The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not
only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the
sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man
has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned
to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be
happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights
of man, shall writhe in hell.