"...So I cannot perceive and must protest against the practical aims and necessity of religion in the sense which you have indicated and in such general favour to-day namely as an indispensable foundation of all legislative regulations. For from such a standpoint the pure and sacred striving after light and truth to say the least would seem quixotic and criminal if it should ven-ture in its feeling of justice to denounce the authorita-tive belief as a usurper who has taken possession of the throne of truth and maintained it by continuing the deception..."