If I must choose between being superficial, ignorant and insincere, or being an “alarmist,” I certainly and unhesitatingly choose to be an alarmist! The strongest ally of Superstition to-day is credulity, or indifference. The average man says, “I do not believe there is any danger”; and if he “spoke his heart” would add, “if there is, I do not care.”
I would only reply, “If you mean to be honest, read, observe, and see.” You may wait too long. Spain and Portugal are just awakening from the priest-ridden lethargy of centuries, and are making history anew. May a just God and all the angels help and protect them.
The great daily newspapers of the country are very conservative wherever Rome is concerned. She is too powerful and her resources too well organized and available to be disregarded.
It is therefore very significant that an editorial in one of the largest and most influential of these papers to-day gives a clear, concise, and impartial epitome of the “Row in Spain,” clearly locating its cause and animus in the Vatican, and showing how unbearable this tyranny and exploitation had become to a large portion of the people of Spain.
I refer to this here for a special purpose, which involves and lies at the foundation of all other issues and considerations. And that is the statement in this editorial, that while the Church of Rome has held practically undisputed sway in Spain for centuries, with immense tracts of land, houses and revenues, independent of civil authority, with 20,000 priests, 5,000 communities with 60,000 inmates in a population of only 20,000,000 of people—Seventy per cent. of the people are entirely uneducated. With every opportunity, plenty of time and almost boundless resources, Rome has kept the people in ignorance, the easier to rob them; determined to own the land, the resources, and the people—body and soul—as the Autocrat of heaven and earth! A slavery in the name of “Religion” found nowhere else on earth to-day.
So much for Spain and the Vatican to-day. For the sequel, watch the daily papers.
And what has this to do with America? With Psychology? With the Measure of Values?
Simply this: Is anyone so dense as to suppose that the Seventy per cent. of dense ignorance in Spain is an accident, or an oversight of the Vatican and its servants? There lie the “policy” and the secret of the power of Rome.
In America our foundations, our bulwarks, and our hope and security of Freedom, Enlightenment, and Progress lie in our Free Public Schools. These Rome hates, condemns as “Godless,” and would destroy if she could, as continually proved by the letters and edicts of the Popes.
Seeing, however, that she cannot do this, and fearful of losing her hold on her thirteen or fourteen million of communicants in America, she rushes the building of Parochial Schools, and threatens her people with dire penalties who patronize any other. Since she cannot prevent education here, as in Spain, she must “educate” in her own way, in order to retain her power over the rising generation. The basis of this education are ignorance, superstition, and fear; its crown, the slavery of conscience and the “Dogma of Obedience.” The brutality of Ignorance in Spain is the sophistry of Priestcraft under the name of “Religion,” in America.