“We know the clerical party; it is an old party. This it is which has found for the truth those two marvelous supporters, ignorance and error. This it is which forbids to science and genius the going beyond the Missal and which wishes to cloister thought in dogmas. Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of it. Its history is written in the history of human progress, but it is written on the back of the leaf. It is opposed to it all. This it is which caused Prinelli to be scourged for having said that the stars would not fall. This it is which put Campanella seven times to torture for saying that the number of worlds was infinite and for having caught a glimpse of the secret of creation. This it is which persecuted Harvey for having proved the circulation of the blood. In the name of Jesus it shut up Galileo. In the name of St. Paul it imprisoned Christopher Columbus. To discover a law of the heavens was an impiety, to find a world was a heresy. This it is which anathematized Pascal in the name of religion, Montaigne in the name of morality, Moliere in the name of both morality and religion. There is not a poet, not an author, not a thinker, not a philosopher, that you accept. All that has been written, found, dreamed, deduced, inspired, imagined, invented by genius, the treasures of civilization, the venerable inheritance of generations, you reject.”—Victor Hugo.
“There is in every village a lighted torch, the schoolmaster; and a mouth to blow it out, the parson.”—Ibid.
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What admissions are made by Paul regarding his want of candor and honesty?
“Being crafty, I caught you with guile” ([2 Corinthians xii, 16]).
“Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews” ([1 Corinthians ix, 20]).
“I am made all things to all men” ([22]).
“For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” ([Romans iii, 7].)
“I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service” ([2 Corinthians xi, 8]).