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Later, at Venice, the Countess Cicognara was again the centre of a group of free-thinkers, and there it was that she first felt the displeasure of Napoleon.
For the most part, the Romanist and Protestant adversaries of the free-thinkers met them with arguments no better than their own; and with vituperation, so far inferior that it lacked the wit. But one great Christian Apologist fairly captured the guns of the free-thinking array, and turned their batteries upon themselves.
All ages, all nations are the same, let them think and worship as they like, have never been able to do entirely without it, and what we are often compelled to hear from free-thinkers or reformers, that we have again introduced the old overthrown idolatry, is only, if rightly understood, in the spirit of love, the regeneration of the human mind, which will never permit this source of its holy thirst to be exhausted.
However, it still dominates the education of girls not only among our believers, but even among our free-thinkers, who, as a rule, think freely for the reason that they do not think at all. "Discretion means ability to separate and discern. We say that a girl is discreet when she knows nothing at all. We cultivate her ignorance.
Now Augustin never went higher than a simple auditor in the Manichean Church. What attracted specially fine minds to the Manichees, was that they began by declaring themselves rationalists. To reconcile faith with natural science and philosophy has been the fad of heresiarchs and free-thinkers in all ages. The Manicheans bragged that they had succeeded.
I have seen reasoners, free-thinkers, philosophers, soldiers, who were utterly fearless in broad daylight, tremble like women at the rustle of leaves by night. Such terrors are supposed to be the result of nursery tales. The real cause is the same thing which makes the deaf distrustful, and the lower classes superstitious; and that is, ignorance of objects and events around us.
There is another thing these Methodists should remember, and that is, that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. And they should remember that the Free-Thinkers have always treated them kindly and well. There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North that I like. But I find that it is not Methodism that does that.
But Carol thought of the folks that fitted into the cogs of the routine to drive it round and round, the teachers, the doctors' wives, the free-thinkers, the mothers, the professional women, the cynics, the pillars of the church, and thinking of the folks, she forgot the routine. And so to her, routine could never prove a clog, stagnation.
Julien resumed with a smile: "You must watch Montfanon's face when we inform him of those two witnesses. He is a man of the fifteenth century, you know, a Montluc, a Duc d'Alba, a Philippe II. I do not know which he detests the most, the Freemasons, the Free-thinkers, the Protestants, the Jews, or the Germans.
Dare I speak of it without sin? With a woman lost in reputation, who can have no relations with you but such as are pernicious to the safety of your soul, and who receives free-thinkers at her house in a word, Marion de Lorme. What have you to say? Speak."
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