and lordship. There you see the hand of that awful power, the Roman Catholic Church. In two or three little centuries it had converted a nation of men to a nation of worms. Before the day of the Church’s supremacy in the world, men were men, and held their heads up, and had a man’s pride and spirit and independence; and what of greatness and position a person got, he got mainly by achievement, not by birth.

But then the Church came to the front, with an axe to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat — or a nation; she invented “divine right of kings,” and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes — wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one; she preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience to