r, no bishop, no church
organization raising his or its voice, against the monstrous cruelty.
And why? Even then it was better than the law of Jehovah.

And the Protestants were as bad as the Catholics. You remember the time
of Henry IV. in France, when the edict of Nantes was issued simply to
give the Protestants the right to worship God according to the dictates
of their conscience. Just as soon as that edict was issued the
Protestants themselves, in the cities where they had the power,
prevented the Catholics from worshiping their God according to the
dictates of their conscience, and it was on account of the refusal of
those Protestants to allow the Catholics to worship God as they desired
that there was a civil war lasting for seven years in France.
Richelieu came into authority about the second or third year of that
war. He made no difference between Protestants and Catholics; and it
was owing to Richelieu that the Thirty Years' War terminated. It was
owing to Richelieu that the peace of Westphalia was made in 1643,
although I believe he had been dead a year before that time; but it was
owing to him, and it was the first peace ever made between nations on a
secular basis, with everything religious left out, and it was the last
great religious war.

You may ask me what I want. Well, in the first place I want to get
theology out of government. It has no business there. Man gets his
authority from man, and is responsible only to man. I want to get
theology out of politics. Our ancestors in 1776 retired God from
politics, because of the jealousies among the churches, and the result
has been splendid for mankind. I want to get theology out of
education. Teach the children what somebody knows, not what somebody
guesses. I want to get theology out of morality, and out of charity.
Don't give for God's sake, but for man's sake.

I want you to know another thing; that neither Protestants nor
Catholics are fit to govern this world. They are not fit to govern
themselves. How could you elect a minister of any religion president
of the United States. Could you elect a bishop of the Catholic church,
or a Methodist bishop, or Episcopal minister, or one of the elders? No.
And why? We are afraid of the ecclesiastic spirit. We are afraid to
trust the liberties of men in the hands of people who acknowledge that
they are bound by a standard different from that of the welfare of
mankind.

The history of Italy, Fra