A queer feature about this is that people do not give religious credit for being human.  That they are flesh and blood, all agree; that they should err, is preposterous.  A hue-and-cry goes up when it becomes known that one of these children of Adam has paid the penalty of being human.  One would think an angel had fallen from heaven.  We notice in this attitude an unconscious recognition of the sanctity of the religious state; but we see behind it a Pharisaic spirit that exaggerates evil at the expense of justice.

Now, if the principle that abuse destroys use is applied to all things, nothing will remain standing, and the best will go first.  Corruptio optimi pessima.  Everything human is liable to abuse; that which is not, is divine.  Religious and laymen, mortals all, the only time it is beyond our power to do wrong is when we are dead, buried, and twenty-four hours underground.  If in life we make mistakes, the fault lies, not in our being of this or that profession, but in being human.  Whatever, therefore, the excesses that religious can be proven guilty of, the institution itself must not be held responsible, unless it can be shown that there exists a relation of cause and effect.  And whoever reasons otherwise, abuses the intelligence of his listeners.

We desire, in the name of honesty and fairness, to see less of that spirit that espies all manner of evil beneath the habit of a religious; that discovers in convents and monasteries plotting against the State in favor of the Papacy, the accumulation of untold wealth by oppression and extortion for the satisfaction of laziness and lust, iniquity of the deepest dye allied to general worthlessness.  Common sense goes a long way in this world.  If it were only a less rare commodity, and if an effective tribunal could be erected for the suppression of mendacity, the religious would appear for the first time in history in their true colors before the world, and light would shine in darkness.

CHAPTER XLII.  THE VOW OF POVERTY.

One objection to the vow of poverty that has a serious face on it, and certainly looks wicked, is that it does not prevent the accumulation of great wealth, as may be seen in the cases of the Philippine Friars and the French orders.  This is one difficulty; here is another and quite different:  the wealth of the religious is excessive, detrimental to the well-being of the people and a menace to the State.  Taken separately, it is easy to dispose of these charges and to explain them away.  But if you put them together in one loose, vague, general imputation of avarice, extortion and injustice, and hurl the same at a person unable to make distinctions, the shock is apt to disconcert him for a moment.