several accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made
possible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion
of his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible
by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State
religion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.

Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a
new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling
powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven
in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older
religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to
conjure with.

Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who
resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge,
and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by
rewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It
held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and
the sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.

Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of
"Heretics" and "Infidels" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley,
the American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years'
command of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive,
and punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of
property, or perpetual imprisonment.

To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a "wizard," a sceptic, a heretic was
to merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to
death as "heretics" _the entire population of the Netherlands_. Wherever
the Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the
devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries
the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the
term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical
priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights
us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous
casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of
steel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge
he feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it
ought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.

And, yes, there were other factors in the "success" of Christianity. The
story of th