The enthusiasm of progress has nothing to fear from the growth of skepticism. Mankind will always appreciate their enlightened well-wishers. In cities where the creed of the Galilean supernaturalist has become almost as obsolete as the witchcraft delusion, progressive clergymen still draw audiences of intelligent and sincere admirers, and the apostles of social reform are haunted by anxious inquirers, disciples whom the penalties of heresy fail to deter, and who if barred out all day will come by night: “Master, what shall we do to be saved?” In spite of sham saviors, the search after salvation has never ceased, and after eighteen centuries of clerical caricatures the ideal of true priesthood still survives in the hearts of men. C.—PERVERSION. The puerile supernaturalism of the pagan myth-mongers could not fail to injure their prestige, even in an age of superstition; but the antinaturalism of the Galilean fanatics not only neglected but completely inverted the proper functions of priesthood. The pretended ministers of Truth became her remorseless persecutors; the promised healers depreciated the importance of bodily health, the hoped-for apostles of social reform preached the doctrine of renunciation. We should not judge the Christian clergy by the aberrations engendered by the maddening influence of protracted persecutions. It would be equally unfair to give them the credit of latter-day reforms, reluctantly conceded to the demands of rationalism. But we can with perfect fairness judge them by the standard of the moral and intellectual types evolved during the period of their plenary power, the three hundred years from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth century, when the control of morals and education had been unconditionally surrendered into the hands of their chosen representatives. The comparative scale of human turpitude must not include the creations of fiction. We might find a ne plus ultra of infamy in the satires of Rabelais, in the myths of Hindostan, or the burlesques of the modern French dramatists. But if we confine our comparison to the records of authentic history, it would be no exaggeration to say that during the period named the type of a Christian priest represented the absolute extreme of all the groveling ignorance, the meanest selfishness, the rankest sloth, the basest servility, the foulest perfidy, the grossest superstition, the most bestial sensuality, to which the majesty of human nature has ever been degraded. Thousands of monasteries fattened on the toil of starving peasants. Villages were beggared by the rapacity of the tithe-gatherer; cities were terrorized by witch-hunts and autos-da-fé. The crimps of the inquisitorial tribunals hired spies and suborned perjurers by promising them a share of confiscated estates. The evidence of intellectual pursuits was equivalent to a sentence of death. Education was almost limited to the memorizing of chants and prayers. “A cloud of