“Do you know,” said the young curate, “why Catholicism has held up its appearances of power?  It is because from ancient times, in all Latin countries, it has possessed itself of every avenue through which human life must pass.”

“It is true, no religion has been so cautious as ours, or has ambushed itself better to entrap men.  None has chosen with such certainty in the time of power the positions it can hold strongly in its decadence.  It is impossible to move without stumbling against her.  She knows of old that man as long as he is healthy, in the plenitude of his vital strength, is by instinct irreligious.  When he lives comfortable the so-called eternal life concerns him very little.  He only believes in God and fears Him in the hour of supreme cowardice, when death opens before him the bottomless pit of nothingness, and his pride as a rational animal revolts against the complete extinction of his being.  He wishes his soul to be immortal, and so he accepts the religious phantasies of heaven and hell.  The Church, fearing the irreligiousness of health, has occupied, as you say, all the avenues of life, so that no man shall accustom himself to live without her, appealing solely to her in the hour of death.  The dead provide much money, they are her best asset; but she wishes equally to reign over the living.  Nothing escapes her despotism and her spying.  She insinuates herself into all human concerns from the greatest to the most insignificant, she interferes in both public and private life; she baptizes the child when it comes into the world, accompanies the child to school, monopolises love, declaring it shameful and abominable if it does not submit to her benediction, and divides the earth into two categories—­the consecrated, for those who die in her bosom, and the dunghill in the open air for the heretic.  The Church interferes in dress, laying down what is honest and Christian wear and what is scandalous frivolity.  She interferes in the most intimate relations of domestic life, and even penetrates into the kitchen, turning Catholicism into a culinary art, ruling what ought to be eaten, what ought or ought not to be mixed, and anathematizing certain foods, which, being good enough the rest of the year, become the most horrible sacrilege if partaken on certain days.  She accompanies a man from his birth, and does not leave him even after he is laid in the tomb; she keeps him chained by his soul, making it wander through space, passing from one place to another, ascending the pathway to heaven, according to the sacrifices imposed on themselves by his successors for the benefit of the Church.  A greater or more complete despotism no tyrant could possibly imagine.”

It was mid-day.  The bell-ringer had disappeared; suddenly the rattle of chains and pulleys was heard and a dull thunder made the tower tremble; all the stones and metal and even the surrounding ether vibrated.  The big “Gorda” had just rung, deafening the bystanders.  A few moments afterwards, from the front of the Alcazar, came the sound of martial music, trumpets, and drums.