And now consider that the acceptance of this dogma betokens a protest against the Christian system of thought, which the working man must look upon as inimical because represented by the ruling classes and used in their interests. For there can be no doubt that, in an overwhelming majority of cases, official Christianity has been used by the ruling classes against the movement for the emancipation of the proletariat. The fate that falls upon heretical Christians is the best proof of this. So long as men try to support monarchy and capitalism as a necessary and Divine institution, using the Christian Church for this purpose, the social movement must become anti-ecclesiastical and thus anti-religious. Thus a mistrust as to the position, in the social struggle, of the official representatives of the Church estranges the proletariat from this Church and thus from religion. In the moment that this mistrust is removed--and you all know that the new Christian-socialists, especially in Germany, have taken this as their task,--in the moment when Christianity is presented either as unpartisan in its social influence, as Goehre preaches it, or as directly social-democratic, as Naumann presents it,--in that moment, so far as I see, there will be no reason why the proletariat should maintain an anti-religious character. In saying this, of course, I assume that religion is adapted to the needs of the proletariat. Whether or not Christianity possesses this adaptability, I do not dare to say. But that it is thus adapted would seem to be indicated by the fact that it became the religion of Rome in its decadence and of the German tribes in the youthful freshness of their civilisation, of feudalism as well as of those stages of civilisation in which the free cities and later the bourgeoisie have had predominance. Then why may it not also be the religion of the proletariat? But it must be presented to the lower classes with all of the joy of life of which Christianity is capable. For the element of asceticism in Christianity pleases little these classes, which press towards air and light and which do not show any inclination to allow the good things of life to be taken from them. As if overhung with thick clouds of passion, appears now the question as to the attitude of the social movement towards nationality. A great part of the heated discussion on this point, as it seems to me, is due to lack of clearness in thought. It is not so much our German language, as it is our German instinct, that distinguishes between two ideas, rightly but not always sharply separated; we are accustomed to specify them as _patriotism_ and _nationalism_.