sacrifices his blood out of love of Christ. Yet be that as it may; Christianity is so abundant in resources that, when it is God’s will to direct the hearts of Christians toward this realm, it will not prove difficult, little by little, to amass even the large amounts of capital that might be necessary to create Productive Associations. There are two systems of taxation, one exercised by the state, the other by Christianity. The state taxes by external obligation according to tax laws, tax lists, and tax collector; Christianity taxes according to the law of love, and the tax obligation and tax rate and tax collector there are free will and conscience. All the great states of Europe proceed to ruin with their tax systems, and from these monetary predicaments there has emerged that secret of harshness and corruption, that globe-encompassing web of stock market speculation, with all the corruption that emerges from this swamp. Christianity’s taxation system, by contrast, has always found the richest profusion of all imaginable resources for all of its great enterprises. What sums of capital has Christianity already amassed, through its voluntary taxation, in the conscience and the heart of good Christians? If we were to think about all these churches, all these monasteries, all these institutions of Christian love for every conceivable human distress and infirmity, all the parishes and bishoprics all over the world, all the poor people’s funds collected all over the world, all the schools and learning institutions founded by Christianity, all these old university funds, and if we were to realize that almost all of these things without exception were created and founded by voluntary donations, then what conception would we then need to entertain about the vitality of Christianity? And it is not the case that Christianity was like this only in ancient times, it is entirely like this even today. If we were to add up all the charitable institutions that have been created by voluntary donations over the course of our lifetime, what would be the resulting sum? Over the last five years, after all, this voluntary taxation of the Christian spirit served up twenty-three million just for the Holy Father. Let our adversaries think what they will about the how these donations are put to use; they must at least concede that a Church that brings such a reality to light possesses a corresponding inner power that they lack. How should Christianity be deprived of those resources for creating the institutions needed by the working class?
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