Evening star., 1939-01-22
BY H. G. WELLS,
CHAPTER XLIII.
Inquisition and Persecution

Rud's fundamental idea that he
had in effect become Evervman
mad given him far less tolerant
attitude toward anything that he
regarded as reactionary force in
human affairs than his primitive
Radlcalism would have enforced
His particular grievance against
Norvel was the increasing patience
the latter was displaying toward
the old faiths, the old customs and
usages. even the old patriotisms
that still stirred and protested be-
meath the brave new surface of the
world state. These idea systems
were not only alive and active in
the minds and habits of the sur
viving pre-revolutionary genera
tons; they were still more wildly
alive in the bulk of literature. in
the accumulations of art, in GUS
tomary metaphors and a thousand
turns of language and social at
tltudes. Through these media they
infected the young far more than
through the immediate teaching of
their elders. Rud, like the early
Christian fathers, like the En-
peror Shl-HWang-ti, like the earlv
Moslems who destroyed the library
at Alexandria, like the German
Nazls, was a natural born book
burner. Norvel, although he was
perhaps in his ultimate texture a
lar profounder modernist than
Rud, had a much more patient,
comprehensive, tolerant and re-
Spectful view of human tradition.
He realized that inheritance is
possible without parricide.
Rud considered Norvels methods
vacillating and tinged with insin-
cerity. Several times he had urged
Norvel to a more stringent sup
preston of any literature or teach
ing that ignored or ran counter to
his neW-World Caesarism, even if it
did not specifically attack it. Then,
finding Norvel negligent of his
protests, he began to ignore him
and to turn to Thirp and the Secret
Police for the defense of the revo-
luton. There is more than one way
OF restraining education. Norvel
discovered that teachers. professors,
students and writer's We're being
warned and arrested for counter
revolutionary activities. The les
sons he allowed them to give in the
schoolroom were being used as evi-
dence against them.
Hatred of Religion Rises.
Rud's instructive hatred of re-
llgion was becoming more and more
marked. He had learned at his
mothers knee to resent the ex-
lstence of another being more i'm
portant than himself. At first he
assailed only the endowments of
the churches, and that only as a
part of the general Specialization of
rents and monopolist profits. But
his confiscatory methods included
religious buildings and monuments
OF all sorts. 1t has to be recognized
that the traditional religious bodies
stood up very ineffectivelv to his
persecution, if one can call it a
persecution. It is the heretics and
lnnovators of all sorts who have
been prosecuted in the past, and
the authorized religious organiza-
tions that have prosecuted. When
IN their turn they have suffered
effective persecution, their collapse
has been prompt. Rud saw to it
that their finances were austerely
treated and the ensuing decadence
was swift and irreparable. But out
OF the crushed ruins of the churches
there came presently oozing a
mental juice, seeping and pene-
trating recrudescence of religiosity
This was going on not merely in
the former Christian countries. 1t
was easy to rout Allah out of a
mosque, but Allah hidden some
where in a human brain was an
altogether different problem in
eradication
/ RJ16 Uqc nortior1o,-1,, ayoro;coI lo1,