e,
embodied in the physical arm of a secular State. The advance of that
arm the church has fought systematically, in every country, and at
every point. To quote Buckle: "A careful study of the history of
religious toleration will prove that in every Christian country where
it has been adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the
authority of the secular classes." The wolf of superstition has been
driven into its lair, but it has backed away snarling, and it still
crouches, watching for a chance to spring. The Church which burned
John Huss, which burned Giordano Bruno for teaching that the earth
moves round the sun--that same church, in the name of the same
three-headed god, sent out Francesco Ferrer to the firing-squad; if it
does not do the same thing to the author of this book, it will be
solely because of the police. Not being allowed to burn me here, the
clergy will vent their holy indignation by sentencing me to eternal
burning in a future world which they have created, and which they run
to suit themselves.

It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, that
the measure of the civilization which any nation has attained is the
extent to which it has curtailed the power of institutionalized
religion. Those peoples which are wholly under the sway of the
priesthood, such as Thibetans and Koreans, Siamese and Caribbeans, are
peoples among whom the intellectual life does not exist. Farther in
advance are Hindoos and Turks, who are religious, but not exclusively.
Still farther on the way are Spaniards and Irish; here, for example,
is a flashlight of the Irish peasantry, given by one of their number,
Patrick MacGill:

The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who
always told the people if they did not pay their debts they
would burn for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of eternity
will make you sorry for the debts that you did not pay,"
said the priest. "What is eternity?" he would ask in a
solemn voice from the altar steps. "If a man tried to count
the sands on the sea-shore and took a million years to count
every single grain, how long would it take him to count them
all? A long time, you'll say. But that time is nothing to
eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell while a man,
taking a million years to count a grain of sand, counts all
the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did not pay
Farley McKeown his