great revolts, there were many small and
local outbreaks, the anger of the poor was directed as much against the
Church as it was against the nobles." (_C. Cohen: "Christianity,
Slavery, and Labor."_)

When the downtrodden masses of Spain, Mexico, and Russia revolted
against the tyranny which had held them in the slough of medieval
degradation, they likewise, in recent times, proved that they realized
that their submission was as much caused by the Church, allied as it is
with the state, as by the government itself.

The Church did attend the sick, but its trade was in the miracle cures
and prayers, and so they very much resembled men hawking their own
goods, and attending to their own business. And there is the plain,
historic fact, that in defense of its miracle cures it did what it could
to obstruct the growth of both medical and sanitary science. It did give
alms but these constituted but a small part of what it had previously
taken.

Through all the changes of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, it is impossible to detect anxiety on the part of the
Churches, Roman Catholic or Protestant, to better the status of, or
improve the condition of, the working classes. Whatever improvements may
have come about, and they were few enough, came independently of
Christianity, organized or unorganized. Controversies about religious
matters might, and did, grow more acute; controversies about bettering
the position of the working classes only began with the breaking down of
Christianity. And when, as in Germany, there occurred a peasants'
revolt, and the peasants appealed to Luther for assistance, he wrote,
after exhorting the peasants to resignation, to the nobles:

"A rebel is outlawed of God and Kaiser, therefore who can and will first
slaughter such a man does right well, since upon such a common rebel
every man is alike the judge and executioner. Therefore, who can shall
openly or secretly smite, slaughter and stab, and hold that there is
nothing more poisonous, more harmful, more devilish than a rebellious
man."

And in pre-revolutionary France, the Church saw unmoved a state of
affairs almost unimaginable, so far as the masses of the people were
concerned, in their misery and demoralization. And this at a time when
half the land of France, in addition to palaces, chateaux, and other
forms of wealth were possessed by the nobility and clergy, and were
practically free from taxation.

A contemporary