1. "Mr. F. Newman, who looks on toleration as the result of intellectual progress, says: 'Nevertheless, not only does the Old Testament justify bloody persecution, but the New teaches that God will visit men with fiery vengeance _for holding an erroneous creed_."--Buckle.
2. "The first great consequence of the decline of priestly influence was the rise of toleration.... I suspect that the _impolicy_ of persecution was perceived before its wickedness. "--Ibid.
3. "While a multitude of scientific discoveries, critical and historical researches, and educational reforms have brought thinking men face to face with religious problems of extreme importance, _women have been almost absolutely excluded from their influence_."--Lechy.
4. "The domestic unhappiness arising from difference of belief was probably almost or altogether unknown in the world before the introduction of Christianity.... _The deep, and widening chasm between the religious opinions of most highly educated men, and of the immense majority of women is painfully apparent_. Whenever any strong religious fervor fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a happy union impossible."--Ibid.
5. "The combined influence of the Jewish writings [Old Testament] and of that ascetic feeling which treated woman as the chief source of temptation to man, caused her degradation.... In the writings of the Fathers, woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance, _on account of the curse she has brought into the world_. She should be ashamed of her dress, _and especially ashamed of her beauty_."--Ibid.
1. "The writers of the Middle Ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels.... The inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their _mothers or sisters_.... An Italian bishop of the tenth century enigmatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except the boys."--Lecky.