ot to our scientists, our statesmen, our economists, our authors,
inventors, and scholars that we must look for counsel and reform: such
secular aid is useless, and we shall be wise to rely entirely upon His
Holiness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In the England of the Middle Ages, when Christianity was paramount,
there was a cruel penal code, there was slavery, there were barbarous
forest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the
poor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there
were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution
of the Jews, there were "trial by wager of battle," and "question" of
prisoners by torture.

Many of these horrors endured until quite recent times. Why did
Christianity with its spiritual and temporal power, permit such things
to be?

Did Christianity abolish them? No. Christianity nearly always opposed
reform. The Church was the enemy of popular freedom, the enemy of
popular education; the friend of superstition and tyranny, and the
robber baron.

Those horrors are no more. But Christianity did not abolish them. They
were abolished by the gradual spread of humane feelings and the light
of knowledge; just as similar iniquities were abolished by the spread of
humane doctrines in India, centuries before the birth of Christ.

Organised and authoritative religion the world over makes for ignorance,
for poverty and superstition. In Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in
Turkey, where the Churches are powerful and the authority is tense, the
condition of the people is lamentable. In America, England, and Germany,
where the authority of the Church is less rigid and the religion is
nearer Rationalism, the people are more prosperous, more intelligent,
and less superstitious. So, again, the rule of the English Church seems
less beneficial than that of the more rational and free Nonconformist.
The worst found and worst taught class in England is that of the
agricultural labourers, who have been for centuries left entirely in the
hands of the Established Church.

It may be urged that the French, although Catholics, are as intelligent
and as prosperous as any nation in the world. But the French are a
clever people, and since their Revolution have not taken their religion
so seriously. Probably there are more Sceptics and Rationalists in
France than in any other country.

My point is that the prosperity and happiness of a nat