h the
absurdities of religious dogma from our schools. The black spawn will
have to be rendered harmless: we must kill them politically.'

"'Very well,' said I. 'Just make negroes of them. Now that in America
the slaves are emancipated, Europe would perhaps do well to take her
turn at the slave-trade.' But the fellow would not take my joke. He
made threatening gesticulations, his eyes gleamed like hot coals, and
he muttered words of a belligerent import.

"'The ultramontane rabble are to hold a meeting at the "Key of
Heaven,"' reported he. 'There the stupid victims of credulity are to be
harangued by several of their best talkers. The black tide is
afterwards to diffuse itself through the various wards where the voting
is to take place. But let the priest-ridden slaves come, they will have
other memoranda to carry home with them beside their yellow rags of
tickets.'

"You perceive, friend Seraphin, that the progress men mean mischief. We
may expect to witness scenes of violence."

"That is unjustifiable brutality on the part of the progressionists,"
declared Gerlach indignantly. "Are not the ultramontanes entitled to
vote and to receive votes? Are they not free citizens? Do they not
enjoy the same privileges as others? It is a disgrace and an outrage
thus to tyrannize over men who are their brothers, sons of Germania,
their common mother."

"Granted! Violence is disgraceful. The intention of progress, however,
is not quite as bad as you think it. Being convinced of its own
infallibility, it cannot help feeling indignant at the unbelief of
ultramontanism, which continues deaf to the saving truths of the
progressionist gospel. Hence a holy zeal for making converts urges
progress so irresistibly that it would fain force wanderers into the
path of salvation by violence. This is simply human, and should not be
regarded as unpardonable. In the self-same spirit did my namesake
Charles the Great butcher the Saxons because the besotted heathens
presumed to entertain convictions differing from his own. And those who
were not butchered had to see their sacred groves cut down, their
altars demolished, their time-honored laws changed, and had to resign
themselves to following the ways which he thought fit to have opened
through the land of the Saxons. You cannot fail to perceive that
Charles the Great was a member of the school progress."

"But your comparison is defective," opposed the millionaire. "Charles
subdued a wild a