We should organise a legitimate channel for instincts so profound as these, just as we have found it necessary to do with lust and revenge by the institutions of marriage and the law courts. This is the _raison d’être_ of the church. You kill a man just as much whether you murder him or hang him after the formalities of a trial. And so with lust and marriage, _mutatis mutandis_. So again with the professions of religion and medicine. You swindle a man as much when you sell him a drug of whose action you are ignorant, and tell him it will protect him from disease, as when you give him a bit of bread, which you assure him is the body of Jesus Christ, and then send a plate round for a subscription. You swindle him as much by these acts as if you picked his pocket, or obtained money from him under false pretences in any other way; but you swindle him according to the rules and in an authorised way. Real Blasphemy On one of our Sunday walks near London we passed a forlorn and dilapidated Primitive Methodist Chapel. The windows were a good deal broken and there was a notice up offering 10/- reward to any one who should give such information as should lead to the, &c. Cut in stone over the door was this inscription, and we thought it as good an example of real blasphemy as we had ever seen: When God makes up his last account Of holy children in his mount, ’Twill be an honour to appear As one new born and nourished here. The English Church Abroad People say you must not try to abolish Christianity until you have something better to put in its place. They might as well say we must not take away turnpikes and corn laws till we have some other hindrances to put in their place. Besides no one wants to abolish Christianity—all we want is not to be snubbed and bullied if we reject the miraculous part of it for ourselves. At Biella an English clergyman asked if I was a Roman Catholic. I said, quite civilly, that I was not a Catholic. He replied that he had asked me not if I was a Catholic but if I was a Roman Catholic. What was I? Was I an Anglican Catholic? So, seeing that he meant to argue, I replied: “I do not know. I am a Londoner and of the same religion as people generally are in London.” This made him angry. He snorted: “Oh, that’s nothing at all;” and almost immediately left the table. As much as possible I keep away from English-frequented hotels in Italy and Switzerland because I find that if I do not go to service on Sunday I am made uncomfortable. It is this bullying that I want to do away with. As regards Christianity I should hope and think that I am more Christian than not. People ought to be allowed to leave their cards at church, instead of going inside. I have half a mind to try this next time I am in a foreign hotel among English people. Drunkenness