Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/180

 Because men chose to enter the Church it did not make them different from other men. They were, after all, pitiful and human and insignificant like all the others. They made people believe in things which no man could prove. The Church had muddled and compromised and corrupted the teachings of Jesus. It had buried his teachings beneath a mountain of cant and theology and superstition. When it was powerful it had committed murder by fire and torture always in the name of God but always to increase its own power and wealth and stamp out its enemies. It was among the great criminals of the world.

"Go to your history, Fulco," he cried out. "Cease being a dolt. Read the records of its worldliness. It lives by gold more than by faith, taking the money of those who are afraid or who bargain with it. I know. I have brought it much money. It is my work to bring the rich and the powerful into the Church."

He halted suddenly, facing the frightened Fulco. "And your faith. What is it? It has been said that faith can move mountains, but no one has seen it done, save by the faith that man has in himself, in the steam shovels and the dynamite he has invented in the face of a hostile Nature. Man can save himself by faith, but not by a cowardly faith that pins itself upon conjurer's tricks, but by faith in himself and in Nature and in the teachings of Christ. The world and the Church have forgotten Christ, who was a simple man. What had Christ to do with the cheap tricks of an old maid, an in-