Inn. I believe that God himself founded the Christian church; and I feel the most profound respect for, and the greatest admiration of, the Fathers of that church. Those chiefs of the primitive church boldly preached the union of all people; they declared positively, that their first duty was to employ all their means to effect the speediest amelioration possible of the moral and physical condition of the poor. These chiefs of the primitive church composed the best book which was ever published; namely, the Primitive Catechism, in which they have divided the actions of men into two classes, the good and the bad; that is to say, those which are conformable to the fundamental principle of divine morality, and those which are contrary to that principle.
Con. State more precisely your idea, and tell me if you regard the Christian church as infallible.
Inn. When the church has, for its chiefs, men the most capable of directing the powers of society towards the divine end, I think that the church may, without any inconvenience, be regarded as infallible; and that society acts wisely in submitting to its management. I consider the Fathers of the church as having been infallible for the epoch in which they lived, whilst the modern clergy appear to me, of all constituted bodies, that which commits the greatest errors,—errors the most hurtful to society; that whose conduct is most directly in opposition to the fundamental principle of divine morality.
Con. The Christian religion then, in your opinion, is in a very bad condition?
Inn. Quite the contrary. There never was such a great number of good Christians as now; but they belong chiefly to the class of the laity. The Christian religion has lost, since the fifteenth century, its unity of action. Since this epoch, there exists no longer a Christian clergy. All the clergy who seek now to graft their opinions, their morals, their worship, and
