Be sure, as it always has been, so will it be now. Without
the priesthood there is no freedom for the people. Statesmen know it; and,
therefore, those who would keep the people fettered, find it necessary
to keep the priesthood fettered also. The people never can be themselves
without co-operation with the priesthood; and the priesthood never can be
themselves without co-operation with the people. They may help to make a
sect-Church for the rich, as they have been doing, or a sect-Church for
paupers (which is also the most subtle form of a sect-Church for the rich),
as a party in England are trying now to do--as I once gladly would have
done myself: but if they would be truly priests of God, and priests of
the Universal Church, they must be priests of the people, priests of the
masses, priests after the likeness of Him who died on the cross."
"And are there any men," I said, "who believe this? and, what is more, have
courage to act upon it, now in the very hour of Mammon's triumph?"
"There are those who are willing, who are determined, whatever it may cost
them, to fraternize with those whom they take shame to themselves for
having neglected; to preach and to organize, in concert with them, a Holy
War against the social abuses which are England's shame; and, first
and foremost, against the fiend of competition.
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