FOOTNOTES: [32] “On Anything,” Hilaire Belloc, p. 72 _et seq._ [33] Huysmans’ “Là-bas,” p. 439. [34] “The Renaissance in Italy,” by John Addington Symonds, publ. Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1904. Footnote to p. 129 of Vol. I of the treatise on “The Catholic Reaction.” [35] “Mont St. Michel and Chartres,” Adams, _supra_, p. 348. [36] “Etude sur la Condition des Populations rurales en Roussillon.” Pp. 297, 298. CHAPTER VII. EPILOGUE ON PROHIBITION. I have deliberately left out of the imaginary discussion with which the last chapter closes, any reference to Prohibition. Had the scholastic pressed this point, as an instance of religious persecution by law, the American must have been forced to treat the Prohibition movement as an exception, a parasitic growth which has fastened itself upon the Constitution. He would then have had trouble in sustaining the argument. In the world of shades, or in any other place where there is time to pare down matters to their essentials, the determining factor of religious persecution in the Prohibition movement must be admitted. As has been stated in the preface, it was the shock of recognizing this fact (through contact with Prohibition agitators during a term of service in the New York State Assembly) which led the present writer to study the establishment of the Inquisition as the one comparable instance of so drastic an interference of religion with politics. In all the long story of Christendom there is no third instance of religious persecution so systematic or on such a scale. The foregoing study was at first undertaken in the belief of the writer that the mere account of the political and military struggle leading up to the establishment of the Inquisition would, by itself, be enough to enable the reader to see for himself the true nature of “Prohibition.” However, during the unavoidable delays of the last few years, this original belief has now been abandoned. As a result of many conversations on the subject, the writer now believes that the real forces responsible for Prohibition are sufficiently misunderstood, especially among Protestants, as to make it desirable to show in an epilogue the essential connection between sectarian Protestantism and Prohibition, the true nature of Prohibition as sectarian-Protestant, religious persecution, and finally, the resemblance and divergencies between Prohibition and the thirteenth century Inquisition.