Of all religions, the Christian is without doubt the one which should
inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the
most intolerant of all men. The Christian Church was divided in its
cradle, and was divided even in the persecutions which under the first
emperors it sometimes endured. Often the martyr was regarded as an
apostate by his brethren, and the Carpocratian Christian expired beneath
the sword of the Roman executioners, excommunicated by the Ebionite
Christian, the which Ebionite was anathema to the Sabellian.

This horrible discord, which has lasted for so many centuries, is a very
striking lesson that we should pardon each other's errors; discord is
the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

There is nobody who is not in agreement with this truth, whether he
meditates soberly in his study, or peaceably examines the truth with his
friends. Why then do the same men who admit in private indulgence,
kindness, justice, rise in public with so much fury against these
virtues? Why? it is that their own interest is their god, and that they
sacrifice everything to this monster that they worship.

I possess a dignity and a power founded on ignorance and credulity; I
walk on the heads of the men who lie prostrate at my feet; if they
should rise and look me in the face, I am lost; I must bind them to the
ground, therefore, with iron chains.

Thus have reasoned the men whom centuries of bigotry have made powerful.
They have other powerful men beneath them, and these have still others,
who all enrich themselves with the spoils of the poor, grow fat on their
blood, and laugh at their stupidity. They all detest tolerance, as
partisans grown rich at the public expense fear to render their