I have no hostility to Roman doctrine or dogma, for the distinction I make between the different forms of anthropomorphic religion is only one of degree, and I have so many personal friends amongst Roman Catholics in whom I see the fire of pure and living spirituality glowing through the forms and superstitions of their creed that I cannot join in that indiscriminate denunciation which is common amongst Protestants.  My experience in these matters has taught me that to certain natures the anthropomorphic forms of religion are a Jacob’s ladder to that spiritual life which is the end of religion.  Nor can I see that a little more or a little less of the credulity which is, in all human minds, mingled with pure faith in the Divine, can make a vital difference in the character of the religion, whatever it may make in the creed.  The most earnest man is hampered by an heredity of credence that makes the conception of the Supreme Being a matter of an intellectual struggle which is to some minds insuperable, and to deprive such of the symbols which lead to a final comprehension of the truth is no service to humanity or truth.  The suppression of the Roman Catholic religion in Italy, if possible, would be only to leave its place vacant for unreason and anarchy, for the intellectual status of the common people does not admit of a more abstract belief.  For that evil influence, however, which a recent writer has designated as Curialism, which to-day has its seat at the Vatican, and whose aim and end are the absolute antagonism of all pure religion, I have no respect, and only the feeling due to unmitigated evil.  It is a deadly political malady, malefic in proportion to its influence on the people; and, I fear, until Italy is freed from it, no progress or healthy political life or morality is possible.

For myself, the study of the system and a comparison of its relations with other religions completed that evolution of my religious ideal which I regard as the principal outcome of my life.  The Roman Catholic religion is to me the reductio ad absurdum of all anthropomorphic religions, and such a study of it as was there possible drove me to a logical conclusion on the whole matter, not by a sudden revulsion, but as the gradual and normal growth of a rational evolution of my conceptions of the spiritual life, starting from that stage of emancipation which my residence at Cambridge and the intercourse with the liberal thinkers there had brought me to; the influence of Norton, Lowell, Agassiz, and Emerson especially.  In this liberation I am aware of no sudden break in my belief from its crude acceptance of miraculous conversion and eternal damnation for the unconverted, but a slow opening of my eyes to larger truths.  If any individual influence other than those I have named came in, it would have been the reading of Swedenborg, which gave me a comprehension of what spiritual life was and must be; but Swedenborg himself had never been emancipated from the anthropomorphic conception of