The clergy assume to be the teachers and guardians of morality, and assert not only that belief in their astonishing creeds is necessary to an upright life, but, by implication, that a profession of faith is in a sense a guarantee of morality. It has become traditionary with them to assume that the non-Christian man is an immoral man; that the sincere believer is the exemplar of the higher life, while the "Infidel," the unbeliever, illustrates the opposite; and that whatever of morality the civilized world enjoys today it owes to the profession and practice of Christianity. Now, it is wholly legitimate that systems should be judged by the correspondence between the claims made for them and their actual performances. When Mrs. Eddy, for an instance, rose up and asserted that Christian Science was the key to health, investigation into the health of persons professing and practicing Christian Science became at once a proper inquiry. And so, when ministers exalt the belief and practice of Christianity as the one highway to the moral life of individuals and nations, it is equally germane to observe with some care whether or not the clergy make good their claims in their own persons. The inquiry would be of great interest and permissible even were Christianity offered only for our free acceptance or rejection; but the investigation assumes the binding nature of a civic duty when, on the strength of these clerical pretensions, the preachers of Christianity claim and are allowed to enjoy privileges and immunities from the state that are not granted to other citizens. There are many "benefits of the clergy" besides those bestowed on them personally in the shape of half-fares, freedom from civic and military duties, and the license under the papal decree which forbids that any priest shall be brought into a civil or criminal court without the approval of his ecclesiastical superior. In the United States church property valued at a billion and a half dollars escapes taxation on the plea that it is devoted to improving the morals of the community, and the ministers have a virtual monopoly of the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, on the strength of the same unproved theory. The plea is questioned and denied by the publishers of this book, who quote the evidences in disproof, among these being the fact of the immorality of the clergy themselves. If the religion they spend their lives in expounding does not keep the ministers straight, it is almost useless to ask how much restraining influence that religion has on the laity who only listen once a week.