitor of the capitalist Holy Office. I\nhad a friend, a man who saved my life at a time when I was\npractically starving, and to whom therefore I owe my survival as\na writer; this friend had been a clergyman in a Middle Western\nstate, and had preached Jesus as he really was, and so was hated\nand feared like Jesus. It happened that he was unhappily married,\nand permitted his wife to divorce him so that he might marry the\nwoman he loved; for which unheard of crime the organized\nhypocrisy of America fell upon him like a thousand devils with\npoisoned whips. The Reverend Dixon's holy rage was fired; he\napplied his imagination to my friend's story, producing a novel\nunder the title of \"The One Woman\"; and it is as if you were\nreading the story of Jesus and the Magdalen transmitted through\nthe personality of a he-goat. Of late years this clerical author\nhas turned his energies to negrophobia, and militarism, making\nmillions out of motion-picture incitements to hatred and terror.\nThe pictures were made here in Southern California, and friends\nin the business have described to me the pious propagandist in\nthe position of St. Anthony surrounded by swarms of cute and\nplayful little movie-girls.\n\nOr take the Rev. James Roscoe Day, D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., D.\nC. L., L. H. D., a leading light of the Methodist Episcopal\nChurch, who offers himself as comic relief in our Clerical\nVaudeville. Dr. Day is Chancellor of Syracuse University, a\nbranch of the Mental Munitions Department of the Standard Oil\nCompany; his function being to manufacture intellectual weapons\nand explosives to be used in defense of the Rockefeller fortune.\nIt is generally not expected that the makers of ruling-class\nmunitions should face the dirty and perilous work of the\ntrenches; but ten years ago, during a raid by an active squad of\nmuckrake-men, Chancellor Day astonished the world by rushing to\nthe front with both arms full of star-shells and bombs. He\nafterwards put the history of this gallant action into a volume,\n\"The Raid on Prosperity\"; and if you want the real thrill of the\nclass-war, here is where to get it!\n\nThe Chancellor is a quaint and touching figure; an enthusiast and\ndreamer, idealist and martyr, in whom the ordinary human virtues\nhave been fused, absorbed, transformed and sublimated into a new\nsupreme virtue of loyalty to Exploitation, patriotism for\nProfiteering. He began life as a working-man, he tells us, in the\ngood old American fashion of hustle for yourself; but he differed\nfrom other Americans in that he had an instant, intuitive\nrecognition of the intellectual and moral excellence of\nPlutocracy. The first time he met a rich man, he quivered with\nrapture, he burst into a hymn of appreciation. So very quickly he\nwas recognized as a proper person to have charge of a Mental\nMunition Works; and the ruling classes proceeded to pin medals\nupon the bosom of his academic robes--D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D.,\nD. C. L., L. H. D.\n\nThe Chancellor knows the masters of our Profit System, those\n\"consummate geniuses of manufacture and trade by which the earth\nhas yielded up her infinite treasures.\" And having been at the\nsame time in intimate daily communion with the Almighty, he can\ntell us the Almighty's attitude towards these prodigies. \"God has\nmade the rich of this world to serve Him.... He has shown them a\nway to have this world's goods and to be rich towards God ....\nGod wants the rich men ....Christ's doctrines have made the world\nrich, and provide adequate uses for its riches.\" Also the\nChancellor knows our great corporations, and gives us the\nAlmighty's views about them; they mean that \"the forces with\nwhich God built the universe have been put into the hands of\nman.\" Likewise by divine authority we learn that \"the sympathy\ngiven to Socialism is appalling. It is insanity.\" We learn that\nthe income tax is \"a doctrine suited to the dark ages, only no\nage ever has been dark enough.\" Somebody raises the issue of\n\"tainted money\", and the Chancellor disposes of this matter also.\nAs a Deputy of Divinity, he settles it by Holy Writ: \"Paul\npermitted meat offered to idols to be eaten in the fear of God.\"\nAnd then, to make assurance doubly sure, he settles it with plain\nhuman logic; and you are astonished to see how simple, under his\nhandling, the complex problem becomes--how clear and clean-cut is\nthe distinction he draws for you:\n\nEvery boy knows that one cannot take stolen goods without being a\npartaker with the thief. But the proceeds of recognized business\nare quite a different thing.\n\n\n\nHoly Oil\n\nAnd here is Billy Sunday, most conspicuous phenomenon of\nProtestant Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth\ncentury. For the benefit of posterity I explain that \"Billy\" is a\nbaseball player turned Evangelist, who has brought to the cause\nof God the crowds and uproar of the diamond; also the commercial\nspirit of America's most popular institution. He travels like a\ncircus, with all the press-agent work and newspaper hurrah; he\nconducts what are called \"revivals\", in an enormous \"tabernacle\"\nbuilt especially for him in each city. I cannot better describe\nthe Billy Sunday circus than in the words of a certain Sidney C.\nTapp, who brought suit against the evangelist for $100,000\ndamages for the theft of the ideas of a book. Says Mr. Tapp in\nhis complaint:\n\nThe so-called religious awakening or \"trail-hitting\" is produced\nby an appeal to the emotions and in stirring up the senses by a\ncombination of carrying the United States flag in one hand and\nthe Bible in the other, singing, trumpeting, organ playing,\ngarrulous and acrobatic feats of defendant, by defendant in his\ntalk leaping from the rostrum to the top of the pulpit, lying\nprone on the floor of the rostrum on his stomach in the presence\nof the vast audience and from thence into a pit to shake hands\nwith the so-called \"trail-hitters\" and the vulgar use of\nplaintiff's thoughts contained in said books. Said harangues and\nvulgarisms of said defendant and horns, drums, organs and singing\nby said choir and vast audience which are assembled by means of\nsaid newspaper advertisements for the purpose of inducing a habit\nof free and copious flow of money through religious and patriotic\nexcitement produced by and through the vulgarisms, scurrility,\nbuffoonery, obscenity and profanity of defendant pretending to be\nin the interest of the cause of religion through what he\ndenominates \"hitting the trail\", the real object being to induce\na religious frenzy and enthusiasm which he announces in advance\nis to result in large audiences composed of thousands of people\ngenerously contributing vast sums of money on the last day and\nnight of the so-called revival which is invariably appropriated\nby the defendant and through which scheme and device defendant\nhas become enormously wealthy.\n\nAs I write, the evangelist is in Los Angeles, and twice each day\nhe holds forth to a crowd of ten or fifteen thousand; in addition\nthe newspapers print literally pages of his utterances. The\nentire Protestant clergy for a score of miles around has been\nhitched to his triumphal chariot, and driven captive through the\nstreets. Here in this dignified city of Pasadena, home of\nmillionaire brewers and chewing-gum kings, all the churches have\nbeen plastered for weeks with cloth signs: \"This Church is\nCooperating in the Sunday Campaign.\" To give a sample of the\nintellectual level of the performance, here is what Billy has to\nsay about modern thought:\n\nAll this blasphemy against God and Jesus Christ, all this\nsneering, highbrow, rotten, loathesome, higher criticism,\nwriggling its dirty, filthy, stinking carcass out of a beer-mug\nin Leipzig or Heidelberg!\n\nWhether willingly or reluctantly, the preachers sit upon the\nplatform and smile while Billy thus slangs the devil; and being\nthemselves, poor fellows, at their wits end to draw the crowd,\nthey watch and see how he does it, and then return to their own\nchurches and try the same stunt; so the manners of the baseball\ndiamond spread like a contagion. I open my morning paper, and\nfind a picture of an intense-looking clerical gentleman, the Rev.\nJ. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor of the Baptist Temple. He is\ndiscussing certain slanderous rumors which he has heard about\nBilly Sunday, and he offers ten thousand dollars reward to anyone\nwho can prove these things; though, as he says,\n\nThe dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained,\nimpure-hearted, shrivelled-souled, gossipping devils do not\ndeserve to be noticed..... Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers,\nreputation-destroyers, hypocritical, black-hearted, green-eyed\nslanderers..... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile debauches.....\nImmoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing, underhanded sneaks.....\nCarrion-loving buzzards and foul-smelling skunks.\n\nYou will be prepared after this to hear that when the Socialists\nwere near to carrying Los Angeles, this clergyman preached a\nsermon in support of the candidate of \"Booze, Gas and Railroads\".\n\nIn so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth\nof our streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could\nwish him anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his\nchildish crudity of mind, make it impossible that he could have\nany success except of a delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of\na social sense; utterly unaware of the existence of the forces of\ncapitalism which are causing depravity ten times as fast as all\nthe evangelists in creation can remedy it. So he is precisely\nlike the Catholics with their \"charity\", cleaning up loathsome\nand unsightly messes for a thousand years, and never stopping to\nask why such messes continue to come into existence.\n\nMore than that, I question whether the spirit of commercialism\nwhich he fosters does not help the development of evil more than\nhis preaching hinders it. The newspapers always report the cost\nof the tabernacle, of the \"free-will offering\", which amounts to\nhundreds of thousands of dollars in each \"campaign\", In each city\nthe expenses are guaranteed by men who are generally the most\nsinister exploiting forces of the community; they welcome and\nfete him, and he visits their homes, and is in every way one of\nthe crowd. After the big strike in Paterson, N. J., the\nemployers, Jews and Catholics included, all subscribed a fund to\nbring Billy Sunday to that city; and it was freely proclaimed\nthat the purpose was to undermine the radical union movement.\nThis was never denied by Sunday himself, and his whole campaign\nwas conducted on that basis.\n\nLater Billy came to New York, where he met a certain rich young\nman, perhaps a thousand times as rich as any that lived in\nPalestine. This young man came to Billy and said: \"What shall I\ndo to inherit eternal life?\" And Billy told him to keep the\ncommandments--\"Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal,\nDo not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother.\" The\nyoung man answered; \"All these have I kept from my youth up.\" And\nBilly said: \"Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast\nand distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in\nheaven; and come follow me.\" And when he heard this he was very\nsorrowful, for he was very rich.\n\n--No, I have got the story mixed up. That is what happened in\nPalestine. What happened in New York is that Billy said, \"I am\ndelighted to meet you, Mr. Rockefeller.\" And Mr. Rockefeller\nsaid, \"Come be my guest at my palace in the Pocantico Hills; and\nthen we will go together and you may preach submission to my\nwage-slaves in the oil-factories at Bayonne and elsewhere.\" And\nBilly went to the palace, and went and preached to the\nwage-slaves, telling them to beware the \"stinking Socialists\",\nand to concentrate their attention on the saving of their souls;\nso the rich young man was delighted, and he sent for all the\nnewspaper reporters to come to his office at 26 Broadway, and\ntold them what a great and useful man Billy Sunday is. As the New\nYork \"Times\" tells about it:\n\nMr. Rockefeller seldom gives interviews and certainly he has\nnever been charged with having an excess of verbally expressed\nenthusiasm on any subject. But he talked for an hour and a half\nabout the evangelist. He was full of the subject of Billy Sunday.\n\"Billy did New York a lot of good,\" he said. He went on to tell\nof 187 meetings held in 100 different factories, attended by\n50,000 men. \"That's good work.\" And he expressed his satisfaction\nwith Sunday's theology: \"He believes the Bible from cover to\ncover and that is good enough for me.\" The Sunday campaign had\ncost $200,000, and \"If it had stopped here, if it was not kept\nup, it would be poor business; a poor dividend on the $200,000\nand the work invested. But we expect to get dividends in the next\nyear.\"\n\nAgain you note the symbolism of the counting-house!\n\n\nRhetorical Black-hanging\n\nIt is the duty of the clergy, not merely to defend large-scale\nmerchants while they live, but to bury them when they die, and to\nplace the seal of sanctity upon their careers. Concerning this\naspect of Bootstrap-lifting I quote the opinion of an earnest\nhater of shams, William Makepeace Thackeray:\n\nI think the part which pulpits play in the death of kings is the\nmost ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the\nblinking of disagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the\nsimulated grief, the falsehood and sycophancies--all uttered in\nthe name of Heaven in our State churches: these monstrous\nThrenodies which have been sung from time immemorial over kings\nand queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State parson must\nbring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetorical\nblack-hanging......\n\nAnd this, of course, applies not merely to kings of England, but\nto kings of Steel, kings of Coal, kings of Oil, kings of Wall\nStreet. When a certain king of Western railroads died, a\nMethodist clergyman, afterwards Bishop, likened his heir to the\nboy Christ; a statement which requires for its appreciation a\nmention of the fact that this heir died of syphilis. In the year\n1904 there passed from his earthly reward in Pennsylvania a\nUnited States senator who had been throughout his lifetime a\nnotorious and unblushing corruptionist. Matthew Stanley Quay was\nhis name, and the New York \"Nation\", having no clerical\nconnections, was free to state the facts about him:\n\nHe bought the organization, bribed or intimidated the press, got\nhis grip on the public service, including even the courts;\nimposed his will on Congress and Cabinet, and upon the last three\nPresidents--making the latter provide for the offal of his\npolitical machine, which even Pennsylvania could no longer\nstomach--and all without identifying his name with a single\nmeasure of public good, without making a speech or uttering a\nparty watchword, without even pretending to be honest, but solely\nbecause, like Judas, he carried the bag and could buy whom he\nwould.\n\nSuch was the lay opinion; and now for the clerical. It was\nexpressed by a Presbyterian divine, the Reverend Dr. J. S.\nRamsey, who stood over the coffin of \"Matt\", and without cracking\na smile declared that he had been \"a statesman who was always on\nthe right side of every moral question!\"\n\nIn that same year of 1904 died the high priest of our political\ncorruption, Mark Hanna. He had belonged to no church, but had\nbacked them all, understanding the main thesis of this book as\nclearly as the writer of it. In his home city of Cleveland the\neulogy upon him was pronounced by Bishop Leonard, in St. Paul's\nEpiscopal Church; while in the United States Senate the service\nwas performed by the Chaplain, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. This\nis a name well-known in American letters, as in American\nreligious life; it was borne by a benevolent old gentleman, a\nUnitarian and a liberal, who organized \"Lend-a-Hand Clubs\" and\nsuch like amiabilities. \"Do You Love This Old Man?\" the signs in\nthe street-cars used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly\nanswered \"Yes\"--for my mother took the \"Ladies' Home Journal\",\nand I swallowed the sentimental dish-water set out for me. But\nwhen I read the Rev. Edward's funeral oration over the Irrev.\nMark, I loved neither of them any longer. \"This whole-souled\nchild of God,\" cried the Rev. Edward, \"who believed in success,\nand knew how to succeed by using the infinite powers!\" You\nperceive that the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club agrees with\nthis book, that the \"infinite powers\" in America are the powers\nthat prey!\n\n\nThe Great American Fraud\n\nAmong the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed\nis the patent medicine industry, \"The Great American Fraud,\" as\nits historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote:\n\nGullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions\nof dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration\nof this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an\nappalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of\nvaried drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart\ndepressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of\nall other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by\nthe skillfullest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the\ntrade.\n\nOne by one Mr. Adams tells about these medical fakes:\nhabit-forming laxatives, head-ache powders full of acetanilid,\nsoothing-syrups and catarrh-cures full of opium and cocaine,\ncock-tails subtly disguised as \"bitters\", \"sarsaparillas\", and\n\"tonics\". He shows how the fake testimonials are made up and\nexploited; how the confidential letters, telling the secret\ntroubles of men and women, are collected by tens and hundreds of\nthousands and advertised and sold--so that the victim, as he\nbegins to lose faith in one fake, finds another at hand, fully\ninformed as to his weakness. He quotes the amazing \"Red Clause\"\nin the contracts which the patent-medicine makers have with\nthousands of daily and weekly papers, whereby the makers are able\nto control the press of the country and prevent legislation\nagainst the \"Great American Fraud.\"\n\nThere are a thousand religious papers in America, weekly and\nmonthly; and what is their attitude on this question? Mr. Adams\ntells us:\n\nWhether because church-going people are more trusting, and\ntherefore more easily befooled than others, or from some more\nobscure reason, many of the religious papers fairly reek with\npatent medicine fakes.\n\nHe gives us many pages of specific instances:\n\nDr. Smith belongs to the brood of cancer vampires. He is a patron\nand prop of religious journalism. It is his theory that the\neasiest prey is to be found among readers of church papers.\nMoreover he has learned from his father-in-law (who built a small\nchurch out of blood-money) to capitalize his own sectarian\nassociations, and when confronted recently with a formal\naccusation he replied, with an air of injured innocence, that he\nwas a regular attendant at church, and could produce an\nendorsement from his minister.\n\nAnd here is the \"Church Advocate\", of Harrisburg, Pa., which\npublishes quack advertisements disguised as editorials. One of\nthem Mr. Adams paraphrases:\n\nAs Dr. Smith is, on the face of his own statements, a\nself-branded swindler and rascal, you run no risk in assuming\nthat the Rev. C. H. Forney, D. D., L. L. D., in acting as his\njournalistic supporter for pay, is just such another as himself!\n\nAnd again:\n\nWill the editor of the \"Baptist Watchman\" of Boston explain by\nwhat phenomenon of logic or elasticity of ethics he accepts the\nlucubrations of Dr. Bye, of Oren Oneal, of Liquozone, of Actina,\nthat marvelous two-ended mechanical appliance which \"cures\"\ndeafness at one terminus and blindness at the other, and all with\na little oil of mustard?\n\nAnd again:\n\nThe \"Christian Observer\" of Louisville replied to a protesting\nsubscriber, suggesting that the \"Collier\" articles were written\nin a spirit of revenge, because \"Collier's\" could not get patent\nmedicine advertising. When I asked the Rev. F. Bartlett Converse\nfor his foundation for the charge, he said that one of the\ntypewriters must have written the letter! Doubtless also the same\nhighly responsible typewriter imitated the signature with\nstartling fidelity to Dr. Converse's handwriting!\n\nAnd here is--would you think it possible?--our \"Church of Good\nSociety\"! It has an organ in Chicago called the \"Living Church\",\nmost dignified and decorous. You have to study quite a while to\nascertain what denomination it belongs to; it will not tell you\ndirectly, for the Anglician pose is that it is the church\n\n Elect from every nation,\n      Yet one oer all the earth,\n  Her charter of salvation,\n      One Lord, one Faith, one Birth;\n  One holy name she blesses,\n      Partakes one holy food,\n  And toward one Hope she presses,\n      With every grace endued.\n\nAnd this one holy institution was found setting at its peak the\nblack flag of the trader, the \"Jolly Roger\" of the modern\ncommercial pirate--\"Caveat emptor!\" To quote the precise words:\n\nThe editors and publishers of the \"Living Church\" assume no\nresponsibility for the assertions of advertisers.\n\nAnd so it threw open its columns to the claims of America's\nchampion labor-baiter, the late C. W. Post, that his \"Grapenuts\"\nwould prevent appendicitis, and obviate the need of operations in\nsuch cases!\n\nAnd here is the \"Christian Endeavor World\", organ of one of the\nmost powerful non-sectarian religious bodies in the country. Some\none wrote complaining of its medical advertising, and the answer\nwas:\n\nTo the best of our knowledge and belief, we are not publishing\nany fraudulent or unworthy medical advertising ...... Trusting\nthat you will be able to understand that we are acting according\nto our best and sincerest judgment, I remain, yours very truly,\nThe Golden Rule Company, George W. Coleman, Business Manager.\n\nWhereupon the historian of \"The Great American Fraud\" remarks:\n\nAssuming that the business management of the \"Christian Endeavor\nWorld\" represents normal intelligence, I would like to ask\nwhether it accepts the statement that a pair of \"magic foot\ndrafts\" applied to the soles of the feet will cure any and every\nkind of rheumatism in any part of the body? Further, if the\nadvertising department is genuinely interested in declining\n\"fraudulent and unworthy\" copy, I would call their attention to\nthe ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which \"cure\"\nalmost every disease; to two hair removers, one an \"Indian\nSecret\", the other an \"accidental discovery\", both either fakes\nor dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it\nis \"a positive cure for catarrh\", in all its stages; to \"Syrup of\nFigs\", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to\nDr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical\nconstituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for\ncancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering\nfrom an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which\nfor the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns,\nappear in recent issues of the \"Christian Endeavor World\".\n\n\nRiches in Glory\n\nThere came recently to Los Angeles a \"world-famous evangelist\",\nknown as \"Gipsy\" Smith. There was a shirt-waist strike at the\ntime, and the girls were starving, and they sent a delegation to\nthis evangelist to ask for help. They told him how they were\nmistreated, exposed to insults, driven to sell their virtue\nbecause their wage would not support life; and to their plea he\nmade answer: \"Get Jesus in your hearts, and these questions will\ntake care of themselves!\"\n\nSo we see the most important of the many services which the\nchurches perform for the merchants--taking the revolutionary hope\nof Jesus, for a kingdom of heaven upon earth, and perverting it\ninto a dream of a golden harp in an uncertain future. To\nappreciate the fullness of this betrayal, take the prayer which\nJesus dictated--so simple, direct and practical: \"Give us this\nday our daily bread\", and put it beside the hymns which the\nslave-congregations are trained to sing. In my neighborhood is a\none-roomed building with a plate glass front, upon which I\nobserve a painter inscribing in red, white and blue letters the\nsign \"Glory Mission\". I approach him, and he drops his work and\nwelcomes me with eager cordiality. Am I \"living in grace\"? I\nanswer that I am. I have to shout the good tidings into his ear,\nas he is very deaf. He presents me with his card, which shows\nthat he bears the title of \"Reverend\", also the sobriquet of\n\"Mountain Missionary\". I ask him to permit me to examine the\nhymn-book which he uses in his work, and with touching eagerness\nhe presses upon me a well-worn volume bearing the title \"Waves of\nGlory\". I seat myself and note down a few of the baits it sets\nout for hungry wage-slaves:\n\n O, there's a plenty, O, there's a plenty,\n  There's a plenty in my Father's bank above!\n\n Riches in glory, riches in glory,\n  Royal supply our wants exceed!\n\n Feasting, I'm feasting,\n  I'm feasting with my Lord!\n\n Beautiful robes, beautiful robes,\n  Beautiful robes we then shall wear!\n\n Jerusalem the golden,\n  With milk and honey blest!\n\n Yes, I'll meet you in the city of the New Jerusalem,\n  I'll be there, I'll be there!\n\n Blest Canaan land, bright Canaan land,\n  I love to be in Canaan land!\n\n Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land,\n  As on the highest mount I stand,\n  I look away across the sea,\n  Where mansions are prepared for me!\n\n In the sweet bye and bye\n  We shall meet on that beautiful shore--\n\nI stopped there, being reminded of Joe Hill, poet of the I. W. W.\nwho was hanged three or four years ago in Utah, and who used this\ntune in his little red book of revolutionary chants:\n\n You will eat, bye and bye,\n  In the glorious land above the sky;\n  Work and pray, live on hay,\n  You'll get pie in the sky when you die!\n\n\nCaptivating Ideals\n\nIn one of the writer's earlier novels, \"Prince Hagen\", the hero\nis a Nibelung out of Wagner's \"Rheingold\", who leaves his\ndiggings in the bowels of the earth, and comes up to look into\nour superior civilization. The thing that impresses him most is\nwhat he calls \"the immortality idea\". The person who got that up\nwas a world-genius, he exclaims. \"If you can once get a man to\nbelieving in immortality, there is no more left for you to\ndesire; you can take everything he owns--you can skin him alive\nif it pleases you--and he will bear it all with perfect good\nhumor.\"\n\nAnd is that merely the spiritual deficiency of a Nibelung--or the\neffort of a young author to be smart? Would you like to hear that\nview of the most vital of Christian doctrines set forth in the\nlanguage of scholarship and culture? Would you like to know how\nan ecclesiastical authority, equipped with every tool of modern\nlearning, would set about voicing the idea that the function of\nthe teaching of Heaven is to chloroform the poor, so that the\nrich may continue to rob them in security?\n\nHere under my hand is a volume in the newest dress of\nscholarship, dated 1912, and written by Professor Georges\nChatterton-Hill, of the University of Geneva. Its title is \"The\nSociological Value of Christianity\", and from cover to cover it\nis a warning to the rich of the danger they run in giving up\ntheir religion and ceasing to support its priests. It explains\nhow \"the genius of Christianity has succeeded in making the\nindividual suffering, the individual sacrifices, which are\nindispensible for the welfare of the collectivity, appear as\nindispensible for the individual welfare.\" The learned professor\nmakes plain just what he means by \"individual suffering,\nindividual sacrifices\"; he means all the horrors of capitalism;\nand the advantage of Christianity is that it makes you think that\nby submitting to these horrors, you are profiting your own soul.\n\"By making individual salvation depend on the acceptance of\nsuffering, on the voluntary sacrifice of egotistical interests,\nChristianity adapts the individual to society\". And this, as the\nprofessor explains, is not an easy thing to do, in a world in\nwhich so many people are thinking for themselves. \"The only means\nof causing the rationalized individual to consent to the\nsacrifice...... is to captivate him with a sufficiently powerful\nidea!\" And the professor shows how beautifully Jesus can be used\nfor this purpose. \"Jesus, the so-called humanitarian, never\nceased to insist on the necessity of suffering, the desirableness\nof suffering--of that suffering which a weak and sickly\nhumanitarianism would fain suppress if it could.\"\n\nYou get this, you \"blanket-stiff\", you \"husky\", or \"wop\", or\nwhatever you are--you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians\nwho have only your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones\nwho are condemned to elimination? There has come, let us say, a\nperiod of \"overproduction\"; you have raised too much food, and\ntherefore you are starving, you have woven too much cloth, and\ntherefore you are naked, you have finished the world for your\nmasters, and it is time for you to move out of the way. As the\nsociologist from Geneva phrases it, \"Your suppression imposes\nitself as an imperious necessity.\" And the function of the\nChristian religion is to make you enjoy the process, by\n\"captivating you with a sufficiently powerful ideal\"! The priest\nwill fill your nostrils with incense, your eyes with\ncandle-lights and images, your ears with sweet music and soothing\nwords; and so you will perish without raising a finger! \"Here,\"\nreflects the professor, \"we see how magnificently the teaching of\nJesus applies to all classes of society!\"\n\nSomebody has evidently put up to our Christian sociologist the\nembarrassing fact that so many of those who survive under the\ncapitalist system are godless scoundrels. But do you think that\ntroubles him? Not for long. Like all religious thinkers, he\ncarries with his scholar's equipment a pair of metaphysical\nwings, wherewith at any moment he may soar into the empyrean, out\nof reach of vulgar materialists, like you and me. \"Inequality\nsignifies inequality of capacity,\" he explains; but the standard\nwhereby we judge this capacity \"cannot be the standard of the\nmoral law.\"\n\nThe laws which govern the biological evolution of man are known,\nbut those which govern his moral nature cannot be known; the\nmoral nature appertains to the Absolute, and hence is not subject\nto the law of inequality!\n\nAs an exhibition of metaphysical wing-power, that is almost as\nwonderful as the flight of Cardinal Newman when confronted with\nthe fact that his divinely guided church had burned men for\nteaching the Copernican view of the universe; that infallible\npopes had again and again condemned this heresy ex cathedra. Said\nthe eloquent cardinal:\n\nScripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary,\nand science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at\nrest. How can we determine which of these opposite statements is\nthe very truth till we know what motion is?\n\n\nSpook Hunting\n\nDo not imagine that it is only in Geneva that Christian\nprofessors realize this peril from the loss of faith. It is never\nfar from the thoughts of any of them--for, of course, no man can\nlook at the present system and not wonder how the poor stand it,\nand more especially why they stand it. There have been many\nthinking men who have given up the miracle-business quite\ncheerfully, but have stood appalled at the idea of letting the\nlower classes find out the truth. You note that idea continually\nin the writings of Professor Goldwin Smith, who was a\nfree-thinker, but also a bourgeois publicist, with a deep sense\nof responsibility to the money-masters of the world. He was about\nas honest a man as the capitalist system can produce; he was the\nbeau ideal of the New York \"Evening Post\", which indicates his\npoint of view. He wrote:\n\nIt can hardly be doubted that hope of compensation in a future\nstate, for a short measure of happiness here, has materially\nhelped to reconcile the less favored members of the community to\nthe inequalities of the existing order of things.\n\nWhen I was a student in Columbia University, I took a course\ncalled \"Practical Ethics\", under a professor by the name of\nHyslop. The course differed from most of the forty that I tried,\nin that it gave evidence that the professor was accustomed to\nread the morning paper. He had learned that American politics\nwere rotten; his idea of \"Practical Ethics\" was to outline in\nelaborate detail a complete scheme of constitutional changes\nwhich would make it impossible for the \"boss\" to control the\ngovernment. I think I must have been born with a charm against\nbourgeois thought, for the good professor never fooled me an\ninstant; I remember I used to smile at the idea of how quickly\nthe \"boss\" would brush through his constitutional cobwebs. The\nreforms required an elaborate campaign of publicity--and of\ncourse long before they could be put into practice, the\npoliticians would be ready with devices to make them of no\neffect.\n\nSoon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to\nhunting spooks. I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he\nis a determined and courageous man, and it seems possible that he\nmay really have bagged some spooks. All I wish to point out here\nis the method he uses in seeking to persuade the heedless rich to\nsupport the spook-hunting industry. The very same argument as we\ngot from the University of Geneva and the University of Toronto!\nSays our head spook-hunter:\n\nThere has been no belief that exercised so much power upon the\npoor as that in a future life. The politicians, men of the world,\nhave known this so well as to postpone the day of political\njudgment by it for many years.\n\nAnd again:\n\nThe Church, having lost all its battles with science, and having\nabandoned a strenuous intellectual defense of its fundamental\nbeliefs, has lost its power over the poor and the laboring\nclasses..... The spiritual ideal of life has gone out of the\nmasses as well as the classes, and nothing is left but a venture\non a struggle with wealth.\n\nAnd again, more menacingly yet:\n\nThe rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution that\nthe poor will not sacrifice both wealth and immortality.\n\nWhat is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step\nup, ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the\nPsychical Research hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as\nto the cost of milk and honey in Jerusalem the Golden!\n\nYou read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the\nWholesale Pickpockets' Association making use of their\nincantations. You admired my ability to sling language, but not\nmy taste; and you certainly did not think that I would back my\nrhetoric with facts. But what do these quotations mean, unless\nthey mean what I have said? Are not these three professors men of\nculture? Are they not as \"spiritual\" as any men of learning you\ncan find in our present-day society?\n\nAnd now stop for a moment and put yourself in the position of the\nyoung student of the working-class, who goes to these books and\ndiscovers that truth is not truth, but only a bait for a snare.\nWho discovers that professors of ethics, practical or\nimpractical, are not interested in justice among men, but only in\ncollecting funds for their specialty; that in order to get funds,\nthey are willing to teach the rich how to paralyze the minds of\nthe poor! Do you wonder that such young students conclude that\nbourgeois thinkers do not know what honesty is, but are\nprostitutes, retainers and lackeys, to be kicked out of the\ntemple of truth?\n\n\nRunning the Rapids\n\nAnd now, can you form to yourselves a clear concept of what it\nmeans to society that practically all its moral teaching should\nbe in the hands of men who are incapable of clean, straight\nthinking? That all the intellectual prestige of the Church should\nbe lent to the support of vagueness, futility, and deliberate\nevasion? Here we are, all of us, caught in the most terrific\nsocial crisis of history; I search for a metaphor to picture our\nposition, and I recall a canoe-trip in the wilds of Ontario,\nhundreds of miles down a long swift river. You sit in the bow of\nthe canoe, your partner in the stern, watching ahead; and there\ncomes a slide of smooth green water, and you go over it, and into\na torrent of foaming white, which seizes you and rushes you along\nwith the speed of a race-horse. With every sense alert, You watch\nfor the rocks, and when you see one, you dip your paddle on one\nside or the other and with a quick motion draw the canoe clear of\nthe danger. If by any chance you fail to do it, over you go, and\nyour partner with you, and all your belongings go down-stream,\nand maybe you are sucked into a whirlpool, and not seen for\nseveral hours afterwards. Precisely like this is the voyage of\nlife, for the whole of society and for every individual. The\npaddle which would save us from the rocks is experimental\nscience; but in most of our canoes we put a man who has no\npaddle, but a Holy Book; and he casts up his eyes and murmurs\nwords in ancient Greek and Hebrew, and now and then, when he sees\nan especially formidable obstruction--a war, or the gonococcus,\nor the I. W. W.--he casts a holy wafer upon the foaming torrent.\n\nAnd mind you, it isn't as if I could save myself and you could\nsave yourself; we are all in the same canoe, and we all go\noverboard together. You, perhaps, have a son who is drafted into\nthe trenches in winter-time, and drowned in blood and mud,\nbecause in Europe the Catholic party supported militarism, and\nkept aristocratic criminals in control of states. Or you find\nyourself involved in a marital tragedy, and in order to free\nyourself from unendurable misery, you are obliged to go to\nlaw-courts dominated by the tradition of Paul, the Roman\nbureaucrat, who despised women, and regarded marriage as a means\nof gratifying an unclean animal desire. \"It is better to marry\nthan to burn,\" he said, with unmatchable brutality; and so of\ncourse those who think him a voice of God can form no conception\nof the dignity and grace of love, and if you want sound and\nwholesome sex-conventions, you will be as apt to find them among\nthe Ashantees or the Kamchadals as among the followers of the\nApostle to the Gentiles.\n\nYou go to a so-called \"divorce-court,\" which is dominated by this\nChristian taboo, and exists for the purpose of barring you from a\nsecond chance at the gratification of your unclean animal desire.\nYou are not permitted to tell your own story, for that would be\n\"collusion;\" you listen while your intimate friends recite the\npitiful and shameful details of your domestic misfortune, under\nthe cross-questioning of lawyers who have suppressed for the time\nwhatever decent instincts they may possess, and follow blindly\nthe details of a prescribed procedure, at the cost of all\nsincerity, humanity and truth. The next morning you find that the\nprivacy guaranteed you by law has been taken from you by corrupt\ncourt officials, who have sold copies of the testimony to the\nnewspapers, so that all the intimate details of where you slept\nand where your wife slept and what you saw your wife doing have\nbeen thrown out to journalistic jackals, who scream with glee as\nthey rend the carcass of your dead love. And in the end, perhaps,\nyou find that you have gone through this horror for nothing--the\naugust court with its Roman Catholic judge throws out your\npetition, its suspicions having been excited by the fact that\nwhen you discovered your domestic tragedy, you sought to behave\nlike a civilized person, with pity and self-restraint, instead of\nlike a sultan in Turkey, or a basso in an Italian grand opera.\n\n\nBirth Control\n\nI assert that the control of our thinking on ethical questions by\nminds enslaved to tradition and priestcraft is an unmitigated\ncurse to the race. The armory of science is full of weapons which\nmight be used to slay the monsters of disease and vice--but these\nweapons are not allowed to be employed, sometimes not even to be\nmentioned. Consider the misery which is piling itself up in the\nslams of our great cities---the degenerate, the defective, the\ninsane, who are multiplying as never before in history. There\nexists a perfectly harmless and painless method of sterilizing\nthe hopelessly unfit, so that they can not reproduce their\nhopeless unfitness; but religion objects to this operation, and\nso the law does not make use of this knowledge. There exists a\nsimple, entirely harmless, and practically costless method of\npreventing conception, which would enable us to check the blind\nand futile fecundity of Nature, and to multiply as gods instead\nof as animals. Consider the festering mass of misery in the slums\nof our great cities; consider the millions of terrified,\npoverty-hounded women, bearing one half-nurtured infant after\nanother, struggling desperately to feed and care for them, and\nseeing them drop into the grave as fast as they are born-until\nfinally the mother, worn out with the Sisyphean labor, gives up\nand follows her misbegotten offspring. Consider how many women,\nin their agony and despair, make use of the methods of the\nprimitive savage, to escape from Nature's curse of fecundity. Dr.\nWm. J. Robinson has estimated that in the United States alone\nthere are a million abortions every year; and consider that all\nthis hideous mass of suffering--a bloody European war going on\ncontinually, unheeded by any newspaper correspondent--might be\navoided by the use of a simple sterilizing formula, which we are\nnot permitted to give! The Federation of Catholic Societies have\nplaced a law upon the statute-books of the nation, and of all the\nstates as well; the whole power of police and courts and jails is\nat the service of religious bigots, and a young girl is sent to\nprison and forcibly fed with a tube through the nose for telling\npoverty-ridden, slum-women how to keep from becoming pregnant!\n\nAnd go among the sleek, cynical men of the world, the judges and\ndistrict attorneys, the commissioners of correction and doctors\nwho perpetrated this infamy under a so-called \"reform\"\nadministration in New York City--and what do you find? The first\nthing you find is that they themselves, one and all, practice\nbirth-control with their wives or their mistresses. The second\nthing you find is that the statute-books are crowded with other\nlaws which they make no pretense of enforcing; for example, the\nlaw which forbids the saloons to be open on Sunday--which law\nthey take the liberty of understanding to mean that the saloons\nshall not have their front doors open on Sunday. You will find\nthat they are not at all afraid of the religious taboos; they are\nafraid of the religious vote--and even more they are afraid of\nthe campaign contributions of sweat-shop manufacturers and\nlandlords, who cannot see what would become of prosperity if the\nwomen of the slums were to cease to breed. So once more we\ndiscover the wolf in sheep's clothing, the trader, making use of\nTradition-worship; hiding behind the skirts of devout old maiden\naunts and grandmothers, who repeat the instructions which God\ngave to Adam and Eve, \"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the\nearth.\" As if God were as blind as a Fifth Avenue preacher, and\ncould see no difference between the Garden of Eden, full of all\nfruits that grow and all creatures that run and fly and swim, and\na modern East Side tenement-room, with an oil stove and no\nwindows and no water-closet, and the price of cabbage seven cents\na pound!\n\n\nSheep\n\nThere are more than a hundred thousand Protestant churches in\nAmerica. They own more than a billion dollars' worth of property,\nand in the West and South they dominate the intellectual life of\nthe country. I do not wish to be unfair in what I say of them.\nThey are far more democratic than the Catholic Church; they fight\nvaliantly against the liquor traffic and those forms of graft\nwhich are obvious, or directly derived from vice. There are among\ntheir clergy many men who are honestly seeking light, and trying\nto make their institutions a factor for progress. But they are\ncaught in the spirit of Lutheran scholasticism, narrow and\nignorant, dogmatic and jealous; and they cannot help it, because\nthey are pledged by their creeds and foundations to\nTradition-worship; they have to believe certain things because\ntheir ancestors believed them, they have to act in certain ways,\nbecause of certain facts which existed in the world three\nthousand years ago, but which now are known only to historians.\n\nYou are familiar with the habit of a herd of sheep to follow the\nexample of their leader; if this leader leaps over a stick, all\nthe rest will leap when they come to that spot, even though the\nstick may have been taken away in the meantime. The scientist\nexplains this seeming-foolishness by the fact that sheep once\nlived in high mountains, and fled from their enemies in swiftly\nrushing herds; when the leader leaped across an abyss, the others\nhad to leap, without waiting to see in the dust and confusion.\nNow there are no mountains and no enemies, but the sheep still\njump. And in exactly the same way the tailor still sews buttons\nat the back of your dress-coat, because a couple of hundred years\nago all gentlemen wore swords; in the same way our railroad\nbuilders make cars narrow and uncomfortable and liable to\noverturn, because a hundred years ago all cars were hauled by\nmules. In the same way the Orthodox Hebrew will eat no pork, in\nspite of the fact that the microscope affords him complete\nprotection against disease; the orthodox Catholic will not eat\nmeat on Friday, because he thinks Jesus was crucified on that\nday; the orthodox Anglican will not marry his deceased wife's\nsister, because of something he reads in Leviticus; the orthodox\nBaptist requires total immersion in a climate quite different\nfrom that of Palestine; the orthodox Methodist refuses to enjoy\nfresh air and exercise on the Sabbath.\n\nIn ancient Judea, you see, the people lived an open-air life,\ntending sheep and working the fields; so it was an excellent\nthing for them to rest from labor one day of the week, and to\ngather in temples to hear the reading of the best literature of\ntheir time. But nowadays the city slave spends his week-days shut\nup in an office, poring over a ledger, or in a sweat-shop,\nchained to a sewing-machine. Obviously, therefore, the thing to\ndo on the seventh day is to lure him into the open air, and\npersuade him to run and play. But do we do that, we human sheep?\nWe write ancient Hebrew laws upon our modern statute-books, and\nif the city slave goes into a vacant lot and tries to play\nbase-ball, we send a policeman and take him to jail, and next\nmorning he is fined five dollars, and probably loses his job.\n\nIn the city where I live, a city supposed to be free and\nenlightened, but in reality heavily burdened with churches, there\nare tennis courts built and paid for out of public funds, my own\nincluded; yet I cannot use these tennis courts on Sunday, because\nof the ancient Hebrew taboo. My mail is not delivered to me, the\nswimming pool in the park is closed to me, the library is closed\nnearly all day. If I enquire about it, I am told that it is\ndesirable that city employees should have one day's rest a week;\nbut when I ask why it might not be possible to relay the\nemployees, so that they might all have one, or even two days'\nrest a week, and still give the public their rights on Sunday,\nthere is no answer. But I know the answer, having probed our\npolitics of hypocrisy. There is a \"church vote\" at which all\npoliticians tremble; there are clergymen, humanly jealous when\ntheir peculiar graft is threatened, and hoping that if the law\nenforces a general boredom, the public may be more disposed to\nendure the boredom of sermons.\n\nIn New York City the theaters are closed on Sunday; but moving\npictures having come into being since the days of Puritan rule,\nthe picture-shows are free to keep open. The law permits \"sacred\nconcerts\"--which, under the benevolent sway of Tammany, has come\nto mean any sort of vaudeville; so what we have is a free rein to\nthe imbecilities of \"Mutt & Jeff\" and the obscenities of Anna\nHeld and Gaby Deslys--while we bar the greatest moralists of our\ntimes, such as Ibsen and Brieux.\n\nI speak with some crossness of this Sabbath taboo, because of an\nexperience which once befell me. In the second decade of this\ncentury of enlightenment and progress, in our free American\ndemocracy, whose constitution proclaims religious toleration, and\nforbids the establishment by the state of any form of worship, I\nwas made to serve a sentence of eighteen hours in the state\nprison of Delaware for playing a game of tennis on the Sabbath. I\nwas duly arrested upon a warrant, duly sentenced by a magistrate,\nduly clad in a prison costume, duly set to work upon a\nstone-pile, duly locked up over night in a steel-barred cell full\nof vermin--in a building housing some five hundred wretches,\nblack and white, thirty of them serving life-terms under\ncircumstances which never permitted them a breath of fresh air\nnor a glimpse of the sunshine or the sky. They had no exercise\ncourt to their prison, and the inmates were not permitted to\nspeak to one another, but ate their meals in dead silence, and\nwalked back to their cells with folded arms, and had their only\noccupation working for a sweat-shop contractor; this on the\noutskirts of the capital city of Wilmington, with no less than\nninety-one churches! The writer was informed that he would return\nto this institution regularly every week unless he abandoned his\ngodless habit of playing tennis on a private club court on\nSunday; he only escaped the painful punishment by making the\ndiscovery that at the Wilmington Country Club it was the custom\nof the leading officials of the city and state to play golf every\nSunday, and by threatening to employ detectives and have these\nmighty ones arrested and sent to their own prison. Which shows\nagain the importance of understanding the relationship of\nSuperstition and Big Business!\n\n\n\nBOOK SIX\n\nThe Church of the Quacks\n\n They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,\n  And how one ought never to think of one's self,\n  And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking--\nMy pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking\n      How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!\n      How pleasant it is to have money.\n                                 Clough.\n\n\nTabula Rasa\n\nNature has given us a virgin continent, a clean slate upon which\nto write what we will. And what are we writing? What is our\nintellectual life? I came to the far West, which I had been\ntaught by novelists and poets to think of as a place of freedom.\nI came, because I like freedom; I am staying because I like the\nclimate. I find that what freedom means in the West is the\nability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new,\nfantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new\ncult around it, and earn a living out of it.\n\nMy first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the\nBattle Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found\nmyself in a nest of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or\nso ago some odd character hit upon the discovery that the\nChristian churches had let the devil snare them into resting on\nthe first day of the week, whereas the Bible states distinctly\nthat the Lord \"rested on the seventh day\". So here is a million\ndollar establishment, with a thousand or two patients and\nemployees, and on Friday at sundown the silence of death settles\nupon the place, and stays settled until sundown of Saturday, when\neverything comes suddenly to life again, and there is a little\ncelebration, like Easter or New Year's, with what I used to call\n\"sterilized dancing\"--the men pairing with men and the women with\nwomen.\n\nThey are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with\ntheir eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways,\nbecause, as not all the city shares their delusions, there are\nsome stores open every day of the week. But then you discover\nthat the Sanitarium is training \"medical missionaries\" to send to\nAfrica, and is teaching these supposed-to-be-scientists that\nevolution is a doctrine of the devil, and not proven anyhow!\n\nYou get the shrewd little doctor who is running this\nestablishment alone in his office, and he will smile and admit\nthat of course it is not necessary to take all Bible phrases\nliterally; but you know how it is--there are different levels of\nintelligence, and so on. Yes, I know how it is. You have an\ninstitution founded upon a certain dogma, and run by means of\nthat dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing things. It\nis especially convenient when servants and nurses have a\nreligious upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the\npatients. People will come from all over the country, and pay\nhigh prices to stay in such a sanitarium; you can make\nvegetarians of them, which you think more important than teaching\nabstract notions about their being descended from monkeys. Also\nyou can manufacture vegetarian foods for them, and build up an\nenormous business--so obtaining that Power which is the thing\ndesired of men.\n\nThis is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could\ncite a hundred. The city in which I live is headquarters of\nanother sect, the \"Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene\"; primitive\nMethodists, Bible-worshippers not content with the King James\nversion, but going back to the Sinaitic MS. They have a\n\"University\", located in one of the most beautiful spots that\nNature ever made; an institution with seventy-five students. A\ncouple of years ago I happened to meet the \"president,\" who was a\npreacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth\nwaistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors,\nsuch as \"you was\" and \"I seen\". The past year witnessed a split,\nand the founding of a brand new church and \"University\"--because\none of the preachers insisted upon preaching so much that the\nstudents got no chance to study; also because he sent home a rich\nman's daughter whose shirt-waists revealed too much of her\nfleshly nature.\n\nAnd there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking\nyou back to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais. A lady\nfriend of mine, generously blessed with this world's goods, asks\nme have I seen the hermit. \"Hermit?\" I say, and she replies,\n\"Didn't you know there was a hermit? He lives on a mountain, in a\ncave, and never has anything to do with the world. He has no\nbooks; he contemplates spiritually.\" I picture my friend with her\nlarge limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, drawing up at\nthe door of this hermit's cave. \"He received you?\" I ask. \"Yes,\nhe was quite polite.\" \"And what was your impression of him?\" \"Oh,\nhow he stank!\" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my\nfriend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to\nher that I am not jesting, but that there are definite\nphysiological phenomena incidental to the ecstatic life.\n\n\nThe Book of Mormon\n\nOr let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a\nstill stranger cult.\n\nOn the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the\nLord delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth\nin a \"backwoods\" part of New York State, some plates which had\n\"the appearance of gold\". As we know from the scriptures, it is\nthe habit of the Angel of the Lord to appear in unexpected places\nand to make miraculous revelations to men in humble walks of\nlife; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves in readiness. In\nthis case the plates were written in \"reformed Egyptian\"; but the\nAngel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and\nThummim, two magic stones with which to read the records. They\nproved to deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of\nBible students for centuries--the fate of the \"lost ten tribes\nof Israel\", who were now revealed to have been the ancestors of\nthe American Indians. The Angel told Smith to found a new\nreligion, and gave him prophecies concerning things in general;\nso, on the 6th of April, 1830, in the town of Manchester, N. Y.,\nthere was formally launched the \"Church of the Latter Day\nSaints.\" Smith turned over to his followers his translation of\nthe miraculous plates, called \"The Book of Mormon\"; obviously\ngenuine, for it read precisely like the books which we already\nknow are the revealed word of God. But, on chance that this might\nnot be sufficient, we were offered in the preface two documents,\nthe \"Testimony of Three Witnesses\", and the \"Further Testimony of\nEight Witnesses\". The latter being the shorter, may be quoted:\n\nBe it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, unto\nwhom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith Jr., the translator\nof this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been\nspoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the\nleaves as the said Smith hath translated, we did handle with our\nhands; and we also saw the engravings there-on, all of which has\nthe appearance of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And\nthis we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith\nhas shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a\nsurety that the said Smith hath got the plates of which we have\nspoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness that\nwhich we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.\n\n  Christian Whitmer\n  Jacob Whitmer\n  Peter Whitmer, Jr.\n  John Whitmer\n  Hiram Page\n  Joseph Smith, Sr.\n  Hyrum Smith\n  Saml. H. Smith\n\nThe subsequent career of the Church of the Latter Day Saints bore\nout the Angel's prophesies and proved conclusively its divine\norigin; it was persecuted as the saints of old were persecuted,\nand its followers proceeded to massacre the nearby unbelieving\npopulations, just as the divinely guided Hebrews had done. Driven\nfrom place to place, they built at Nauvoo, Ill., a beautiful\ntemple, according to plans revealed in a vision, exactly like\nSolomon. Finally they settled in Utah, where they have a\nmagnificent marble tabernacle, and some 300,000 followers. The\nUnited States government, not being entirely Biblical, objected\nto their practice of allowing the patriarchs of the tribe to have\nas many wives as they could support; the government confiscated\nthe church's property, and forced it to conceal the practice of\npolygamy, as is done by elderly church members in other parts of\nthe country. Recently the head of the church, who bears the title\nof \"Prophet, Seer and Revelator\", was persuaded to permit an\nexamination of one of its secret plates, the \"Book of Abraham\",\nby egyptologists, who found that it was ordinary Egyptian\nhieroglyphics, not \"reformed\", but containing prayers to the\nsun-god. But this will of course make no difference to the devout\nfollowers of Joseph--any more than it has made to devout\nCatholics and Episcopalians that German scholars have proven that\nthe Bible legends and ritual have come from the Babylonians, and\nthat the four gospels date from the second and third centuries\nafter Christ.\n\n\nHoly Rolling\n\nAll over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of\nthem pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely\ngrotesque. Thus, for example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who\nfounded the \"Christian Catholic Church in Zion\" and dressed\nhimself up in scarlet and purple robes with stars on. Through his\nZion City Bank and Zion City Realty Company he became enormously\nwealthy; he finally announced himself as \"Elijah the Restorer.\" I\nremember as a boy how he brought his gospel to New York, and P.\nT. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white elephant never made such a\nsensation. The ridicule of the metropolis overwhelmed the old\nprophet, and he died and passed on his robes and his tabernacle\nand his bank to his son; straightway, according to the rule of\nall religions, the followers fell to quarrelling and splitting\nup, and suing one another in the law-courts.\n\nAlso there are the \"Holy Rollers\" and \"Holy Jumpers\", ghastly\nsects which cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread\nlike a plague among the women of our lonely prairie farms and\ndesert ranches. The \"Holy Rollers\", who call themselves the\n\"Apostolic Church\", have a meeting place here in Pasadena, and\nany Sunday evening at nine o'clock you may see the Spirit of the\nLord taking possession of the worshippers, causing moans and\nshrieks and convulsions; you may see a woman holding her hands\naloft for seventeen minutes by the watch, making chattering\nsounds like an ape. This is called \"talking in tongues\" and is a\nsign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you come back at\neleven in the evening, you will find the entire congregation, men\nand women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the benches;\nand maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out.\n\nYou may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself\ninto these convulsions. Here is a paper called \"Trust\", which is\n\"published Monthly (D. V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work\nand Bible Training School.\" Elizabeth Sisson writes on \"The\nPentecostal Baptism\", and tells the story of her experiences. She\n\"camped on the Word of God,\" she declares.\n\nI went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the mission\ntold me, \"You can go down to the mission and stay there all day.\nThere is plenty of wood, and you can stay there all night.\" I\nwent down, and there was plenty of \"let go\" in me. I cried, and\nprayed all I knew, and got wonderfully loosed.....\n\nThen the Lord said to me, \"Now, no more praying!\" God told me it\nwas mine. What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my\npraying and I took up praising. I praised God that He who worked\nin the Upper Room was working the same in me. I praised, and I\npraised, and I praised. The devil said to me, \"That's\nmechanical.\" I said, \"I'll praise You Lord, and if You want real\npraise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails.\"\n\nThat's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out\nof bed, \"this gibberish, this jargon\" as the enemy likes to call\nit, began to come. The Lord said, \"Let it babble!\" I let. The\nbabble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I\nstill let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it does\nnot tire you.\n\nAnd here is another paper. \"Meat in Due Season: published\nmonthly, or as often as the Lord leads.\" The editor quotes the\nBible, \"Call upon the name of the Lord,\" and explains that \"Call\nmeans call.\" The word appears to have a special meaning to these\npentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of\nagitation; as the editor puts it, \"you must lay hold of the horns\nof the altar.\" He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his:\n\nPray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes\nseemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the\nnext few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling.\nIn a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the\nchair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously\nalive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will\ngrow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it\nmaybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged,\nit, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your\nmind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and\nGod has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very\nfloor seems to sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of\nyour heart let loose. Like David, \"pour out your soul\" like one\nwould pour water out of a bucket. I have seen hundreds get\nthrough right at this point. When self-thought, reticence,\ndecorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all been thrown to\nthe four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and\nconsciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw\nnear to you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him\nfirst.\n\nThese enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect\nwhich originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the\nNew World. The Shakers call themselves the \"United Society of\nTrue Believers in Christ's Second Coming,\" and were founded by\nAnn Lee, who, variously termed herself the \"Female Christ\", the\n\"Holy Comforter\", and the \"God-anointed Woman\". They might be\ntermed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to \"Our\nFather and Mother, which are in heaven.\" They were taught the\nconvenient doctrine that their Founder had \"spiritual\nillumination\", so that any evidence of the senses used against\nher might deceive. She governed through terror, holding that by\nher mental powers she could inflict torment upon any of her\nfollowers. Fortunately she taught absolute celibacy, and so there\nare now only about a thousand of her disciples.\n\n\nBible Prophecy\n\nThis far western country swarms with those fanatics who await the\nreturn of Christ, and find in Bible chronology positive evidence\nthat he is coming on a specified day. Seldom do I give a lecture\non Socialism that some eager old lady does not come up to me and\npoint out how futile are my hopes, because the Millenium will\ncome before the Revolution. Several times I have come on an item\nin the newspapers, telling of a group of people, sometimes whole\nvillages, selling their goods and going out into the fields to\nshout and sing and pray, expecting the vision of the Lord and His\nAngels in the skies. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled\n\"Shekineh: The Glory of God in Israel, Facts Mathematically\nForetold, of the Soon Coming of Our Blessed Lord.\" It is\nearnestly, yearningly written, in that spirit of feeble-minded\naffectionateness which the Bible-sects seem to encourage:\n\nNow dear reader you see that these problems tell a wonderful\nstory which I know are the Eternal Truths of God. Jesus is soon\ncoming. I believe that from now on we can say, next week perhaps\nour blessed Lord will return. Yet the time may not end till the\nclose of the A. M. year, which will be March 20th, 1897. But let\nus take up the sickle of God, etc. Oh, my Christian friends, live\nnear the Blessed Christ, and gain eternal life through Jesus Our\nLord!\n\nIn the public library I find another pamphlet, entitled \"The Our\nRace,\" which proves that the \"lost ten tribes of Israel\" are not\nthe American Indians, but the Irish! And here is a publication of\nthe \"Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society,\" declaring:\n\nThe great pyramid in Egypt is a witness to all the events of the\nages and of our day. The pyramid's downward passage under \"a\nDraconis\" symbolizes the course of Sin. Its first ascending\npassage symbolizes the Jewish Age. Its Grand Gallery symbolizes\nthe Gospel Age. Its upper step symbolizes the approaching period\nof tribulation and anarchy, \"Judgment\" upon Christendom.\n\nIt is a Sunday morning, and I sit in the California sunshine\nrevising this manuscript, when a decorous-looking young man\napproaches, having a sack over his shoulder. \"From the\nBible-students,\" he says politely, and hands me a little paper,\n\"The Bible Students' Monthly: an Independent, Unsectarian\nReligious Newspaper, Specially devoted to the Forwarding of the\nLaymen's Home Missionary Movement for the Glory of God and Good\nof Humanity.\" The leading article is headed \"The Fall of Babylon:\nAncient Babylon a Type--Mystic Babylon the Antitype: Why\nChristendom must Suffer--the Final Outcome.\" A note explains:\n\nThe following article is extracted from Pastor Russell's\nposthumous volume entitled \"The Finished Mystery,\" the 7th in the\nseries of his Studies in the Scriptures and published subsequent\nto his death. Pastor Russell held the distinction of being the\nmost fearless and powerful writer of modern times on\necclesiastical subjects. In this posthumous volume, which is\ncalled \"his last legacy to the Christians on earth,\" is found a\nthorough exposition of every verse in the entire book of\nRevelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of\nEzekiel. The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in\nembossed cloth.\n\nPastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some\nhundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his\nfeatures--solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a \"choker\"\nand a black broadcloth coat. There are five million such faces in\nAmerica, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country,\nremember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as\nPastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book. I quote one\npassage from \"The Finished Mystery\", in order that the reader may\nknow what it means to \"hold the distinction of being the most\nfearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical\nsubjects.\" Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and\nhe quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by\nphrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan\nsystem were divinely foretold. Thus:\n\n\"But that they should be tormented five months.\"--In symbolic\ntime, 150 years--5 X 30 = 150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the\nfirst Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:1.) When the Methodist\ndenomination, with all the others, was cast off from favor in\n1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to torment men by preaching what\nPresbyterians describe as \"Conscious misery, eternal in duration\"\ncame to an end legally, and to a large extent actually--Rev.\n9:10.\n\nP. S. A few months pass, and while this book is going to press,\n\"The Finished Mystery\" is suppressed by the government and\nseveral score \"Bible Students\" are landed in jail for sedition.\n\n\nKoreshanity\n\nSuch are the beliefs built on the Bible. But there are other\nancient writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and\nsymbolism, calculated to impress the unlettered; also our\nprophets have imaginations of their own, and can invent\nnomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven nor on\nearth before. Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself\n\"Archbishop of the Newthot Church,\" and gathered about him a\nharem of devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail\nfor using the mails to defraud. Or there is \"Oahspe, the Cosmic\nBible,\" a work of brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of\nthe universe and all things therein:\n\nThe reader soon discovers that he must radically revise not only\nhis ideas of celestial Cosmogony, but the order and significance\nof names and titles commonly applied to the Transcendental\nBrethren. The great provinces of Etheria are presided over by\nchiefs, chosen for their superior development in wisdom and love.\nFor our solar system to cross one of these provinces requires\nabout 3,000 years, and between them are belts of high Etherian\nlight which take several years to pass over. The passage of each\nprovince is a cycle of earthly history, and the crossings are\ncalled Dawns of Dan.\n\nAnd here is Koreshanity, a revelation vouchsafed by the Lord to\nDr. C. R. Teed of Chicago in the year 1889. This new seer took\nthe name of Koresh, which is Hebrew for Cyrus, \"the Shepherd from\nJoseph, the Stone of Israel, the Sun-Man; the illuminating center\nof the Son of man\", and went out on the streets of the city to\npreach that the earth is a hollow sphere with the stars inside.\nThe street urchins of the pork-packing metropolis threw stones at\nhim, and the irreverent newspapers took up his adventures, with\nthe result that followers gathered, and now there is a\nflourishing colony in Florida, with a dignified magazine called\n\"The Flaming Sword\", and a collection of propaganda volumes: \"The\nCellular Cosmogony, an Exposition of Koreshan Universology and\nthe New Geodesy\"; \"The Immortal Manhood, the Laws and Processes\nof its Attainment in the Flesh\"; \"The Great Red Dragon, by Lord\nChester\"; \"The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing\nof the Great Ensign, by Koresh.\" The \"Religio-science\" of this\nChicago revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements\nof the earth which prove that its surface is concave; and second\nupon some philological discoveries very much resembling puns.\nThus the \"cross of Christ\" is explained in a sense of the word\nmore common among horse-breeders than among theologians:\n\nThe highest characteristic of the alchemical law is the cross of\nChrist with sensual man. The cross means that the Lord God, in\norder to perpetuate his own being, descends into the race of\nsensuality.\n\nAnd again, when someone asks about meteors:\n\n\"The word Heaven means things heaved up, that is, heaved up from\ntheir material basis, the earth; thus, the meteors which fall to\nthe earth are composed of metallic, mineral, and geological\nsubstances, being materialized or actually created in the\natmosphere by an alchemico-organic process from zones or belts\nperiodically open, which precipitate their contents in the form\nor shape of meteors.\"\n\nAnd perhaps I ought also to quote the \"Indicia of Human\nProgress\", by \"Berthaldine, Matrona\". I don't know what a\n\"Matrona\" is--unless it is a female matron. This female matron\ntells me that now is the \"Time of Restitution\", and explains that\n\"the prolification of the human race has reached a fruition of\nthe adultery of the truth and good of the Lord with the fallacies\nand evils of the mortal hells\"..... We have come, it seems, to\nthe \"age of Pisces\", which is \"one of the greatest radical\nprolification\"; and what we now need is the \"power of\npolarization\", so that we may join the \"White Horse Army of the\nMost High\", which is the organization of the \"Aquarian age\",\nproclaimed by Koresh on January 15th, 1891.\n\n\nMazdaznan\n\nAnd here is another and even more startling revelation from\nChicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of\nAdusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra\nMagi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and\nEnvoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head\nof Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of\nMendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto\nHanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him\nthrough this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the\nfiles of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep,\nsetting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake\nspiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the \"Christian\nCatholic Church in Zion\", and then the cult of Brighouse, who\nclaimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in\nChicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and\noccult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing\nmetropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in\nIndia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park\nAvenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples\nare fed on lilac-blossoms--\"the white and pinkish for males, the\nblue-tinted for females\". He wears a long flowing robe of pale\ngrey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white kid shoes,\nand he sells his lady adorers a book called \"Inner Studies\",\nprice five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects\nas:\n\nThe Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of\nLovers Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction\nand Electric Mating.\n\nA Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six\nmonths; but that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple\nin Chicago, presided over by a lady called Kalantress and\nEvangelist; also a \"Northern Stronghold\" in Montreal, an\n\"Embassy\" in London, an \"International Aryana\" in Switzerland,\nand \"Centers\" all over America. At the moment of going to press,\nthe prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging\nhim with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los\nAngeles hotel.\n\nI have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of\nevery kind of ancient mysticism--paper and binding from the\nBible, illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the\nZoroastrian, health rules from the Hindoos, laws from the\nConfucians--price ten dollars per volume. Would you like to\ndiscover your seventeen senses, to develop them according to the\nGaLlama principle, and to share the \"expansion of the magnetic\ncircles\"? Here is the way to do it:\n\nInhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one\nexhalation, speak slowly:\n\nOpen, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden\nby the vase of dazzling light.\n\nAgain inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following\nsentence upon one exhalation as before:\n\nSoften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may\nbehold Thy True Being.\n\nI have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the\nprophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the\ncaptivating headline: \"Women Didn't Think Till They Put On\nCorsets\". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his\naloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. \"Despite\nhis seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His\nkeen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles\non his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty.\" The humor\nof this becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial,\nthree or four years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years\nold!\n\nBeing thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we\nshall not be taken in by the repeated statements that the\nMazdaznan prophet is a millionaire. But there is no doubt that he\nis wealthy; and as all Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote\nhis formula of prosperity, his method of accomplishing what might\nbe called the Individual Revolution:\n\nWhen hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of\nbread, do not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you\nwith everything that will meet all cases of emergency. Place your\nteeth tightly together, with tongue pressing against the lower\nteeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close lips immediately,\nexhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva forms in\nyour mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before\nyou exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance\ncontained therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert\ninto substance required for making the blood. Should you feel\nthat, although you have sufficient iron in the blood, there is a\nlack of copper and zinc and silver, place upper teeth over lower,\nkeep lower lip tightly to lower teeth, now breathe and you can\neven taste the metals named. Then should you feel you need more\ngold element for your brain functions, place your back teeth\ntogether just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking\nshort breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is\ngold and silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with\nquite a quantity of gold.\n\n\nBlack Magic\n\nWhat all this means is that we have a continent, with a hundred\nmillion half-educated people, materially prosperous, but\nspiritually starving; so any man who possesses personality, who\nlooks in any way strange and impressive, or has hunted up old\nbooks in a library, and can pronounce mysterious words in a\nthrilling voice--such a man can find followers. Anybody can do it\nwith any doctrine, from anywhere, Persia or Patagonia, Pekin or\nPompei. I would be willing to wager that if I cared to come out\nand announce that I had had a visit from God last night, and to\ndevote such literary and emotional power as I possess to\ncommunicating a new revelation, I could have a temple, a\nuniversity, and a million dollars within five years at the\noutside. And if at the end of five years I were to announce that\nI had played a joke on the world, some one of my followers would\nconvince the faithful that I had been an agent of God without\nknowing it, and that the leadership had now been turned over to\nhim.\n\nI would not be understood as believing that all our cults are\nundiluted fakery, for that would be doing injustice to some\nearnest people. There are, in this country, many followers of the\nPersian reformer, Abbas Effendi, who call themselves Babists, and\nwho have what I am inclined to think is the purest and most\ndignified religion in existence. There was a man named Jacob\nBeilhardt, who founded a cult in Illinois with the painful name\nof \"Spirit Fruit Colony\", who nevertheless was a man of spiritual\ninsight, a true mystic; he was honest, and so he failed, and died\nof a broken heart. Also there are the Christian Scientists and\nthe Theosophists, so exasperating that one would like to throw\nthem onto the rubbish-heap, who yet compel us to sift over their\nmountains of chaff for the grains of truth which will bear fruit\nin future.\n\nWhile we western races have been exploring the natural world and\nperfecting the mechanical arts, the Hindoo students have been\nexploring the subconscious and its strange powers. What Myers and\nLodge and Janet and Charcot and Freud and Jung are telling us\ntoday they had hints of a long time ago; and doubtless they have\nhints of other things, upon which our scientists have not yet\ncome. I have friends, perfectly sane and competent people, who\ntell me that they can see auras, and use this ability as a means\nof judging character. Shall I say that there are no auras, simply\nbecause I do not happen to have this gift of seeing them? In the\nsame way, having read Gurney's \"Phantasms of the Living,\" I am\nnot ready to ridicule the claim of the Yogi adepts, that they are\nable to project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with\none another from distant places. But granting such occult powers\nin a world of economic strife, what follows? Simply new floods of\ncharlatanism, elaborate and complicated systems of ritual and\nmetaphysic for the deluding and plundering of the credulous.\n\nI have seen the thing working itself out in one case known to me.\nA young man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw\nit work; but it did not always work, and that was annoying. He\nwas penniless and had a taste for power, and to eke out his\nerratic endowment he got himself books of Eastern lore, and day\nby day as I watched him I could see him becoming more and more\nimpressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a full-fledged\nwonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic cults at his\ntongue's end, and the reverent regard of many wealthy ladies. I\nhave never tried to break through his guard, but I feel certain\nthat he is a deliberate charlatan.\n\nThis is an economic process, automatic and irresistible. Just as\nthe manufacturer of honest foods is driven out by the\nadulterator, so the worker of miracles drives out the sincere\ninvestigator. As a result we have here in America a plague of\nEastern cults, with \"swamis\" using soft yellow robes and soft\nbrown eyes to win the souls of idle society ladies. These\nteachers of ancient Hindoo lore despise us as a race of\nbarbarians; but they stay--whether because of love of man or\nwoman, I do not pretend to say.\n\nThere are the Theosophists of many brands, with schools and\ninstitutes and temples and colonies, and a doctrine as complex\nand detailed and fantastic as that of the Roman Catholics. I have\nalready referred to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, a runaway\nRussian army officer's daughter, whose career reads like a tale\nout of the Arabian Nights. And there is Annie Besant, who was\nonce an ardent worker in the Social-democratic Federation; H. M.\nHyndman tells of his dismay when she went to India and walked in\na procession between two white bulls! Here in California is\nMadame Tingley, with a colony and a host of followers in a\nminiature paradise. Men work at money-lending or manufacturing\nsporting-goods, and when they get old and tired they make the\nthrilling discovery that they have souls; the theosophists\ncultivate these souls and they leave their money to the\nsoul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers.\nFor, you see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of\ncultivating millionaire souls; there are slanders and feuds, just\nas in soulless affairs. \"Don't have anything to do with Madame\nTingley,\" whispers a Theosophist lady to my wife; and when my\nwife in all innocence inquires, \"Why not?\" the awe-stricken\nanswer comes, \"She practices black magic!\"\n\nLet me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do\nnot believe that she could practice it, even if she wanted to--I\ndo not believe in black magic. My purpose is merely to show how\ntheosophists quarrel: going back to the days of Anu and Baal and\nthe bronze image of the Babylonian fire-god:\n\n Let them die, but let me live!  Let them be put under a ban, but\nlet me prosper!  Let them perish, but let me increase!  Let them\nbecome weak, but let me wax strong!\n\n\nMental Malpractice\n\nThis is the other side of the fair shield of religious faith.\nWhy, if there be a power which loves and can be persuaded to aid\nus, may there not also be a power which hates, and can be\npersuaded to destroy? No religion has ever been able to answer\nthis, and therefore none has ever been able to escape from\ndevil-terrors. Even Jesus was pursued by Satan, and the Holy\nCatholic Church has its ceremonies for the exorcising of demons,\nand a most frightful formula for cursing. And here are our\nfriends the Christian Scientists, proclaiming the unreality of\nall evil, their ability to banish disease by convincing\nthemselves that they are perfect in God--yet tormented by a\nsqualid phobia called \"Mental Malpractice\", or \"Malicious Animal\nMagnetism\".\n\nChristian Science is the most characteristic of American\nreligious contributions. Just as Billy Sunday is the price we pay\nfor failing to educate our base-ball players, so Mary Baker\nGlover Patterson Eddy is the price we pay for failing to educate\nour farmer's daughters.\n\nThat she had a power to cure disease I do not doubt, because I\nhave a little of it myself. At first my opinion was that her\n\"Science\" made its way by curing the imaginary ailments of the\nidle rich. If a person has nothing to do but think that he is\nsick, you can work easy miracles by persuading him to think that\nhe is well; and if he has nothing to do but think that he is\nwell, he will help you to build marble churches and maintain\npropaganda societies. But recently I have experimented with\nmental healing--enough to satisfy myself that the subconscious\nmind which controls our physical functions can be powerfully\ninfluenced by the will.\n\nI told the story of some of these experiments in Hearst's\nMagazine for April, 1914. Suffice it here to say that if you will\nlay your hands upon a sick person, forming a vivid mental picture\nof the bodily changes you desire, and concentrating the power of\nyour will upon them, you may be surprised by the results,\nespecially if you possess anything in the way of psychic gifts.\nYou do not have to adopt any theories, you do not have to do it\nin the name of any divinity, ancient or modern; the only bearing\nof such ideas is that they serve to persuade people to make the\nexperiment, and to make it with persistence and intensity. So it\nhas come about that \"miracles\" of healing are associated with\n\"faith\"; and so it comes about that scientists are apt to flout\nthe subject. But read of the work of Janet and Charcot and their\nfollowers at the Salpetriere; they have proven that all kinds of\nseeming-organic ailments may be entirely hysterical in nature,\nand may be cured by the simplest form of suggestion.\nUnderstanding this, you may find it more easy to credit the fact\nthat cripples do sometimes throw away their crutches in the\ngrotto of Lourdes. For my part, I can believe that Jesus\nperformed all the miracles of healing attributed to him\n--including the raising up of people pronounced to be dead by the\nignorance of that time. I am convinced that in the new science of\npsycho-analysis we have a universe as vast as the universe of the\natom or of the stars.\n\nThe Christian Scientists have got hold of this power; they have\nmixed it up with metaphysic and divinity, and built some four or\nfive hundred churches, and printed the Mother Church alone knows\nhow many million pamphlets and books. I once invested three of my\nhard-earned dollars for a copy of the Eddy Bible, and let myself\nbe stunned and blinded by the flapping of metaphysical wings. It\nis unadulterated moonshine--as the Platonist and Berkeleyan and\nHegelian and other orthodox collegiate metaphysical magi can\nprove to you in one minute. What interests me about the\nphenomenon is not the slinging of tremendous words, but the\nstrictly Yankee use which is made of them. There is no nonsense\nabout saving your soul in Christian Science; what it is for is to\nremove your wen, to nail down your floating kidney, and to enable\nyou to hustle and make money. We saw in our politics the growth\nof a Party of the Full Dinner-Pail; contemporaneous therewith,\nand corresponding thereto, we see in our religious life the\ndevelopment of a Church of the Full Pocket-Book.\n\nIt is a strict religion--strictly cash. The heads of the cult do\nnot issue cheap editions of \"Science and Health, With Key to the\nScriptures\", to relieve the suffering of the proletariat; no--the\nwork is copyrighted, in all its varying and contradictory\neditions, and the price is from three to seven-fifty, according\nto binding. Treatments cost from three dollars to ten, whether\nyou come and get them or take them over the telephone. And we\nhave no nonsense about charity, we don't worry about the poor who\nfester in our city slums; because poverty is a product of Mortal\nMind, and we offer to all men a way to get rich right off the\nbat. You may come to our marble churches and hear people testify\nhow through the power of Divine Mind they were enabled to\nanticipate a rise in the stock-market. If you don't avail\nyourself of the opportunity, the fault is yours, and yours also\nthe punishment.\n\nAs to the management of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy\nis a Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled\nby an absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five\nmen, who alone dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter\nfrom a Christian Science healer who was listed as an \"authorized\npractitioner\", and who withdrew from the Church because of its\nattitude on public questions. He sends me a copy of his\ncorrespondence with the editors of the \"Christian Science\nMonitor\", containing a detailed analysis of the position of that\npaper on such issues as the Ballinger land-frauds. He writes:\n\nI am thoroughly convinced now that the policy of the Church is\nconsciously plutocratic. The only recommendation I have heard of\nthe latest appointee to the Board of Directors is that he is one\nof the richest men in the movement.\n\nAfter the Titanic disaster, Senator La Follette brought in a\ncarefully drawn bill to compel steamship companies to provide\nlife-boats and trained crews. The \"Christian Science Monitor\"\nopposed this bill; and when my correspondent cited the fact, he\nbrought out a quaint bit of metaphysical logic, as follows:\n\nOne would prefer to travel on a vessel without a single boat,\nrather than on some other vessels which were loaded down with\nlife-boats, where the government of Mind was not understood!\n\n\nScience and Wealth\n\nThe truth is that the brand of Mammon was on our Yankee religion\nfrom the day of its birth. In the first edition of her new Bible\n\"Mother\" Eddy dropped the hint to her readers: \"Men of business\nhave said this science was of great advantage from a secular\npoint of view.\" And in her advertisements she threw aside all\npretense, declaring that her work \"Affords an opportunity to\nacquire a profession by which one can accumulate a fortune.\" When\nher pupils did accumulate, she boasted of their success; nor did\nshe neglect her own accumulating.\n\nIt has been a dozen years since I looked into this cult; in order\nto be sure that it has not been purified in the interim, I\nproceed to a street corner in my home city, where is a stand with\na sign: \"Christian Science Literature.\" I take four sample\ncopies of a magazine, the \"Christian Science Sentinel\", published\nby the Mother Church in Boston, and turn to the \"Testimonials of\nHealing\". In the issue of August 11, 1917, Mary C. Richards of\nSt. Margarets-on-Thames, England, testifies: \"Through a number of\ncircumstances unnecessary to relate, but proving conclusively\nthat the result came not from man but from God, employment was\nfound.\" In the issue of December 2, 1916, Frances Tuttle of\nJersey City, N. J., testifies how her sister was successfully\ntreated for unemployment by a scientist practitioner. \"Every\ncondition was beautifully met.\" In the same issue Fred D. Miller\nof Los Angeles, Cal., testifies: \"Soon after this wonderful truth\ncame to me, Divine Love led me to a new position with a\nresponsible firm. The work was new to me, but I have given entire\nsatisfaction, and my salary has been advanced twice in less than\na year.\" In the issue of January 27, 1917, Eliza Fryant of\nAgricola, Miss., testifies how she cured her little dog of\nsnake-bite and removed two painful corns from her own foot. In\nthe issue of August 4, 1917, Marcia E. Gaier, of Everett, Wash.,\ntestifies how it suddenly occurred to her that because God is\nAll, she would drop her planning and outlining in regard to real\nestate properties, \"upon which for nine months all available\nmaterial methods were tried to no effect.\" The result was a\ntriumph of \"Principle\".\n\nWhile working in the yard one morning and gratefully communing\nwith God, the only power, I suddenly felt that I should stop\nworking and prepare for visitors on their way to look at the\nproperty. I obeyed this very distinct command, and in about an\nhour I greeted two people who had searched almost the entire city\nfor just what we had to offer. They had been directed to our\nplace by what to material sense would seem an accident, but we\nknow it was the divine law of harmony in its universal operation.\n\nAfter this no one will wonder that John M. Tutt, in a Christian\nScience lecture at Kansas City, Mo., should proclaim:\n\nMy friends, do you know that since the world began Christian\nScience is the only system which has intelligently related\nreligion to business? Christian Science shows that since all\nideas belong to Mind, God, therefore all real business belongs to\nHim.\n\nAs I said, these people have the new-old power of mental healing,\nThey blunder along with it blindly, absurdly, sometimes with\ntragic consequences; but meantime the rank and file of the\npill-doctors know nothing about this power, and regard it with\ncontempt mingled with fear; so of course the hosts of sufferers\nwhom the pill-doctors cannot help flock to the healers of the\n\"Church of Christ, Scientist\". According to the custom of those\nwho are healed by \"faith\", they swallow line, hook, and sinker,\ncreed, ritual, metaphysic and divinity. So we see in\ntwentieth-century America precisely what we saw in B. C.\ntwentieth-century Assyria--a host of worshippers, giving their\nworldly goods without stint, and a priesthood, made partly of\nfanatics and partly of charlatans, conducting a vast enterprise\nof graft, and harvesting that thing desired of all men, power\nover the lives and destinies of others.\n\nAnd of course among themselves they quarrel; they murder one\nanother's Mortal Minds, they drive one another out, they snarl\nover the spoils like a pack of hungry animals. Listen to the\nMother, denouncing one of her students--a perfectly amiable and\nharmless youth whose only offense was that he had gone his own\nway and was healing the sick for the benefit of his own\npocket-book:\n\nBehold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the\nsunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put\nout Truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track\nwith the trophies of thy guilt--I say, Behold the \"cloud\" no\nbigger than a man's hand already rising on the horizon of Truth,\nto pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom.\n\nAnd again:\n\nThe Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method with\nthe torture of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall\nupon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him\nremember this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is\nrobbing, committing adultery and killing. When he is attempting\nto turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the\nquivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life and\ngiving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is\nturning back the reviving sufferer to his bed of pain, clouding\nhis first morning after years of night; and the Nemesis of that\nhour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon\nthe sword of justice.\n\n\nNew Nonsense\n\nIn a certain city of America is a large building given up\nentirely to the whims of pretty ladies. Its floors are not floors\nbut \"Promenades\", and have walls of glass, behind which, as you\nstroll, you see bonnets from Paris and opera cloaks from London,\nfurs from Alaska and blankets from Arizona, diamonds from South\nAfrica and beads from the Philippines, grapes from Spain and\ncherries from Japan, fortune-tellers from Arabia and\ndancing-masters from Petrograd and \"naturopaths\" from Vienna.\nThere are seventy-three shops, by actual count, containing\neverything that could be imagined or desired by a pretty lady,\nwhether for her body, or for that vague stream of emotion she\ncalls her \"soul\". One of the seventy-three shops is a\n\"Metaphysical Library\", having broad windows, and walls in pastel\ntints, and pretty vases with pink flowers, and pretty gray wicker\nchairs in which the reader will please to be seated, while we\nprobe the mysteries of an activity widely spread throughout\nAmerica, called \"New Thought.\"\n\nWe begin with a shelf of magazines having mystical titles: Azoth;\nMaster Mind; Aletheian; Words of Power; Qabalah; Comforter;\nAdept; Nautilus; True Word; Astrological Bulletin; Unity; Uplift;\nNow. And then come shelves of pretty pamphlets, alluring to the\neye and the purse; also shelves of imposing-looking volumes\ncontaining the lore and magic of a score of races and two score\nof centuries--together with the very newest manifestations of\nYankee hustle and graft.\n\nAs in the case of Christian Science, these New Thoughters have a\nfundamental truth, which I would by no means wish to depreciate.\nIt is a fact that the mysterious Source of our being is infinite,\nand that we are only at the beginning of our thinking about it.\nIt is a fact that by appeal to it we can perform seeming miracles\nof mental and moral regeneration; we can stimulate the flow of\nnervous energy and of the blood, thus furthering the processes of\nbodily healing. But the fact that God is Infinite and Omnipotent\ndoes not bar the fact that He has certain ways of working, which\nHe does not vary; and that it is our business to explore and\nunderstand these ways, instead of setting our fancies to work\nimagining other ways more agreeable to our sentimentality.\n\nThus, for example, if we want bread, it is God's decree that we\nshall plant wheat and harvest it, and grind and bake and\ndistribute it. Under conditions prevailing at the moment, it\nappears to be His decree that we shall store the wheat in\nelevators, and ship it in freight cars, and buy it through a\ngrain exchange, with capital borrowed from a national bank; in\nother words, that our daily bread shall be the plaything of\nexploiters and speculators, until such a time as we have the\nintelligence to form an effective political party and establish\nIndustrial Democracy. But when you come to study the ways of God\nin the literature of the New Thought, do you find anything about\nthe Millers' Trust and the Bakers' Trust and how to expropriate\nthese agencies of starvation? You do not!\n\nWhat you find is Bootstrap-lifting; you find gentlemen and lady\npractitioners shutting their eyes and lifting their hands and\npronouncing Incantations in awe-inspiring voices--or in Capital\nLetters and LARGE TYPE: \"God is infinite, God is All-Loving, GOD\nWILL PROVIDE. Bread is coming to you! Bread is coming to you!!\nBREAD IS COMING TO YOU!!!\"\n\nYou think this is exaggeration? If so, it is because you have\nnever entered the building of the pretty ladies, and sat in the\ngray wicker chairs of the metaphysical library. One of the\nhighest high-priestesses of the cults of New Nonsense is a lady\nnamed Elizabeth Towne, editor of \"The Nautilus\"; and Priestess\nElizabeth tells you:\n\nI believe the idea that money wants you will help you to the\nright mental condition. Be a pot of honey and let it come.\n\nI look over this Priestess' magazine, and find it full of\ntestimonials and advertisements for the conjuring of prosperity.\n\"Are you in the success sphere?\" asks one exhorter; the next\ntells you \"How to enter the silence. How to manifest what you\ndesire. The secret of advancement.\" Another tells: \"How a Failure\nat Sixty Won Sudden Success; From Poverty to $40,000 a year--a\nLesson for Old and Young Alike.\" The lesson, it appears, is to\npay $3.00 for a book called \"Power of Will.\" And here is another\nbook:\n\nMaster Key: Which can unlock the Secret Chamber of Success, can\nthrow wide the doors which seem to bar men from the Treasure\nHouse of Nature, and bids those enter and partake who are Wise\nenough to Understand and broad enough to Weigh the Evidence, firm\nenough to Follow their Own Judgment and Strong enough to Make the\nSacrifice Exacted.\n\n\n\"Dollars Want Me\"\n\nI turn to the shelves of pamphlets. Here is a pretty one called\n\"All Sufficiency in All Things,\" published by the \"Unity School\nof Christianity\", in Kansas City; it explains that God is God,\nnot merely of the Soul, but also of the Kansas City stockyards.\n\nThis divine Substance is ever abiding within us, and stands ready\nto manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just\nas it did in Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and\nforever. Abundant Supply by the manifestation of the Father\nwithin us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome\nof the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily\nhealing..... \"Know that I am God--all of God, Good, all of Good.\nI am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the Substance.\"\n\nAnd here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called\n\"Mind Power\". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr.\nAtkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the\nsecret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense,\nStraight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will\nwrite out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to\nyourself, to convince yourself that you have Power, that the\nINDWELLING PRESENCE with all its MIGHT is yours. Mr. Atkinson\nrebukes mildly the tendency of some of his fellow\nBootstrap-lifters to employ these arts for money-making; but you\nnotice that his magazine, \"Advanced Thought\", does not decline\nthe advertisements of such too-practical practitioners.\n\nNext comes a gentleman with the musical name of Wallace Wattles,\nwho tells in one pamphlet \"How to Be a Genius\", and in another\npamphlet \"How to Get What you Want\". The thing for you to do is--\n\nSaturate your mentality through and through with the knowledge\nthat YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO..... Look upon the\npeanut-stand merely as the beginning of the department store, and\nmake it grow; you can.\n\nAnd Mr. Wattles wattles on, in an ecstasy of acquisitiveness:\n\nHold this consciousness and say with deep, earnest feeling: I CAN\nsucceed! All that is possible to any one is possible to me. I AM\nsuccess. I do succeed, for I am full of the Power of Success.\n\nImagine, if you please, a poor devil chained in the treadmill of\nthe capitalist system--a \"soda-jerker\", a \"counter-jumper\", a\nbook-keeper for the Steel Trust. His chances of rising in life\nare one in ten thousand; but he comes to the Metaphysical\nLibrary, and pays the price of his dinner for a pamphlet by Henry\nHarrison Brown, who was first a Unitarian clergyman, and then an\nextra-high Bootstrap-lifter in San Francisco, an Honorary\nVice-President of the International New Nonsense Alliance. Mr.\nBrown will tell our soda-jerker or counter-jumper exactly how to\nelevate himself by mental machinery. All calculations of\nprobabilities are delusions of the senses; if you have faith, you\ncan move, not merely mountains, but Riker-Hegeman's, Macy's, or\nthe Steel Trust. \"How to Promote Yourself \" is the title of one\nof Mr. Brown's pamphlets, in which he explains that--\n\nYour wants are impressed on the Divine Mind only by your faith. A\ndoubt cuts the connection.\n\nA second pamphlet, which we are told is now in its thirtieth\nedition, bears the thrilling title of \"Dollars Want Me!\" In it\nMr. Brown lays claim to being a pioneer:\n\nI believe that this little monograph is the first utterance of\nthe thought that each individual has the ability so to radiate\nhis mental forces that he can cause the Dollars to feel him, love\nhim, seek him, and thus draw at will all things needed for his\nunfoldment from the universal supply.\n\n\"What are Dollars?\" asks our author; and answers:\n\nDollars are manifestations of the One Infinite Substance as you\nare, but, unlike you, they are not Self-Conscious. They have no\npower till you give them power. Make them feel this through your\nthought-vibrations as you feel the importance of your work. They\nwill then come to you to be used.\n\n\"What is Poverty?\" Mr. Brown asks, and answers himself:\n\nPoverty is a mental condition. It can be cured only by the\nAffirmation of Power to cure: I am a part of the One, and, in the\nOne, I possess all! Affirm this and patiently wait for the\nmanifestation. You have sown the thought seed.\n\nAnd our author goes on to hand out packages of these\nthought-seeds--\"Affirmations\" as they are called, in the jargon\nof the New Conjuring:\n\n I desire a deep consciousness of financial freedom.  I desire\nthat the flow of prosperity become equalized.  I desire a greater\nconsciousness of my power to attract the dollar.  The Indwelling\nPower cares for my purse.  I own whatever I desire.  I can afford\nto use dollars for my happiness.  I always have a good bank\naccount. I actually see it.  My one idea of the law is to use,\nuse, USE.\n\n\nSpiritual Financiering\n\nIf the symbolism of the Episcopal Church is of the palace, and\nthat of the non-conformist sects of the counting-house, that of\nthe International New Nonsense Alliance is of Wall Street and the\n\"ticker\". \"What is your rating in the Spiritual Bradstreet?\" asks\nWilliam Morris Nichols in the publication of the \" 'Now' Folk\",\nSan Francisco:\n\nIs it low or high? Is your credit with the Bank of the Universe\ngood or poor? If you draw a spiritual draft are you sure of its\nbeing honored?\n\nIf you can answer that last question affirmatively, you are on\nthe road to become a Master in Spiritual Financiering.\n\nHave you an account with the First (and only) Bank of Spirit? If\nnot, then you should at once open one therewith. For no one can\nafford to keep less than a large deposit of spiritual funds with\nthat Bank.\n\nAnd how do you proceed to open your account? It is very simple:\n\nIntend the mind in the direction indicated by your desire. Seek\nfor the Light and Guidance by which you may open up the way for\nyour Spiritual Substance, which governs material supply, to reach\nyou and make you as rich as you ought to be, in freedom and\nhappiness. All this you can, and when in earnest, will do.\n\nI turn over the advertisements of this publication of the \" 'Now'\nFolk\". One offers \"The Business Side of New Thought.\" Another\noffers \"The Books Without an If\", with your money back IF you are\nnot satisfied! Another offers land in Bolivia for two dollars an\nacre. Another quotes Shakespeare: \" 'Tis the mind that makes the\nbody rich.\" Another offers two copies of the \"Phrenological Era\"\nfor ten cents.\n\nThere is apparently no delusion of any age or clime which cannot\nfind dupes among the readers of this New Nonsense. One notice\ncommands:\n\nStop! A Revelation! A Book has been written entitled \"Strands of\nGold\" or \"From Darkness into Light!\"\n\nAnother announces:\n\nThe Most Wonderful Book of the Ages: The Acquarian Gospel of\nJesus the Christ, Transcribed from the Book of God's Remembrance,\nthe Akashic Records.\n\nAnd here is an advertisement published in Mr. Atkinson's paper:\n\nNumerology: the Universal Adjuster! Do you know: What you appear\nto be to others? What you really are? What you want to be? What\nwould overcome your present and future difficulties? Write to X,\nPhilosopher. You will receive full particulars of his personal\nwork which is dedicated to your service. No problem is too big or\ntoo small for Numerology. Understanding awaits you.\n\nAnd looking in the body of the magazine, you find this\nPhilosopher imparting some of this Understanding. Would you like,\nfor example, to understand why America entered the War? Nothing\neasier. The vowels of the Words United States of America are\nuieaeoaeia, which are numbered 2951561591, which added make 45,\nor 4 plus 5 equals 9. You might not at first see what that has to\ndo with the War--until the Philosopher points out that \"9 in the\nnumber of completion, indicating the end of a cosmic cycle.\"\nThat, of course, explains everything.\n\nAnd here is a work on what you perhaps thought to be a dead\nscience, Astrology. It is called \"Lucky Hours for Everybody: A\nTrue System of Planetary Hours by Prof. John B. Early. Price One\nDollar.\" It teaches you things like this:\n\nSaturn's negative hours are especially good for all matters\nrelating to gold-mining..... The Sun negative rules the emerald,\nthe musical note D sharp, and the number four. The lunar hours\nare a good time to deal in public commodities, and to hire\nservants of both sexes.....\n\nA recent lady visitor informed me that she had made several vain\nattempts to transact important business in the hours ruled by\nJupiter, usually held to be fortunate, while she was nearly\nalways fortunate in what she began in the hours ruled by Saturn.\nUpon investigation I found her name was ruled by the Sun\nnegative, and that she had Capricorn with Saturn therein as her\nascendant at birth, which explains.\n\nAnd finally, here is a London \"scientist\", reported in the\n\"Weekly Unity\" of Kansas City, who proves his mental power over\ntwo-horse power oil engines which fail to act. \"Going a little\napart, he came back in a few minutes and said: 'The engine is all\nright now and will work satisfactorily.' and without any further\ndifficulty it did.\" We are told how Dr. Rawson gave a\ndemonstration of his method to a newspaper reporter the other\nday. Fixing his gaze as though looking into space, he apparently\nbecame absorbed in deep contemplation and said aloud: \"There is\nno danger; man is surrounded by divine love; there is no matter;\nall is spirit and manifestation of spirit.\"\n\nYou might at first find difficulty in believing what can be\naccomplished by \"demonstrations\" such as this; not merely are\ntwo-horse power oil engines made to work, but the whole gigantic\nmachine of Prussian militarism is prevented from working. You may\nrecall how Arthur Machen's magazine story of the Angels of Mons\nwas taken up and made into a Catholic legend over-night; now here\nis a New-Nonsense legend, complete and perfect, going the rounds\nof our Nonsense magazines:\n\nLondon, Dec. 14.--Shell-proof and bullet-proof soldiers have been\ndiscovered on the European battle-fronts. Heroes with \"charmed\nlives\" are being made every day, according to Frederick L.\nRawson, a London scientist, who insists he has found the\nmiraculous way by which they are developed. He calls it \"audible\ntreatment\". \"Practical utilization of the powers of God by right\nthinking,\" is the agency through which Dr. Rawson declares he can\nso treat a man that he will not be harmed when hundreds of men\nare being shot dead beside him. This amazing treatment includes a\nnew type of prayer. It is being administered to hundreds of men\naudibly, and to hundreds more by letter. Nothing since the war\nbegan has aroused so much talk of modern miracles as have many of\nthe statements of Dr. Rawson.......\n\nAt the taking of a wood there were five hundred yards of \"No\nMan's Land\" to be crossed. Our troops could not get across. Then\nCapt. --------, who practices this method of prayer, treated them\nfor an hour before they started, and not a man was knocked out.\nHe was the only officer left out of eighty in his brigade. He\nsimply held onto the fact that man is spiritual and perfect and\ncould not be touched. A bullet fired from a revolver only five\nyards away hit him over the chest, tore his shirt and went out at\nthe shoulder. But it never penetrated his chest. He was\nfrequently in a hail of shells and bullets which did not touch\nhim.\n\n\nThe Graft of Grace\n\nAll this is grotesque; but it is what happens to religions in a\nworld of commercial competition. It happens not merely to\nChristian Science and New Thought religions, Mazdaznan and\nZionist, Holy Roller and Mormon religions, but to Catholic and\nEpiscopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist and Baptist religions.\nFor you see, when you are with the wolves you must howl with\nthem; when you are competing with fakirs you must fake. The\nordinary Christian will read the claims of the New Thought fakers\nwith contempt; but have I not shown the Catholic Church\npublishing long lists of money-miracles? Have I not shown the\nChurch of Good Society, our exclusive and aristocratic Protestant\nEpiscopal communion, pretending to call rain and to banish\npestilence, to protect crops and win wars and heal those who are\n\"sick in estate\"--that is, who are in business trouble?\n\nThe reader will say that I am a cynic, despising my fellows; but\nthat is not so. I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces\nwhich operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and\npriests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame\nstill more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with\nthe alternative to swindle or to starve.\n\nFor, you see, the prophet has to have food. He has frequently got\nalong with almost none, and with only a rag for clothing; in\nPalestine and India, where the climate is warm, a sincere faith\nhas been possible for short periods. But the modern prophet who\nexpects to influence the minds of men has to have books and\nnewspapers; he will find a telephone and a typewriter and\npostage-stamps hardly to be dispensed with, also in Europe and\nAmerica some sort of a roof over his meeting place. So the\nprophet is caught, like all the rest of us, in the net of the\nspeculator and the landlord. He has to get money, and in order to\nget it he has to impress those who already have it--people whose\nminds and souls have been deformed by the system of parasitism\nand exploitation.\n\nSo the prophet becomes a charlatan; or, if he refuses, he becomes\na martyr, and founds a church which becomes a church of\ncharlatans. I care not how sincere, how passionately proletarian\na religious prophet may be, that is the fate which sooner or\nlater befalls him in a competitive society--to be the founder of\nan organization of fools, conducted by knaves, for the benefit of\nwolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it befell Ignatius\nLoyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox and John Calvin and John\nWesley.\n\nA friend of mine who has made a study of \"Spiritualism\" describes\nto me the conditions in that field. The mediums are people,\nmostly women, with a peculiar gift; whether we believe in the\nsurvival of personality, or whether we call it telepathy, does\nnot alter the fact that they have a rare and special\nsensitiveness, a new faculty which science must investigate. They\ncome, poor people mostly--for the well-to-do will seldom give\ntheir time to exacting and wearisome experiments. They come,\nwearing frayed and thin clothing, shivering with cold, obviously\nundernourished; and their survival depends upon their producing\n\"phenomena\"--which phenomena are capricious, and will not come at\ncall. So, what more natural than that mediums should resort to\nfaking? That the whole field should be reeking with fraud, and\nscience should be held back from understanding an extraordinary\npower of the subconscious mind?\n\nEver since we came to Pasadena, various ladies have been telling\nus about the wondrous powers of a mulatto-woman, a manicurist at\nthe city's most fashionable hotel. The other day, out of\ncuriosity, my wife and I went; the moment the \"medium\" opened her\nmouth my wife recognized her as the person who has been trying\nfor several months to get me on the telephone to tell me how the\nspirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with me! The\nseance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy\nand cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with\nthe dialect and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was\nset in the middle of the floor, the room was made dark, a couple\nof hymns were sung, and then the spirit of Dr. Oliver Wendell\nHolmes spoke through the megaphone with a Bowery accent, and gave\ncommunications from relatives and friends of the various\nconfederates. \"Jesus is with us\", said Dr. Holmes. \"The spirit of\nJesus bids you to study spiritualism.\" And then came the voice of\na child: \"Mamma! Mamma!\" \"It is little Georgie!\" cried Dr.\nHolmes; and one of the society ladies started, and answered, and\npresently burst into tears. A marvelous piece of\nevidence--especially when you recall that the story of this\nmother's bereavement had been published in all the papers a\ncouple of months before!\n\nAnd this kind of swindling is going on every night in every city\nof America. It goes on wholesale for months every summer at Lily\nDale, in New York State, where the spiritualists hold their\ncombination of Chautauqua and Coney Island. And the same thing is\ngoing on in the field of mental healing, and of all other\n\"occult\" forces and powers, whether real or imaginary. It is\ngoing on with new spiritual fervors, new moral idealisms, new\npoetry, new music, new painting, new sculpture. The faker, the\ncharlatan is everywhere--using the mental and moral and artistic\nforces of life as a means of delivering himself from economic\nservitude. Everywhere I turn I see it--credulity being exploited,\nand men of practical judgment, watching the game and seeing\nthrough it, made hard in their attitude of materialism. How many\nmen I know who sit by in sullen protest while their wives drift\nfrom one new quackery to another, wasting their income seeking\nhealth and happiness in futile emotionalism! How many kind and\nsensitive spirits I know--both men and women--who pour their\ntreasures of faith and admiration into the laps of hierophants\nwho began by fooling all mankind and ended by fooling themselves!\n\nIn each one of the cults of what I have called the \"Church of the\nQuacks\", there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely\nsincere, self-sacrificing people. They will read this book--if\nanyone can persuade them to read it--with pain and anger;\nthinking that I am mocking at their faith, and have no\nappreciation of their devotion. All that I can say is that I am\ntrying to show them how they are being trapped, how their fine\nand generous qualities are being used by exploiters of one sort\nor another; and how this must continue, world without end, until\nthere is order in the material affairs of the race, until justice\nhas been established as the law of man's dealing with his\nfellows.\n\n\n\nBOOK SEVEN\n\nThe Church of the Social Revolution\n\n They have taken the tomb of our Comrade Christ--\n   Infidel hordes that believe not in man;\n  Stable and stall for his birth sufficed,\n      But his tomb is built on a kingly plan.\n  They have hedged him round with pomp and parade,\n      They have buried him deep under steel and stone--\nBut we come leading the great Crusade\n      To give our Comrade back to his own.\n                            Waddell.\n\n\nChrist and Caesar\n\nIn the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus,\nwe are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and\nshowed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and\nthe devil said unto him: \"All this power will I give unto thee,\nand the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to\nwhomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship\nme, all shall be thine.\" Jesus, as we know, answered and said\n\"Get thee behind me, Satan!\" And he really meant it; he would\nhave nothing to do with worldly glory, with \"temporal power;\" he\nchose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death\nof a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his\nchurch followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian\ngospel. The early Christians had \"all things in common, except\nwomen;\" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted\ncatacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil.\n\nBut the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one\ndefeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces\nwhich battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again,\nto get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new\nrevolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous\npower in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed\nthe guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself,\nsuggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so\nthat the Church and he might work together for the greater glory\nof God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for\ntheir organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off\nlaughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from\nJesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest\nreligion. How complete and swift was his success you may judge\nfrom the fact that fifty years later we find the Emperor\nValentinian compelled to pass an edict limiting the donations of\nemotional females to the church in Rome!\n\nFrom that time on Christianity has been what I have shown in this\nbook, the chief of the enemies of social progress. From the days\nof Constantine to the days of Bismarck and Mark Hanna, Christ and\nCaesar have been one, and the Church has been the shield and\narmor of predatory economic might. With only one qualification to\nbe noted: that the Church has never been able to suppress\nentirely the memory of her proletarian Founder. She has done her\nbest, of course; we have seen how her scholars twist his words\nout of their sense, and the Catholic Church even goes so far as\nto keep to the use of a dead language, so that her victims may\nnot hear the words of Jesus in a form they can understand.\n\n 'Tis well that such seditious songs are sung\n  Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue!\n\nBut in spite of this, the history of the Church has been one\nincessant struggle with upstarts and rebels who have filled\nthemselves with the spirit of the Magnificat and the Sermon on\nthe Mount, and of that bitterly class-conscious proletarian,\nJames, the brother of Jesus.\n\nAnd here is the thing to be noted, that the factor which has\ngiven life to Christianity, which enables it to keep its hold on\nthe hearts of men today, is precisely this new wine of faith and\nfervor which has been poured into it by generation after\ngeneration of poor men who live like Jesus as outcasts, and die\nlike Jesus as criminals, and are revered like Jesus as founders\nand saints. The greatest of the early Church fathers were\nbitterly fought by the Church authorities of their own time. St.\nChrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was turned out of office,\nexiled and practically martyred; St. Basil was persecuted by the\nEmperor Valens; St. Ambrose excommunicated the tyrannical Emperor\nTheodosius; St. Cyprian gave all his wealth to the poor, and was\nexiled and finally martyred. In the same way, most of the\nheretics whom the Holy Inquisition tortured and burned were\nproletarian rebels; the saints whom the Church reveres, the\nfounders of the orders which gave it life for century after\ncentury, were men who sought to return to the example of the\ncarpenter's son. Let us hear a Christian scholar on this point,\nProf. Rauschenbusch:\n\nThe movement of Francis of Assisi, of the Waldenses, of the\nHumiliati and Bons Hommes, were all inspired by democratic and\ncommunistic ideals. Wiclif was by far the greatest doctrinal\nreformer before the reformation; but his eyes, too, were first\nopened to the doctrinal errors of the Roman Church by joining in\na great national and patriotic movement against the alien\ndomination and extortion of the Church. The Bohemian revolt made\nfamous by the name of John Huss, was quite as much political and\nsocial as religious. Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a\nreligious prophet. In his famous interview with the dying Lorenzo\nde Medici he made three demands as a condition for granting\nabsolution. Of the man he demanded a living faith in God's mercy.\nOf the millionaire he demanded restitution of his ill-gotten\nwealth. Of the political usurper he demanded the restoration of\nthe liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant that\nthe dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to\nassent to the second, and impossible to concede the last.\n\n\nLocusts and Wild Honey\n\nThis proletarian strain in Christianity goes back to a time long\nbefore Jesus; it seems to have been inherent in the religious\ncharacter of the Jews--that stubborn independence, that\nstiff-necked insistence on the right of a man to interview God\nfor himself and to find out what God wants him to do; also the\ninclination to find that God wants him to oppose earthly rulers\nand their plundering of the poor. What is it that gives to the\nBible the vitality it has today? Its literary style? To say that\nis to display the ignorance of the cultured; for elevation of\nstyle is a by-product of passionate conviction; it is what the\nJewish writers had to say, and not the way they said it, that has\ngiven them their hold upon mankind. Was it their insistence upon\nconscience, their fear of God as the beginning of wisdom? But\nthat same element appears in the Babylonian psalms, which are as\neloquent and as sincere as those of the Hebrews, yet are read\nonly by scholars. Was it their sense of the awful presence of\ndivinity, of the soul immortal in its keeping? The Egyptians had\nthat far more than the Hebrews, and yet we do not cherish their\nreligious books. Or was it the love of man for all things living,\nthe lesson of charity upon which the Catholics lay such stress?\nThe gentle Buddha had that, and had it long before Christ; also\nhis priests had metaphysical subtlety, greater than that of John\nthe Apostle or Thomas Aquinas.\n\nNo, there is one thing and one only which distinguishes the\nHebrew sacred writings from all others, and that is their\ninsistent note of proletarian revolt, their furious denunciations\nof exploiters, and of luxury and wantonness, the vices of the\nrich. Of that note the Assyrian and Chaldean and Babylonian\nwriting contain not a trace, and the Egyptian hardly enough to\nmention. The Hindoos had a trace of it; but the true,\nnatural-born rebels of all time were the Hebrews. They were\nrebels against oppression in ancient Judea, as they are today in\nPetrograd and New York; the spirit of equality and brotherhood\nwhich spoke through Ezekiel and Amos and Isaiah, through John the\nBaptist and Jesus and James, spoke in the last century through\nMarx and Lassalle and Jaures, and speaks today through Liebknecht\nand Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky and Israel Zangwill and\nMorris Hillquit and Abraham Cahan and Emma Goldman and the Joseph\nFels endowment.\n\nThe legal rate of interest throughout the Babylonian Empire was\n20%; the laws of Manu permitted 24%, while the laws of the\nEgyptians only stepped in to prevent more than 100%. But listen\nto this Hebrew law:\n\nIf thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then\nthou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a\nsojourner, that he may live with thee: Take thou no interest of\nhim, or increase; but fear thy God that thy brother may live with\nthee. Thou shalt not give him any money upon usury, nor lend him\nthy victuals for increase.\n\nAnd so on, forbidding that Hebrews be sold as bond servants, and\ncommanding that at the end of fifty years All debtors shall have\ntheir debts forgiven and their lands returned to them. And note\nthat this is not the raving of agitators, the demand of a\nminority party; it is the law of the Hebrew land.\n\nThere has been of late a great deal of new discovery concerning\nthe early Jews. Conrad Noel summarizes the results as follows:\n\nThe land-mark law, which sternly forbids encroachment upon\npeasant rights; consideration for the foreigner; additional\nsanitary and food laws; tithe regulations on behalf of widows,\norphans, foreigners, etc.; that those who have no economic\nindependence should eat and be satisfied; that loans should be\ngiven cheerfully, not only without any interest, but even at the\nrisk of losing the principal. To withhold a loan because the year\nof release is at hand in which the principal is no longer\nrecoverable, is described as a grave sin. When you are compelled\nto free your slaves, you must give them sufficient capital to\nembark upon some industry which shall prevent their falling back\ninto slavery. A number of holidays are insisted upon. There must\nbe no more crushing of the poor out of existence, for God cares\nfor these people who have been driven to poverty, and they shall\nnever cease out of the land. Howbeit there shall be no poor with\nyou, for the Lord will bless you, if you will obey these laws.\n\nBut then prosperity came, and culture, which meant contact with\nthe capitalist ideas of the heathen empires. The Jews fell from\nthe stern justice of their fathers; and so came the prophets,\nwild-eyed men of the people, clad in camel's hair and living upon\nlocusts and wild honey, breaking in upon priests and kings and\ncapitalists with their furious denunciations. And always they\nincited to class war and social disturbance. I quote Conrad Noel\nagain:\n\nNathan and Gad bad been David's political advisers, Abijah had\nstirred Jeroboam to revolt, Elijah had resisted Ahab, Elisha had\nfanned the rebellion of Jehu, Amos thunders against the misrule\nof the king of Israel, Isaiah denounces the landlords and the\nusurers, Micah charges them with blood-guiltiness; Jeremiah and\nthe latter prophets, though they strike a more intimate note of\npersonal repentance, strike it as the prelude to that national\nrestoration for which they hunger as exiles.\n\nThe first chapters of Isaiah are typical of the Old Testament\npoint of view. Just as the prophets of the nineteenth century\nthundered against the \"Christian\" employers of Lancashire, and\ntold them their houses were cemented with the blood of little\nchildren, so Isaiah cries against his generation: \"Your governing\nclasses companion with thieves; behold you build up Sion with\nblood.\" Their ceremonial and their Sabbath keeping are an\nabomination to God. \"When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide\nmine eyes from you. Your hands are full of blood.\" The poor man\nis robbed. The rich exact usury. \"Woe unto you that lay house to\nhouse and field to field, that ye may dwell alone in the midst of\nthe land.\" \"Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your\ndoing from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well,\nseek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead\nfor the widow. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord.\nThough your sins be blood-colored, they shall be as white as\nsnow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If\nye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.\nBut if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword.\"\n\n\nMother Earth\n\nAnd nowadays we have the Socialist and Anarchist agitators,\nfollowing the same tradition, possessed by the same dream as the\nancient Hebrew prophets. I have mentioned Emma Goldman; it may be\nthat the reader is not familiar with her writings, and does not\nrealize how very Biblical she is, both in point of view and\nstyle. Let me quote a few sentences from a recent issue of her\npaper, \"Mother Earth\", on the subject of our ruling classes and\ntheir social responsibility:\n\nYes, you idle rich, you may howl about what we mean to do to you!\nYour riches are rotten and your fine clothes are falling from\nyour backs. Your stocks and bonds are so tainted that the ink on\nthem should turn to acid and eat holes in your pockets and your\nskins. You have piled up your dirty millions, but what wages have\nyou paid to the poor devils of farm hands you have robbed? And do\nyou imagine they won't remember it when the revolution comes? You\nloll on soft couches and amuse yourselves with your mistresses;\nyou think you are \"it\" and the world is yours. You send\nmilitiamen and shoot down our organizers, and we are helpless.\nBut wait, comrades, our time is coming.\n\nDoubtless the reader is well satisfied that the author of this\ntirade is now in jail, where she can no longer defy the laws of\ngood taste. They always put the ancient prophets in jail; that is\nthe way to know a prophet when you meet him. Let me quote another\nprophet who is now behind bars--Alexander Berkman, in his \"Prison\nMemoirs of an Anarchist\", discussing the same subject of\nplutocratic pretension:\n\nTell me, you four hundred, where did you get it? Who gave it to\nyou? Your grandfather, you say? Your father? Can you go all the\nway back and show there is no flaw anywhere in your title? I tell\nyou that the beginning and the root of your wealth is necessarily\nin injustice. And why? Because Nature did not make this man rich\nand that man poor from the start. Nature does not intend for one\nman to have capital and another to be a wage-slave. Nature made\nthe earth to be cultivated by all. The idea we Anarchists have of\nthe rich is of highwaymen, standing in the street and robbing\nevery one that passes.\n\nOr take \"Big Bill\" Haywood, chief of the I. W. W. Hear what he\nhas to say in a pamphlet addressed to the harvest-hands he is\nseeking to organize:\n\nHow much farther do you plutes expect to go with your grabbing?\nDo you want to be the only people left on earth? Why else do you\ndrive out the workers from all share in Nature, and claim\neverything for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and\npoor alike; where do you get your title deeds to it? Nature gave\neverything for all men to use alike; it is only your robbery\nwhich makes your so-called \"ownership\". Capital has no rights.\nThe land belongs to Nature, and we are all Nature's sons.\n\nOr take Eugene V. Debs, three times candidate of the Socialist\nParty for President. I quote from one of his pamphlets:\n\nThe propertied classes are like people who go into a public\ntheatre and refuse to let anyone else come in, treating as\nprivate property what is meant for social use. If each man would\ntake only what he needs, and leave the balance to those who have\nnothing, there would be no rich and no poor. The rich man is a\nthief.\n\nI might go on citing such quotations for many pages; but I know\nthat Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and Bill Haywood and Gene\nDebs may read this book, and I don't want them to close it in the\nmiddle and throw it at me. Therefore let me hasten to explain my\npoor joke; the sentiments I have been quoting are not those of\nour modern agitators, but of another group of ancient ones. The\nfirst is not from Emma Goldman, nor did I find it in \"Mother\nEarth\". I found it in the Epistle of James, believed by orthodox\nauthorities to have been James, the brother of Jesus. It is\nexactly what he wrote--save that I have put it into modern\nphrases, and changed the swing of the sentences, in order that\nthose familiar with the Bible might read it without suspicion.\nThe second passage is not in the writings of Alexander Berkman,\nbut in those of St. John Chrysostom, most famous of the early\nfathers, who lived 374-407. The third is not from the pen of \"Big\nBill\" but from that of St. Ambrose, a father of the Latin Church,\n340-397, and the fourth is not by Comrade Debs, but by St. Basil\nof the Greek Church, 329-379. And if the reader objects to my\nhaving fooled him for a minute or two, what will he say to the\nChristian Church, which has been fooling him for sixteen hundred\nyears?\n\n\nThe Soap Box\n\nThis book will be denounced from one end of Christendom to the\nother as the work of a blasphemous infidel. Yet it stands in the\ndirect line of the Christian tradition: written by a man who was\nbrought up in the Church, and loved it with all his heart and\nsoul, and was driven out by the formalists and hypocrites in high\nplaces; a man who thinks of Jesus more frequently and with more\ndevotion than he thinks of any other man that lives or has ever\nlived on earth; and who has but one purpose in all that he says\nand does, to bring into reality the dream that Jesus dreamed of\npeace on earth and good will toward men.\n\nI will go farther yet and say that not merely is this book\nwritten for the cause of Jesus, but it is written in the manner\nof Jesus. We read his bitter railings at the Pharisees, and miss\nthe point entirely, because the word Pharisee has become to us a\nword of reproach. But this is due solely to Jesus; in his time\nthe word was a holy word, it meant the most orthodox and\nrespectable, the ultra high-church devotees of Jerusalem. The way\nto get the spirit of the tirades of Jesus is to do with him what\nwe did with the early church fathers--translate him into\nAmerican. This time, since the reader shares the secret, it will\nnot be necessary to disguise the Bible style, and we may follow\nthe text exactly. Let me try the twenty-third chapter of Matthew,\nomitting seven verses which refer to subtleties of Hebrew\ncasuistry, for which we should have to go to Lyman Abbott or St.\nAlphonsus to find a parallel:\n\nThen Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech, saying,\nThe doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the Fifth Avenue\nchurches; and it would be all right if you were to listen to what\nthey preach, and do that; but don't follow their actions, for\nthey never practice what they preach. They load the backs of the\nworking-classes with crushing burdens, but they themselves never\nmove a finger to carry a burden, and everything they do is for\nshow. They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they\nsit at the speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic\nFederation, and they occupy the best pews in the churches, and\ntheir doings are reported in all the papers; they are called\nleading citizens and pillars of the church. But don't you be\ncalled leading citizens, for the only useful man is the man who\nproduces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself shall be abased,\nand whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.\n\nWoe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for\nyou shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't go in\nyourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of\ndivinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose\nmortgages on widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long\nprayers. For this you will receive the greater damnation! Woe\nunto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists, hypocrites! for you\nsend missionaries to Africa to make one convert, and when you\nhave made him, he is twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.\n(Applause). Woe unto you, blind guides, with your subtleties of\ndoctrine, your transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all\nthe rest of it; you fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of\ndivinity and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks\ninto the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really\nimportant things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy and\nfaith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a gnat and\nswallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity\nand Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe yourselves and dress in\nimmaculate clothing but within you are full of extortion and\nexcess. You blind high churchmen, clean first your hearts, so\nthat the clothes you wear may represent you. Woe unto you,\ndoctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like\nmarble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside\nare full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you\nappear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and\niniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and\nUnitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead\nreformers, and put wreathes upon the tombs of old-time martyrs.\nYou say, if we had been alive in those days, we would not have\nhelped to kill those good men. That ought to show you how to\ntreat us at present. (Laughter). But you are the children of\nthose who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too! You\nserpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the\ndamnation of hell?\n\nAt this point, according to the report published in the Jerusalem\n\"Times\", a police sergeant stepped up to the orator and notified\nhim that he was under arrest; he submitted quietly, but one of\nhis followers attempted to use a knife, and was severely clubbed.\nJesus was taken to the station-house followed by a riotous\nthrong, and held upon a charge of disorderly conduct. Next\nmorning the Rev. Dr. Caiaphas of Old Trinity appeared against\nhim, and Magistrate Pilate sentenced him to six months on\nBlackwell's Island, remarking that from this time on he proposed\nto make an example of those soap-box orators who persist in using\nthreatening and abusive language. Just as the prisoner was being\nled away, a detective appeared with a requisition from the\nGovernor, ordering that Jesus be taken to San Francisco, where he\nis under indictment for murder in the first degree, it being\ncharged that his teachings helped to incite the Preparedness Day\nexplosion.\n\n\nThe Church Machine\n\nThe Catholics of His time came to Jesus and said, \"Master, we\nwould have a sign of Thee\"--meaning that they wanted him to do\nsome magic, to prove to their vulgar minds that his power came\nfrom God. He answered by calling them an evil and adulterous\ngeneration--which is exactly what I have said about the Papal\nmachine. The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and other\nbook-worshippers of his time accused him of violating the sacred\ncommands so definitely set down in their ancient texts, and to\nthem he answered that the Sabbath was made for man and not man\nfor the Sabbath; he called them hypocrites, and quoted Karl Marx\nat them--\"This people honoreth me with their lips, but their\nheart is far from me.\" Because he despised the company of the\nrespectables, and went among the humble and human folk of his own\nclass in the places where they gathered--the public houses--the\nchurchly scandal-mongers called him \"a man gluttonous and a\nwine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners\"--precisely as in\nthe old days they used to sneer at the Socialists for having\ntheir meetings in the back-rooms of saloons, and precisely as\nthey still denounce us as free-lovers and atheists.\n\nBut the longing for justice between man and man, which is the\nKingdom of Heaven on earth, is the deepest instinct of the human\nheart, and the voice of the carpenter cannot be confined within\nthe thickest church-walls, nor drowned by all the pealing organs\nin Christendom. Even in these days, when the power of Mammon is\nmore widespread, more concentrated and more systematized than\never before in history--even in these days of Morgan and\nRockefeller, there are Christian clergymen who dare to preach as\nJesus preached. One by one they are cast out of the\nChurch--Father McGlynn, George D. Herron, Alexander Irvine, J.\nStitt Wilson, Austin Adams, Algernon Crapsey, Bouck White; but\ntheir voices are not silenced they are like the leaven, to which\nJesus compared the kingdom of God--a woman took it and hid it in\nthree measures of meal till the whole was leavened. The young\ntheological students read, and some of them understand; I know\nthree brothers in one family who have just gone into the Church,\nand are preaching straight social revolution--and the scribes and\nthe pharisees have not yet dared to cast them out.\n\nIn this book I have portrayed the Christian Church as the servant\nand henchman of Big Business, a part of the system of Mammon.\nEvery church is necessarily a money machine, holding and\nadministering property. And it is not alone the Catholic Church\nwhich is in politics, seeking favors from the state--the\nexemption of church property from taxation, exemption of\nministers from military service, free transportation for them and\ntheir families on the railroads, the control of charity and\neducation, laws to deprive people of amusements on Sunday--so on\nthrough a long list. As the churches have to be built with money,\nyou find that in them the rich possess the control and demand the\ndeference, while the poor are humble, and in their secret hearts\njealous and bitter; in other words, the class struggle is in the\nchurches, as everywhere else in the world, and the social\nrevolution is coming in the churches, just as it is coming in\nindustry.\n\nIt is a fact of deep significance that the majority of ministers\nare proletarians, eking out their existence upon a miserable\nsalary, and beholden in all their comings and goings to the\nwealthy holders of privilege. Even in the Roman Catholic Church\nthat is true. The ordinary priest is a man of the working class,\nand knows what working people suffer and feel. So in the Catholic\nChurch there are proletarian rebellions; there is many a priest\nwho does not carry out the political orders of his superiors, but\ngoes to the polls and votes for his class instead of for his\npope. In Ireland, as I write, the young priests are defying their\nbishops and joining the Sinn Fein, a non-religious movement for\nan Irish Republic.\n\nWhat is it that keeps the average workingman in subjection to the\nexploiter? Simply terror, the terror of losing his job. And if\nyou could get into the inmost soul of Christian ministers, you\nwould find that precisely the same force is keeping many of them\nslaves to Tradition. They are educated men, and thousands of them\nmust resent the dilemma which compels them to be either fools or\nhypocrites. They have caught enough of the spirit of their time\nnot to enjoy having to pose as miracle-mongers, rain-makers and\nwitch-doctors; they would like to say frankly that they do not\nbelieve that Jonah ever swallowed the whale, and even that they\nare dubious about Hercules and Achilles and other demigods. But\nthey are part of a machine, and the old men and the rich men who\nrun the machine have laid down the law. Those who find themselves\ntempted to think, remember suddenly that they have wives and\nchildren; they have only one profession, they have been unfitted\nfor any other by a life-time of study of dead things, as well as\nby the practice of altruism.\n\nBut now the Social Revolution is coming; coming upon swift\nwings--it may be here before this book sees the light. And who\nknows but then we may see in America that wonderful sight which\nwe saw in Russia, when Christian monks assembled and burned their\nholy books, and petitioned the state to take them in as citizens\nand human beings? It is my belief that when the power of\nexploitation is broken, we shall see the Dead Hand crumble into\ndust, as a mummy crumbles when it is exposed to the air. All\nthose men who stay in the Church and pretend to believe nonsense,\nbecause it affords an easy way to earn a living, will suddenly\nrealize that it is possible to earn a living outside; that any\nman can go into a factory, clean and well-ventilated and humanly\nrun, and by four hours work can earn the purchasing power of ten\nor fifteen dollars. Do you not think that there may be some who\nwill choose freedom and self-respect on those terms?\n\nAnd what of those thousands and tens of thousands who join the\nchurch because it is a part of the regime of respectability, a\nway to make the acquaintance of the rich, to curry favor and\nobtain promotion, to get customers if you are a tradesman, to\nextend your practice if you are a professional man? And what\nabout the millions who go to church because they are poor, and\nbecause life is a desperate struggle, and this is one way to keep\nthe favor of the boss, to get a little better chance for the\nchildren, to get charity if you fall into need; in short, to\nacquire influence with the well-to-do and powerful, who stand\ntogether, and like to see the poor humble and reverent, contented\nin that state of life to which it has pleased God to call them?\n\n\nThe Church Redeemed\n\nDo I mean that I expect to see the Church--all churches--perish\nand pass away? I do not, for I believe that the Church answers\none of the fundamental needs of man. The Social Revolution will\nabolish poverty and parasitism, it will make temptations fewer,\nand the soul's path through life much easier; but it will not\nremove the necessity of struggle for individual virtue, it will\nonly clear the way for the discovery of newer and higher types of\nvirtue. Men will gather more than ever in beautiful places to\nvoice their love of life and of one another; but the places in\nwhich they gather will be places swept clean of superstition and\ntyranny. As the Reformation compelled the Catholic Church to\ncleanse itself and abolish the grossest of its abuses, so the\nSocial Revolution will compel it to repudiate its defense of\nparasitism and exploitation. I will record the prophecy that by\nthe year 1950 all Catholic authorities will be denying that the\nChurch ever opposed Socialism--true Socialism; just as today they\ndeny that the Church ever tortured Galileo, ever burned men for\nteaching that the earth moves around the sun, ever sold the right\nto commit crime, ever gave away the New World to Spain and\nPortugal, ever buried newly-born infants in the cellars of\nnunneries.\n\nThe Social Revolution will compel all churches, Christian,\nHebrew, Buddhist, Confucian, or what you will, to drive out their\nformalists and traditionalists. If there is any church that\nrefuses so to adapt itself, the swift progress of enlightenment\nand freedom will leave it without followers. But in the great\nreligions, which have a soul of goodness and sincerity, we may be\nsure that reformers will arise, prophets and saints who, as of\nold, will preach the living word of God. In many churches today\nwe can see the beginning of that new Counter-Reformation. Even in\nthe Catholic Church there is a \"modernist\" rebellion; read the\nbooks of the \"Sillon\", and Fogazzaro's trilogy of novels, \"The\nSaint\", and you will see a genuine and vital protest against the\neconomic corruption of the Church. In America, the \"Knights of\nSlavery\" have been forced by public pressure to support a \"War\nfor Democracy\", and even to compete with the Y. M. C. A. in the\ntraining camps. They are doing good work, I am told.\n\nThis gradual conquest of the old religiosity by the spirit of\nmodern common sense is shown most interestingly in the Salvation\nArmy. William Booth was a man with a great heart, who took his\nlife into his hands and went out with a bass-drum to save the\nlost souls of the slums. He was stoned and jailed, but he\npersisted, and brought his captives to Jesus--\n\n  Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,\n  Unwashed legions with the ways of death.\n\nIncidentally the \"General\" learned to know his slum population.\nHe had not wanted to engage in charity and material activities;\nhe feared hypocrisy and corruption. But in his writings he lets\nus see how utterly impossible it is for a man of real heart to do\nanything for the souls of the slum-dwellers without at the same\ntime helping their diseased and hunger-racked bodies. So the\nSalvation army was forced into useful work--old clothes depots,\nnights lodgings, Christmas dinners, farm colonies--until today\nthe bare list of the various kinds of enterprises it carries on\nfills three printed pages. It is all done with the money of the\nrich, and is tainted by subservience to authority, but no one can\ndeny that it is better than \"Gibson's Preservative\", and the\nfox-hunting parsons filling themselves with port.\n\nAnd in Protestant Churches the advance has been even greater.\nHere and there you will find a real rebel, hanging onto his job\nand preaching the proletarian Jesus; while even the great Fifth\nAvenue churches are making attempts at \"missions\" and\n\"settlements\" in the slums. The more vital churches are gradually\nturning themselves into societies for the practical betterment of\ntheir members. Their clergy are running boys clubs and\nsewing-schools for girls, food conservation lectures for mothers,\nsocial study clubs for men. You get prayer-meetings and\npsalm-singing along with this; but here is the fact that hangs\nalways before the clergyman's face--that with prayer-meetings and\npsalm-singing alone he has a hard time, while with clubs and\neducational societies and social reforms he thrives.\n\nAnd now the War has broken upon the world, and caught the\nchurches, like everything else, in its mighty current; the clergy\nand the congregations are confronted by pressing national needs,\nthey are forced to take notice of a thousand new problems, to\nengage in a thousand practical activities. No one can see the end\nof this--any more than he can see the end of the vast upheaval in\npolitics and industry. But we who are trained in revolutionary\nthought can see the main outlines of the future. We see that in\nthese new church activities the clergy are inspired by things\nread, not in ancient Hebrew texts, but in the daily newspapers.\nThey are responding to the actual, instant needs of their boys in\nthe trenches and the camps; and this is bound to have an effect\nupon their psychology. Just as we can say that an English girl\nwho leaves the narrow circle of her old life, and goes into a\nmunition factory and joins a union and takes part in its debates,\nwill never after be a docile home-slave; so we can say that the\nclergyman who helps in Y. M. C. A. work in France, or in Red\nCross organization in America, will be less the bigot and\nformalist forever after. He will have learned, in spite of\nhimself, to adjust means to ends; he will have learned\nco-operation and social solidarity by the method which modern\neducators most favor--by doing. Also he will have absorbed a mass\nof ideas in news despatches from over the world. He is forced to\nread these despatches carefully, because the fate of his own boys\nis involved; and we Socialists will see to it that the despatches\nare well filled with propaganda!\n\n\nThe Desire of Nations\n\nSo the churches, like all the rest of the world, are caught in\nthe great revolutionary current, and swept on towards a goal\nwhich they do not forsee, and from which they would shrink in\ndismay: the Church of the future, the Church redeemed by the\nspirit of Brotherhood, the Church which we Socialists will join.\nThey call us materialists, and say that we think about nothing\nbut the belly--and that is true, in a way; because we are the\nrepresentatives of a starving class, which thinks about its belly\nprecisely as does any individual who is ravening with hunger. But\ngive us what that arrant materialist, James, the brother of\nJesus, calls \"those things which are needful to the body,\" and\nthen we will use our minds, and even discover that we have souls;\nwhereas at present we are led to despise the very word\n\"spiritual\", which has become the stock-in-trade of parasites and\nposeurs.\n\nWe have children, whom we love, and whose future is precious to\nus. We would be glad to have them trained in ways of decency and\nself-control, of dignity and grace. It would make us happy if\nthere were in the world institutions conducted by men and women\nof consecrated life who would specialize in teaching a true\nmorality to the young. But it must be a morality of freedom, not\nof slavery; a morality founded upon reason, not upon\nsuperstition. The men who teach it must be men who know what\ntruth is, and the passionate loyalty which the search for truth\ninspiries. They cannot be the pitiful shufflers and compromisers\nwe see in the churches today, the Jowetts who say they used to\nbelieve in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Rather than\ntrust our children to such shameless cynics, we will make shift\nto train them ourselves--we amateurs, not knowing much about\nchildren, and absorbed in the desperate struggle against\norganized wrong.\n\nIt is a statement which many revolutionists would resent, yet it\nis a fact nevertheless, that we need a new religion, need it just\nas badly as any of the rest of our pitifully groping race. That\nwe need it is proven by the rivalries and quarrels in our\nmidst--the schisms which waste the greater part of our\nactivities, and which are often the result of personal jealousies\nand petty vanities. To lift men above such weakness, to make them\nreally brothers in a great muse--that is the work of \"personal\nreligion\" in the true and vital sense of the words.\n\nWe pioneers and propagandists may not live to see the birth of\nthe new Church of Humanity; but our children will see it, and the\ndream of it is in our hearts; our poets have sung of it with\nfervor and conviction. Read these lines from \"The Desire of\nNations,\" by Edwin Markham, in which he tells of the new Redeemer\nwho is at hand:\n\n And when he comes into the world gone wrong,\n  He will rebuild her beauty with a song.\n  To every heart he will its own dream be:\n  One moon has many phantoms in the sea.\n  Out of the North the norns will cry to men:\n  \"Baldur the Beautiful has come again!\"\n  The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead:\n  \"Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!\"\n  The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice:\n  \"Osiris comes: Oh tribes of Time, rejoice!\"\n  And social architects who build the State,\n  Serving the Dream at citadel and gate,\n  Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum.\n  And glad quick cries will go from man to man:\n  \"Lo, He has come, our Christ the artisan,\n  The King who loved the lilies, He has come!\"\n\n\nThe Knowable\n\nThe new religion will base itself upon the facts of life, as\ndemonstrated by experience and reason; for to the modern thinker\nthe basis of all interest is truth, and the wonders of the\nmicroscope and the telescope, of the new psychology and the new\nsociology are more wonderful than all the magic recorded in\nancient Mythologies. And even if this were not so, the business\nof the thinker is to follow the facts. The history of all\nphilosophy might be summed up in this simile: The infant opens\nhis eyes and sees the moon, and stretches out his hands and cries\nfor it, but those in charge do not give it to him, and so after a\nwhile the infant tires of crying, and turns to his mother's\nbreast and takes a drink of milk.\n\nMan demands to know the origin of life; it is intolerable for him\nto be here, and not know how, or whence, or why. He demands the\nknowledge immediately and finally, and invents innumerable\nsystems and creeds. He makes himself believe them, with fire and\ntorture makes other men believe them; until finally, in the\nconfusion of a million theories, it occurs to him to investigate\nhis instruments, and he makes the discovery that his tools are\ninadequate, and all their products worthless. His mind is finite,\nwhile the thing he seeks is infinite; his knowledge is relative,\nwhile the First Cause is absolute.\n\nThis realization we owe to Immanuel Kant, the father of modern\nphilosophy. In his famous \"antinomies\", he proved four\npropositions: first, that the universe is limitless in time and\nspace; second, that matter is composed of simple, indivisible\nelements; third, that free will is impossible; and fourth, that\nthere must be an absolute or first cause. And having proven these\nthings, he turned round and proved their opposites, with\narguments exactly as unanswerable. Any one who follows these\ndemonstrations and understands them, takes all his metaphysical\nlearning and lays it on the shelf with his astrology and magic.\n\nIt is a fact, which every one who wishes to think must get clear,\nthat when you are dealing with absolutes and ultimates, you can\nprove whatever you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth\ndimension; you fly into it and come back upside down, hindside\nforemost, inside out; and when you get tired of this condition,\nyou take another flight, and come back the way you were before.\nSo metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of Catholic cheats\nlike Cardinal Newman and Professor Chatterton-Hill; it serves\nhysterical women like \"Mother\" Eddy; it serves the\nNew-thoughters, who wish to fill their bellies with wind; it\nserves the charlatans and mystagogs who wish to befuddle the wits\nof the populace. Real thinkers avoid it as they would a\nbottomless swamp; they avoid, not merely the idealism of\nPlatonists and Hegelians, but the monism of Haeckel, and the\nmaterialism of Buechner and Jacques Loeb. The simple fact is that\nit is as impossible to prove the priority of origin and the\nultimate nature of matter as it is of mind; so that the scientist\nwho lays down a materialist dogma is exactly as credulous as a\nChristian.\n\nHow then are we to proceed? Shall we erect the mystery into an\nUnknowable, like Spencer, and call ourselves Agnostics with a\ncapital letter, like Huxley? Shall we follow Frederic Harrison,\nmaking an inadequate divinity out of our impotence? I have read\nthe books of the \"Positivists\", and attended their imitation\nchurch in London, but I did not get any satisfaction from them.\nIn the midst of their dogmatic pronouncements I found myself\nremembering how the egg falls apart and reveals a chicken, how\nthe worm suddenly discovers itself a butterfly. The spirit of man\nis a breaker of barriers, and it seems a futile occupation to set\nlimits upon the future. Our business is not to say what men will\nknow ten thousand years from now, but to content ourselves with\nthe simple statement of what men know now. What we know is a\nprocession of phenomena called an environment; our life being an\nact of adjustment to its changes, and our faith being the\nconviction that this adjustment is possible and worth while.\n\nIn the beginning the guide is instinct, and the act of trust is\nautomatic. But with the dawn of reason the thinker has to justify\nhis faith; to convince himself that life is sincere, that there\nis worth-whileness in being, or in seeking to be; that there is\norder in creation, laws which can be discovered, processes which\ncan be applied. Just as the babe trusts life when it gropes for\nits mother's breast, so the most skeptical of scientists trusts\nit when he declares that water is made of two parts hydrogen and\none part oxygen, and sets it down for a certainty that this will\nalways be so--that he is not being played with by some sportive\ndemon, who will today cause H2O to behave like water, and\ntomorrow like benzine.\n\n\nNature's Insurgent Son\n\nLife has laws, which it is possible to ascertain; and with each\nbit of knowledge acquired, the environment is changed, the life\nbecomes a new thing. Consider, for example, what a different\nplace the world became to the man who discovered that the force\nwhich laid the forest in ashes could be tamed and made to warm a\ncave and make wild grains nutritious! In other words, man can\ncreate life, he can make the world and himself into that which\nhis reason decides it ought to be. The means by which he does\nthis is the most magical of all the tools he has invented since\nhis arboreal ancestor made the first club; the tool of\nexperimental science--and when one considers that this weapon has\nbeen understood and deliberately employed for but two or three\ncenturies, he realizes that we are indeed only at the beginning\nof human evolution.\n\nTo take command of life, to replace instincts by reasoned and\ndeliberate acts, to make the world a conscious and ordered\nproduct--that is the task of man. Sir Ray Lankester has set this\nforth with beautiful precision in his book, \"The Kingdom of Man\".\nWe are, at this time, in an uncomfortable and dangerous\ntransition stage, as a child playing with explosives. This child\nhas found out how to alter his environment in many startling\nways, but he does not yet know why he wishes to alter it, nor to\nwhat purpose. He finds that certain things are uncomfortable, and\nthese he proceeds immediately to change. Discovering that grain\nfermented dispels boredom, he creates a race of drunkards;\ndiscovering that foods can be produced in profusion, and prepared\nin alluring combinations, he makes himself so many diseases that\nit takes an encyclopedia to tell about them. Discovering that\ncaptives taken in war can be made to work, he makes a procession\nof empires, which are eaten through with luxury and corruption,\nand fall into ruins again.\n\nThis is Nature's way; she produces without limit, groping\nblindly, experimenting ceaselessly, eliminating ruthlessly. It\ntakes a million eggs to produce one salmon; it has taken a\nmillion million men to produce one idea--algebra, or the bow and\narrow, or democracy. Nature's present impulse appears as a\nrebellion against her own methods; man, her creature, will\nemancipate himself from her law, will save himself from her\nblindness and her ruthlessness. He is \"Nature's insurgent son\";\nbut, being the child of his mother, goes at the task in her old\nblundering way. Some men are scheduled to elimination because of\ndefective eyesight; they are furnished with glasses, and the\nbreeding of defective eyes begins. The sickly or imbecile child\nwould perish at once in the course of Nature; it is saved in the\nname of charity, and a new line of degenerates is started.\n\nWhat shall we do? Return to the method of the Spartans, exposing\nour sickly infants? We do not have to do anything so wasteful,\nbecause we can replace the killing of the unfit by a scientific\nbreeding which will prevent the unfit from getting a chance at\nlife. We can replace instinct by self-discipline. We can\nsubstitute for the regime of \"Nature red in tooth and claw with\nravin\" the regime of man the creator, knowing what he wishes to\nbe and how to set about to be it. Whether this can happen,\nwhether the thing which we call civilization is to be the great\ntriumph of the ages, or whether the human race is to go back into\nthe melting pot, is a question being determined by an infinitude\nof contests between enlightenment and ignorance: precisely such a\ncontest as occurs now, when you, the reader, encounter a man who\nhas thought his way out to the light, and comes to urge you to\nperform the act of self-emancipation, to take up the marvellous\nnew tools of science, and to make yourself, by means of exact\nknowledge, the creator of your own life and in part of the life\nof the race.\n\n\nThe New Morality\n\nLife is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers;\ndriven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism\ncall the elan vital. Whenever this impulse has its way, there is\nan emotion of joy; whenever it is balked, there is one of\ndistress. So pleasure and pain are the guides of life, and the\nfinal goal is a condition of free and constantly accelerating\ngrowth, in which joy is enduring.\n\nThat man will ever reach such a state is more than we can say. It\nis a perfectly conceivable thing that tomorrow a comet may fall\nupon the earth and wipe out all man's labor's. But on the other\nhand, it is a conceivable thing that man may some day learn to\ncontrol the movements of comets, and even of starry systems. It\nseems certain that if he is given time, he will make himself\nmaster of the forces of his immediate environment--\n\n  The untamed giants of nature shall bow down--\n  The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease\n  From mockery and destruction, and be turned\n  Unto the making of the soul of man.\n\nIt is a conceivable thing that man may learn to create his food\nfrom the elements without the slow processes of agriculture; it\nis conceivable that he may master the bacteria which at present\nprey upon his body, and so put an end to death. It is certain\nthat he will ascertain the laws of heredity, and create human\nqualities as he has created the spurs of the fighting-cock and\nthe legs of the greyhound. He will find out what genius is, and\nthe laws of its being, and the tests whereby it may be\nrecognized. In the new science of psycho-analysis he has already\nbegun the work of bringing an infinity of subconsciousness into\nthe light of day; it may be that in the evidence of telepathy\nwhich the psychic researchers are accumulating, he is beginning\nto grope his way into a universal consciousness, which may come\nto include the joys and griefs of the inhabitants of Mars, and of\nthe dark stars which the spectroscope and the telescope are\ndisclosing.\n\nAll these are fascinating possibilities. What stands in the way\nof their realization? Ignorance and superstition, fear and\nsubmission, the old habits of rapine and hatred which man has\nbrought with him from his animal past. These make him a slave, a\nvictim of himself and of others; to root them out of the garden\nof the soul is the task of the modern thinker.\n\nThe new morality is thus a morality of freedom. It teaches that\nman is the master, or shall become so; that there is no law, save\nthe law of his own being, no check upon his will save that which\nhe himself imposes.\n\nThe new morality is a morality of joy. It teaches that true\npleasure is the end of being, and the test of all righteousness.\n\nThe new morality is a morality of reason. It teaches that there\nis no authority above reason; no possibility of such authority,\nbecause if such were to appear, reason would have to judge it,\nand accept or reject it.\n\nThe new morality is a morality of development. It teaches that\nthere can no more be an immutable law of conduct, than there can\nbe an immutable position for the steering-wheel of an aeroplane.\nThe business of the pilot of an aeroplane is to keep his machine\naloft amid shifting currents of wind. The business of a moralist\nis to adjust life to a constantly changing environment. An action\nwhich was suicide yesterday becomes heroism today, and futility\nor hypocrisy tomorrow.\n\nThis new morality, like all things in a world of strife, is\nfighting for existence, using its own weapons, which are reason\nand love. Obviously it can use no others, without\nself-destruction; yet it has to meet enemies who fight with the\nold weapons of force and fraud. Whether it will prevail is more\nthan any prophet can say. Perhaps it is too much to ask that it\nshould succeed--this insolent effort of the pigmy man to leap\nupon the back of his master and fit a bridle into his mouth.\nPerhaps it is nothing but a dream in the minds of a few, the\nscientists and poets and inventors, the dreamers of the race.\nPerhaps the nerve of the pigmy will fail him at the critical\nmoment, and he will fall from the back of his master, and under\nhis master's hoofs.\n\nThe hour of the decision is now; for this we can see plainly, and\nas scientists we can proclaim it--the human race is in a swift\ncurrent of degeneration, which a new morality alone can check.\nThe struggle is at its height in our time; if it fails, if the\nfibre of the race continues to deteriorate, the soul of the race\nto be eaten out by poverty and luxury, by insanity and disease,\nby prostitution, crime and war--then mankind will slip back into\nthe abyss, the untamed giants of Nature will resume their ancient\nsway, and the tides, the tempest and the lightning will sweep the\nearth clean again. I do not believe that this calamity will\nbefall us. I know that in the diseased social body the forces of\nresistance are gathering--the Socialist movement, in the broad\nsense--the activities of all who believe in the possibility of\nreconstructing society upon a basis of reason, justice and love.\nTo such people this book goes out: to the truly religious people,\nthose who hunger and thirst after righteousness here and now, who\nbelieve in brotherhood as a reality, and are willing to bear pain\nand ridicule and privation for the sake of its ultimate\nachievement.\n\n     From the edge of harsh derision,\n           From discord and defeat,\n      From doubt and lame division,\n           We pluck the fruit and eat;\n  And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet....\n      O sorrowing hearts of slaves,\n           We heard you beat from far!\n      We bring the light that saves,\n           We bring the morning star;\nFreedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are...\n\n\nEnvoi\n\nI have come to the end of my task; but one question troubles me.\nI think of the \"young men and maidens meek\" who will read this\nbook, and I wonder what they will make of it. We have had a lark\ntogether; we have gone romping down the vista of the ages,\nswatting*, every venerable head that showed itself, beating the\ndust out of ancient delusions. You would like all your life to be\nthat kind of lark; but you may not find it so, and perhaps you\nwill suffer disillusionment and vexation.\n\nI have known hundreds of young radicals in my life; they have\nnearly all been gallant and honest, but they have not all been\nwise, and therefore not so happy as they might have been. In the\ncourse of time I have formulated to myself the peril to which\nyoung radicals are exposed. We see so much that is wrong in\nancient things, it gets to be a habit with us to reject them. We\nhave only to know that a thing is old to feel an impulse of\nimpatient scorn; on the other hand, we are tempted to welcome\nanything which can prove itself to be unprecedented. There is a\ncommon type of radical whose aim in life is to be several jumps\nahead of mankind; whose criterion of conduct is that it shocks\nthe bourgeois. If you do not know that type, you may find\nhim--and her--in the newest of the Bohemian cafes, drinking the\nnewest red chemicals, smoking the newest brand of cigarettes, and\ndiscussing the newest form of psycopathia sexualis. After you\nhave watched them a while, you realize that these ultra-new\npeople have fallen victim to the oldest form of logical fallacy,\nthe non sequitur, and likewise to the oldest form of slavery,\nwhich is self-indulgence.\n\nIf it is true that much in the old moral codes is based upon\nignorance, and cultivated by greed, it is also true that much in\nthe old moral codes is based upon facts which will not change so\nlong as man is what he is--a creature of impulses, good and bad,\nwise and foolish, selfish and generous, and compelled to make\nchoice between these impulses; so long as he is a material body\nand a personal consciousness, obliged to live in society and\nadjust himself to the rights of others. What I would like to say\nto young radicals--if there is any way to say it without seeming\na prig--is that in choosing their own path through life, they\nwill need not merely enthusiasm and radical fervor, but wisdom\nand judgment and hard study.\n\nIt is our fundamental demand that society shall cease to repeat\nover and over the blunders of the past, the blunders of tyranny\nand slavery, of luxury and poverty, which wrecked the ancient\nsocieties; and surely it is a poor way to begin by repeating in\nour own persons the most ancient blunders of the moral life. To\nlight the fires of lust in our hearts, and let them smoulder\nthere, and imagine we are trying new experiments in psychology!\nWho does not know the radical woman who demonstrates her\nemancipation from convention by destroying her nerves with\nnicotine? Who does not know the genius of revolt who demonstrates\nhis repudiation of private property by permitting his lady loves\nto support him? Who does not know the man who finds in the\nphrases of revolution the most effective devices for the seducing\nof young girls?\n\nYou will have read this book to ill purpose if you draw the\nconclusion that there is anything in it to spare you the duty of\ngetting yourself moral standards and holding yourself to them. On\nthe contrary, because your task is the highest and hardest that\nman has yet undertaken--for this reason you will need standards\nthe most exacting ever formulated. Let me quote some words from a\nteacher you will not accuse of holding to the slave-moralities:\n\nFree dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and\nnot that thou hast escaped a yoke.\n\nArt thou such a one that can escape a yoke?\n\nFree from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye\ntell me: free to what?\n\nCanst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy\nwill above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and\navenger of thy law?\n\nFearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy\nlaw. So is a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy\nbreath of isolation.\n\nOut of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge into the\nsunlight of knowledge, to take control of a world, and to make it\nover, not according to the will of any gods, but according to the\nlaw in our own hearts. For that task we have need of all the\nresources of our being; of courage and high devotion, of faith in\nourselves and our comrades, of clean, straight thinking, of\ndiscipline both of body and mind. We go to this task with a\nknowledge as old as the first moral impulse of mankind--the\nknowledge that our actions determine the future of life, not\nmerely for ourselves but for all the race. For this is one of the\nlaws of the ancient Hebrews which modern science has not\nrepealed, but on the contrary has reinforced with a thousand\nconfirmations--that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the\nchildren unto the third and fourth generations.\n\nI get letters from the readers of my books; nearly always they\nare young people, so I feel like the father of a large family. I\ngather them now about my knee, and pronounce upon them a\nbenediction in the ancient patriarchal style. Children and\ngrandchildren of my hopes, for ages men suffered and fought, so\nthat the world might be turned over to you. Now the day is\ncoming, the glad, new day which blinds us with the shining of its\nwings; it is coming so swiftly that I am afraid of it. I thought\nwe should have more time to get ready for the taking over of the\nworld! But the old managers of it went insane, they took to\ntearing each other's eyes out, and now they lie dead about us.\nSo, whether we will or not, we have to take charge of the world;\nwe have to decide what to do with it, even while we are doing it.\nLet us not fail, young comrades; let us not write on the scroll\nof history that mankind had to go through yet new generations of\nwars and tumults and enslavements, because the youth of the\ninternational revolution could not lift themselves above those\nancient personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their\nfathers--bigotry and intolerance, vindictiveness and vanity,\nenvy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness!\n\n\n\nReader:\n\nFor twenty years I have been haunted by the dream that I might\nsome day be my own publisher. I was waiting till I could afford\nthe luxury; but many a man has put off a bold action till he\ndied, so I am publishing this book without being able to afford\nit.\n\nThe reason is that I do not want to be a writer for the rich. I\nwant to be read by working-boys and girls, and by poor students.\n\nI offer the book at a low price. In the hope of tempting you to\ngo out and get your friends to read it, I have made a price in\nquantities which will allow no profit at all. A margin has been\nfigured to cover postage, stationery, circulars, and the cost of\na clerical assistant; but nothing for interest on capital, which\nis a gift, nor for the rent of an office, which is my home, nor\nfor the services of manager and press agent, which is myself.\n\nYou have read the book, and its fate is yours to decide. If it\nseems worth while, pass it on to someone else. If you can afford\nit, order a number of copies and give them away. If you can't\nafford it, give your time and be a book-agent.","title":"The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":85444}