Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832), an English cleric-turned-aphorist, is best known for his collection of moral and social maxims, *Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words* (first issued in the 1820s and repeatedly expanded in later editions). The remark about bigotry reflects a common early‑19th‑century liberal critique of sectarian zeal: that dogmatic intolerance does not protect faith but instead hollows it out, replacing living religion with fear, superstition, and social control. Colton’s epigrammatic style—sharp personification and moral paradox—fits the tone and purpose of *Lacon*, which aimed to provoke reflection through compressed, memorable sentences.

Colton’s line argues that bigotry is not merely an excess of religion but its destroyer. By “murdering” religion, bigotry kills the humane, ethical, and spiritual core that gives faith life; what remains is only a “ghost”—a frightening semblance used to intimidate the credulous (“fools”). The personification suggests a deliberate act: intolerance weaponizes religious language and authority to produce fear rather than understanding or virtue. The epigram thus distinguishes authentic religion from coercive religiosity, implying that the loudest defenders of “religion” may be those most responsible for turning it into an instrument of terror and social manipulation.