Excerpt from The Church of Social Union Nor is this study of secularities merely curious. They have cried out against the Church for standing aloof while they weltered in a confusion which, in spite of its noise about progress, grew more and more confused. True, they drove the Church off, and bade her stay apart, with crossed arms, and look upcast to the sky, contemplating the pale faced virtues of a far-away heaven, while they made their own robust sort of heaven on earth. The Church meant divine law, the law of laws, an institution above all other institutions, and they would be subject to no such spiritual despotism Away with her The State caught up the clamor, wishing to take the Church's place, and shouted, Away with her But the State being only another Church just as supreme, just as despotic, men would not brook its control and demanded that it too should depart and let them alone. Laz'ssez faz're. Hands Off T be less government the better; no government best of all! Liberty they wanted liberty, liberty Of unrestrained com petition for place, money, pleasure, power. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.