318 HAECKEL 



to kiss the *^ blood of St. Januarius." Peer into the 

 abysses of vice and grossness that are covered 

 effectually by this formal and unlovely practice of 

 religion. Haeckel had seen all that with sad eyes 

 for many a year. 



In 1904 a little institution that called itself 

 ^* The International Congress of Freethinkers" 

 announced that it would hold its annual gathering 

 at Eome. The pope — the new pope, friend of 

 the royal house — lodged a feeling protest with 

 the authorities. The priests poured inflammatory 

 rhetoric over their people until violence seemed 

 inevitable. The Italian Government's only reply 

 was to grant the heretics all the privileges that 

 were ever given to the great Catholic pilgrimages : 

 to put at their disposal its finest institution, the 

 Collegio Komano, and to send its Minister of 

 Public Instruction to open the Congress. Veteran 

 warriors such as Haeckel, Berthelot, Salmeron, 

 Sergi, Denis, and Bjornsen, gladly announced 

 their adhesion. Paris sent a thousand delegates ; 

 Spain nearly a thousand; Italy her thousands. 

 Whole municipalities in Italy and France (even 

 that of Paris) took part. The Latin world was 

 aflame with rebellion. We met, seven thousand 

 strong, in the heart of Eome, and Eome — the jade 

 — smiled prettily as we marched up the Via Venti 

 Settembre, as it had smiled once on processions of 

 Cybele, and then on processions of Catholics. 



Haeckel was greeted with a wild demonstration 

 as he stepped on to the platform in the great 

 Cortile of the College. Straight and proud, white 



