erently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood
is not the way to raise the value they put on human life."

"And the value they put on religion?"

"I don't understand."

He smiled.

"I think we differ as to where the root of the mischief lies. You place
it in a lack of appreciation of the value of human life."

"Rather of the sacredness of human personality."

"Put it as you like. To me the great cause of our muddles and mistakes
seems to lie in the mental disease called religion."

"Do you mean any religion in particular?"

"Oh, no! That is a mere question of external symptoms. The disease
itself is what is called a religious attitude of mind. It is the
morbid desire to set up a fetich and adore it, to fall down and worship
something. It makes little difference whether the something be Jesus or
Buddha or a tum-tum tree. You don't agree with me, of course. You may be
atheist or agnostic or anything you like, but I could feel the religious
temperament in you at five yards. However, it is of no use for us to
discuss that. But you are quite mistaken in thinking that I, for one,
look upon the knifing as merely a means of removing objectionable
officials--it is, above all, a means, and I think the best means, of
undermining the prestige of the Church and of accustoming people to look
upon clerical agents as upon any other vermin."

"And when you have accomplished that; when you have roused the wild
beast that sleeps in the people and set it on the Church; then----"

"Then I shall have done the work that makes it worth my while to live."

"Is THAT the work you spoke of the other day?"

"Yes, just that."

She shivered and turned away.

"You are disappointed in me?" he said, looking up with a smile.

"No; not exactly that. I am--I think--a little afraid of you."

She turned round after a moment and said in her ordinary business voice:

"This is an unprofitable discussion. Our standpoints are too different.
For my part, I believe in propaganda, propaganda, and propaganda; and
when you can get it, open insurrection."

"Then let us come back to the question of my plan; it has something to
do with propaganda and more with insurrection."

"Yes?"

"As I tell you, a good many volunteers are going from the Romagna to
join the Venetians. We do not know yet how soon the insurrection will
break out. It may not be till the autumn or winter; but the volunteers
in the Apennines must be armed and rea