"And of all sins, the worst is the sin against the Holy Ghost—which is the bread that you eat, and the water wherein you swim.
"You shackle and restrain the Spirit. This is of all sins the worst, and this you know.
"Where God alone may reign—in the free human heart—there you establish yourselves with your laws and dogmas, your writings and your imageries.
"Think you, madman, that the wisdom of the Eternal can be comprised within the limits of written or printed pages?
"To Him your sacred books are as cobwebs and sweepings; for He lives and moves eternally, and book nor brain can compass Him. Like to flowing water, you are told, is the wisdom of God. Forever changing, forever the same, no finite word can picture His progressive wisdom.
"There is more of the Father's wisdom in the shy, faltering whisper of a poor heathen child, than in all your bulls and councils and decretals.
"Would you put a tube to the lips of the Father, that He may speak at your pleasure? Yet will He speak as seems best to Himself.
"Would you point with the finger and say to Him: 'Here! These shall speak in thy name, and to these shalt thou give wisdom, and these shalt thou inspire with understanding, and these shalt thou save, and these condemn!'
"But He will reply: 'There!' and will regard your pointings even as the lava of a volcano regards the guide-posts and little crosses on the slopes.
"But your opinions and your pride are avenged, for the world commands you as the hunter his hound, as the show-man his monkey. You pull the carriage of prince and monied man, and make grimaces before the powerful.