The Roman Church, which is dominant throughout the continent, has been engaged in serious struggles with the anti-religious tendencies of the Republican governments, and L'Annee de l'Eglise makes no mention of missions among the Indians.
In anti-religious materialism the motive is hostility to established dogmas which are connected, in the Christian system especially, with certain forms of spiritual doctrine.
The finances were in the last distress; the anti-religious policy of the government kept many departments on the verge of revolt; and commerce was almost suspended by the decay of roads and the increase of bandits.
Their sanguinary violence was combined with an anti-religious policy, not atheistical, but inspired by mistrust of the clergy, and by a civic and deistic creed that was a direct outcome of the federations.
He is not religious at all; he is more or less anti-religious; and his book is more or less of a general protest against any attempt to explain supernaturally the riddle of the earth.
