"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' forbids murder.
"The religion which has the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' forbids robbery.
"The religion which is peace, obedience, and love, is no friend of war, rebellion, and massacre.
"Resigned and joyous in other days, its martyrs went to death in the amphitheatre of Rome, and on the plains of Saragossa, pardon in their souls and prayer on their lips; to-day pardon is exchanged for wrath, and prayer for reproach. Instead of the martyr's palm, we have the Berdan breech-loader and the flash of petroleum.
"Anointed of the Lord, ministers of Him who died invoking blessings on His enemies, kindle the fires of fratricidal strife, which they call a sacred war, and lead on and inflame their dupes by the pretence that the gates of Paradise are to be forced open by gunshot.
"Meanwhile the bishops are silent, Rome is dumb, the moral law sleeps, the canon law is forgotten; and these pastors, transforming their flocks into packs of wolves, scour the plains, blessing murder and sanctifying conflagration.
"'King by Divine right,' they cry, like the legists of the Lower Empire; 'Die or believe,' like the sons of the Prophet. Apostles without knowing it, they seek to achieve the triumph of a Pagan principle by a Saracenic process.
"They say that religion is lost, because it is shorn of the honour and power their kings gave it; that the portals of heaven are barred, because they have forfeited their tithes and first-fruits, their rents and fat benefices; and they try to convince us by discharges of musketry that our whole future life depends, on the one hand, on a question of vanity, and on the other, on a question of stomach.
"Holy Apostles, disciples of Him who had not a stone whereon to lay His head, you who conquered the earth with no arms but those of word and example, oh! would you not say if you returned here below, 'Those who preach by the voice of platoons; those who evangelize from the mouth of cannon; those are not, cannot be, our disciples and successors, for they are not fishers of souls, but fishers of snug posts under government'?
"And you, glorious martyrs of the Roman circus and Saragossan fields, oh! would you not say, 'No, this Christianity, which goes about sowing battle; desolation, tears, and blood wherever it passes, is not ours—no, this Christianity at the bottom of the slaughter of Endarlasa, of the hecatomb of Cirauqui, of the sack of Igualada, and of a hundred other cruelties, is not ours. Our religion says "Kill not," and this murders; says "Steal not," and this robs. No, this is not the Christian, but the Carlist religion'?"