The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 40

[Christianity. A Baulk]

Axiom—Truth is Truth.

Axiom—Truth is truth only.

Axiet—Truth has no inset.

Axiet—Truth has no outset.

Axiot—Truth is truth.

Esset—Truth is accomplished fact. Opinion is the halting place of Error.

I find a Pene; men call it Christianity. I contemplate. It governs men's conduct, it rules their laws, it tempers their manners, it grooves their customs, it pervades their literature, it tones their morals, it moulds their lives, it checks their actions. It is, therefore, at every time and place, what it is there, and nowhere else.

It is nothing. It is peon—potent, unset.

I note an effect. I cannot trace the cause. Men attribute it to Christianity, To a trained priest it is the Church—priestcraft, power, dominion, authority, law. To a Protestant Minister it is power, authority, law, wealth and importance.

It is something. It is poen—potent, wrapt.

It governs the Catholic, it governs the Protestant, but it does not govern both. What does it? It governs and divides.

What is it? It is every where at times. At times it leaves no trace. It is at every man's bidding, a weapon or a shield. Its name is potent and its name is all—a fact no fact, a phantom no phantom, a truth no truth—nothing.

In its name men love and they hate; they bless and they curse. It is a creed—a dozen creeds. It is a belief—a hundred beliefs set to ærial text. It is conviction—a thousand convictions, all differing. It is born in fact, nursed in surmise, set in opinion—a theology, a satyr.

Truth is accomplished fact—a spell is a fact and a myth. Christianity is a spell.

A spell is a myth and a power.—Christianity is a power.

Christianity is a power. Its thorms are legion; still shaping, shaping, shaping out of nothing.

Shaping out of nothing! Shaping into forms. What forms? Many forms with one symbol. What Symbol?