onger any
_raison d'etre_. Once useful and holy, it is now a lie, a source only of
corruption and immorality.

Once useful and holy, I say, because, had it not been for the unity of
moral life in which we were held for more than eight centuries by the
Papacy, we should not now have been prepared to realize the new unity to
come; had it not been for the dogma of human equality in heaven, we
should not now have been prepared to proclaim the dogma of human
equality on earth. And, I declare it a lie and a source of immorality at
the present day, because every great institution becomes such if it
seeks to perpetuate its authority after its mission is fulfilled. The
substitution of the enslavement for the slaughter of the conquered foe
was a step towards progress, as was the substitution of servitude for
slavery. The formation of the _Bourgeoise_ class was a progress from
servitude. But he who at the present day should attempt to recede
towards slavery and servitude, and presumptuously endeavor to perpetuate
the exclusion of the proletarian from the rights and benefits of the
social organization, would prove himself the enemy of all civilization,
past and future, and a teacher of immorality.

It is therefore the duty of all those amongst us who have it at heart to
win _the city of the future_ and the triumph of truth, to make war, not
only upon the temporal power,--who should dare deny that to the admitted
representative of God on earth?--but upon the Papacy itself. It is
therefore our duty to go back to the dogma upon which the institution is
founded, and to show that that dogma has become insufficient and unequal
to the moral wants, aspirations, and dawning faith of humanity.

They who at the present day attack the _Prince_ of Rome, and yet profess
to venerate the _Pope_, and to be sincere Catholics, are either guilty
of flagrant contradiction, or are hypocrites.

They who profess to reduce the problem to the realization of _a free
Church in a free State_ are either influenced by a fatal timidity, or
destitute of every spark of moral conviction.

The separation of Church and State is good as a weapon of defence
against the corruptions of a Church no longer worthy the name. It
is--like all the programmes of mere liberty--an implicit declaration
that the institution against which we are compelled to invoke either our
individual or collective rights is corrupt, and destined to perish.

Individual or collective rights may