Excerpt from Miscellaneous Pamphlets

The Church that is better at argument must give way to the Church that is better at blows. Theology is not a dialectician with words - she debates with the The young plant of Christianity never grew till it was fenced round with a hedge of swords. Proof, say you If such a statement be not true on the very face of it, history can produce proof in abundance. The Saxon axes hewed Christianity out of Britain it had to be restored by the monks of St Augustine, and they managed to re-establish it, only because they managed to get the axes on its side. The Society of Jesus fairly planted Christian colonies in Japan but, in Spite of the sword of the Spirit and the whole armour of righteous ness, Christianity became utterly exterminated before a torrent of spears. If Christian cannon had only spoken louder, the sound of the glad tidings of great joy (save the mark!) might to-day have been ringing from the cathedral of Yeddo. If, instead of the sword of the Spirit, there had been British bayonets, the breezes of N iphon might at this hour have been musical with the psalms of David. Persecution paralysed the lzeresy of the Albigenses, and ran its stilleto through the heart of Protestantism in Spain. In France, Catholicism waded to power through the carnage of the St Bartbo lomew massacre, and set her heel on the neck of the Huguenots by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In England the issue between Rome and the Reforma tion hung in the balance till the diplomatic ability of Elizabeth and her ministers flung the preponderance of bills and bows, pikes and spears, into the scale against the interests of her of the Seven Hills.

State religion is State persecution. It is privilege to one band of sectaries and disability to all others. The Opinions, says Lecky, of 99 persons out of every 100 are formed mainly by education, and a Government can decide in whose hands the national education is to be placed, What subjects it is to comprise, and What prin ciples it is to convey. The Opinions of the great majority of those who emancipate themselves from the prejudices of their education are the results, in a great measure, of reading and discussion, and a Government can prohibit all books, and can expel all teachers, that are adverse to the doctrines it holds. Indeed, the simple fact of annexing certain penalties to the profes sion of particular opinions, and rewards to the profession of Opposite opinions, while it will, undoubtedly, make many hypocrites, will also make many converts. For any one who attentively observes the process that is pursued in the formation of opinions must be aware that, even when a train of argument has preceded their adop tion, they are usually much less the result of pure reason ing than of the action of innumerable distorting influences which are continually deflecting our judgments. Among these one of the most powerful is self-interest. Thus the mere act of taking one sect of Christians under State protection is injustice and persecution to all other sects whatever.

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