I would join morality to my authority by an indissoluble chain, and I would proclaim that one could not exist without the other, so that if any audacious individual attempted to meddle with a _tabooed_ question, society, which cannot exist without morality, would feel the very earth tremble under its feet, and would turn its wrath upon the rash innovator.
When things have come to this pass, it is plain that these people are more mine than if they were my slaves.

The slave curses his chain, but my people will bless theirs, and I shall succeed in stamping, not on their foreheads, but in the very centre of their consciences, the seal of slavery.
Public opinion alone can overturn such a structure of iniquity; but where can it begin, if each stone is _tabooed_?
It is the work of time and the printing press.
God forbid that I should seek to disturb those consoling beliefs which link this life of sorrows to a life of felicity.

But, that the irresistible longing which attracts us toward religion has been abused, no one, not even the Head of Christianity, can deny.

There is, it seems to me, one sign by which you can know whether the people are or are not dupes.

Examine religion and the priest, and see whether the priest is the instrument of religion, or religion the instrument of the priest.
If the priest is the instrument of religion, if his only thought is to disseminate its morality and its benefits on the earth, he will be gentle, tolerant, humble, charitable, and full of zeal; his life will reflect that of his divine model; he will preach liberty and equality among men, and peace and fraternity among nations; he will repel the allurements of temporal power, and will not ally himself with that which, of all things in this world, has the most need of restraint; he will be the man of the people, the man of good advice and tender consolations, the man of public opinion, the man of the Evangelist.
If, on the contrary, religion is the instrument of the priest, he will treat it as one does an instrument which is changed, bent and twisted in all ways so as to get out of it the greatest possible advantage for one's self.