in his denomination. And he tells us that people who disagree with him in a matter of finance are not only the enemies of the State, but its worst enemies. “A traitor to God is a traitor to his country.” Thus did religious fanaticism once link the heretic and the traitor as one ❦ To disagree with the prevailing religion was to be regarded as the foe of society. How hard the tyrants die! ¶ Yet many clergymen believe that it would be better to put church property on an absolute parity with all other property. In fact, many churches now voluntarily pay taxes. The great and influential congregation presided over by Rabbi Leonard Levy of Pittsburgh requested the assessors to tax their synagogue at its cost valuation of three hundred thousand dollars ❦ In Toronto is a Baptist church—the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, I believe—that has paid taxes on its property for more than twenty years, because the congregation voting on the question decided that an evasion of taxes on the part of a church because it did “good” was really no better than the exemption of an individual for the same reason. ¶ The enemy of the State, forsooth, is the man who asks some one to pay a few paltry dollars for police and fire protection! ❦ Naturally, one might say the enemy of the State is the man who refuses to pay his quota of expense for the maintenance of the Government machinery. ¶ The editor of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_ is a clergyman ❦ He is paid by the religious denomination he serves. This denomination has large holdings of real estate, upon which it pays no taxes. If it paid taxes it would not have so much money to pay clergymen; therefore, one of its leading clergymen, acting as spokesman for the rest, defines for us the worst enemy of New York—“or any city.” Thus we get the quality of logic that rules in our churches. It would be laughable were it not pitiable in its weakness. The church isn’t dead—it can still call vile names ❦ How nimbly it yet flings the theologic stink-pot! The fires of the auto da fe are not extinguished. They are only banked, banked in the editorial office of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_. “The worst enemy of New York or any city!” It is the old, old cry of “Away with him!” ❦ It is the cry of entrenched tyranny, that he who disagrees with you in religious matters is the enemy of the State. Socrates spoke disrespectfully of the gods, and for this they brewed for him the hemlock. The crime of Jesus was that he undermined the State ❦ Savonarola, Bruno, Latimer, Wyclif, enemies of society—all! ¶ The editor of _The Christian Work and Evangelist_ thinks that the State and Religion are one. And he is right. For just as long as the State grants immunity from taxation to church property, the divorce is not complete. We haven’t yet caught up with Thomas Jefferson. Well, you know what the State in the past has done to those who are considered its enemies? Yes, and that is just what the meek and lowly editor of