The Church would rather countenance vice, as it has in the past, than disband. In New York City we now have the spectacle of the Church operating a saloon and selling strong drink. In all country towns, religion, failing in being attractive, has, to keep churches alive, resorted to raffles, lotteries, concerts, chicken-pie socials, and lectures and exhortations by strange men in curious and unique garb, and singers of reputation. The Church, being a part of society, evolves as society evolves. Christianity is a totally different thing now from what it was in Humboldt's time; it was a different thing in Humboldt's time from what it was a hundred years before. Behold the spectacle of a thousand highly educated and gentle men, from all over the world, decorating with garlands the statue of Bruno in Rome, on the site where Churchmen piled high the fagots and burned his living body! I foretell that when the next World's Congress of Freethinkers occurs in Rome, the Pope will welcome the delegates, and their deliberations will occur by invitation in the wide basilica of Saint Peter's. The world moves, and the Pope and all the rest of us move with it. When a meeting was recently called in Jersey City to welcome Turner, the so-called anarchist, the Mayor forbade the meeting and then placed a cordon of policemen around the intended meeting-place. But, lo, in their extremity the "anarchists" were invited by a clergyman to come and use his church and he led the way to the sacred edifice, warning the police to neither follow nor enter. As we become better we meet better preachers. Humboldt could see no rift through the clouds outside of the death of the Church and the disbanding of her so-called sacred institutions. We now perceive that very rarely are religious opinions consciously abandoned; they change, are modified and later evolve into something else. Churches are now largely social clubs. In America this is true both of Catholic and of Protestant. Most all denominations are interested in social betterment, because the trend of human thought is in that direction.