“This counsel, however, do I counsel to kings and churches, and to all that is weak with age or virtue⁠—let yourselves be o’erthrown! That ye may again come to life, and that virtue⁠—may come to you!⁠—”

Thus spake I before the fire-dog: then did he interrupt me sullenly, and asked: “Church? What is that?”

“Church?” answered I, “that is a kind of state, and indeed the most mendacious. But remain quiet, thou dissembling dog! Thou surely knowest thine own species best!

“Like thyself the state is a dissembling dog; like thee doth it like to speak with smoke and roaring⁠—to make believe, like thee, that it speaketh out of the heart of things.

“For it seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on earth, the state; and people think it so.”