The Salvationist at the Marble
Arch may be bigoted, but he is not too bigoted to yearn from
a common human kinship after the dandy on church parade.
But the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does not
in the least yearn after the Salvationist at the Marble Arch.
Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have
no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas
by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess.
Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent.
This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing;
it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions.
In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted;
the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people
who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression.
It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots;
it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have
come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty;
but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism--a very different
and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main has always
been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing
out those who care in darkness and blood.
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