the rejection of what could no longer be believed. Calvin was no less
orthodox than St. Augustine in what he accepted; his heresy lay in the
denial of enigmas from which his understanding recoiled. The mighty
convulsion of the Reformation, therefore, was but the supreme effort of
the race to tear itself from the toils of a hierarchy whose life hung upon
its success in forcing the children to worship the myths of their
ancestral religion.

Three hundred years after Luther nailed his theses to the church door the
logical deduction had been drawn from his great act, and Christendom had
been driven to admit that any concession of the right to reason upon
matters of faith involved the recognition of the freedom of individual
thought. But though this noble principle has been at length established,
long years of bloodshed passed before the victory was won; and from the
outset the attitude of the clergy formed the chief obstacle to the triumph
of a more liberal civilization; for howsoever bitterly Catholic and
Protestant divines have hated and persecuted each other, they have united
like true brethren in their hatred and their persecution of heretics; for
such was their inexorable destiny.

Men who firmly believe that salvation lies within their creed alone, and
that doubters suffer endless torments, never can be tolerant. They feel
that duty commands them to defend their homes against a deadly peril, and
even pity for the sinner urges them to wring from him a recantation before
it is too late; and then, moreover, dissent must lessen the power and
influence of a hierarchy and may endanger its very existence; therefore
the priests of every church have been stimulated to crush out schism by
the two strongest passions that can inflame the mind--by bigotry and by
ambition.