Page:Psychology of Religion.djvu/60

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION
59

to forty years ago. He lives in his Church to an honored old age, much decorated with clerical dignities, esteemed all his life for piety. I knew him well. Whether he really believed the stuff or no I cannot tell, but he had far more hypocrisy than piety. Another priest-colleague I have known from boyhood as a most austere fanatic; and when I came to live in the same monastery with him I learned that he was a secret dipsomaniac, the scorn of his fellows. Another—several others—were vibrant with piety in the pulpit, and had mistresses in private. Bossuet, the famous Bishop of Meaux, who wrote works of classic piety, is now known to have had a secret wife or mistress. And the Catholic Church has no monopoly of this hypocrisy. I have found Protestant leaders and preachers of very unctuous exterior to have an extremely human scent for dollars and drinks. There is, in fact, no other caste of professional men that so often figures in the press in connection with women as ministers of religion; though most of their "scandals" are suppressed.

My point may be farther illustrated by a totally different set of facts. It is now extremely common to read that some man held his convictions with a "religious fervor," although this might refer to political, economic, humanitarian, or any other convictions. I have shown elsewhere that the leaders of the American Feminist movement, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony, were Agnostics, but it is always said that their