It is to these celestial banditsⒶtextual note that the naïveⒶtextual note and confiding and illogical human rabbit looks for a heavenⒶtextual note of eternal bliss, which is to be his reward for patiently enduring the want and sufferings inflicted upon him here below—unearned sufferings covering terms of two or three years, in some cases; five or ten years in others; thirty, forty, or fifty in others; sixty, seventy, eighty, in others. As usual, where the Deity is Judge, the rewards are vastly out of proportion to the sufferings—and there is no system about the matter anyhow. You do not get any more heavenⒶtextual note for suffering eighty years than you get if you die of the measles, at three.

There is no evidence that there is to be a heavenⒶtextual note hereafter. If we should find, somewhere, an ancient book in which a dozen unknown men professed to tell all about a blooming and beautiful tropical paradiseⒶtextual note secreted in an inaccessible valley in the centreⒶtextual note of the eternal icebergs which constitute the Antarctic continent—not claiming that they had seen it themselves, but had acquired an intimate knowledge of it through a revelation from God—no Geographical Society in the earth would take any stock in that book; yet that book would be quite as authentic, quiteⒶtextual note as trustworthy, quite as valuable, evidence as is the Bible. The Bible is just like it. Its heavenⒶtextual note exists solely upon hearsay evidence—evidence furnished by unknown persons; persons who did not prove that they had ever been there.

If Christ had really been God, He could have proved it, since nothing is impossible with God. He could have proved it to every individual of His own time and of our time, [begin page 141] and of all future time. When God wants to prove that the sun and the moon may be depended upon to do their appointed work every day and every night, HeⒶtextual note has no difficulty about it. When He wants to prove that man may depend upon finding the constellations in their places every night—although they vanish and seem lost to us every day—HeⒶtextual note has no difficulty about it. When He wants to prove that the seasons may be depended upon to come and go according to a fixed law, year after year, He has no difficulty about it. Apparently He has desired to prove to us beyond cavil or doubt many millions of things, and He has had no difficulty about proving them all. It is only when He apparently wants to prove a future life to us that His invention fails, and He comes up against a problem which is beyond theⒶtextual note reach of His alleged omnipotenceⒶtextual note. With a message to deliver to men which is of infinitely more importance than allⒶtextual note those other messages put together, which He has delivered without difficulty, He can think of no better medium than the poorest of all contrivances—a book. A book written in two languages—to convey a message to a thousand nations—which, in the course of the dragging centuries and eons, must change and change and become finally wholly unintelligible. And even if they remained fixed, like a dead language, it would never be possible to translate the message with perfect clearness into any one of the thousand tongues, at any time.

According to the hearsay evidence, the character of every conspicuous godⒶtextual note is made up of love, justice, compassion, forgiveness, sorrow for all suffering and desire to extinguish it. Opposed to this beautiful character—built wholly upon valueless hearsay evidence—is the absolutely authentic evidence furnished us every day in the year, and verifiable by our eyes and our other senses, that the real character of these godsⒶtextual note is destitute of love, mercy, compassion, justice, and other gentle and excellent qualities, and is made up of all imaginable cruelties, persecutions, and injustices. The hearsay character rests upon evidence only—exceedingly doubtful evidence. The real character rests upon proof—proof unassailable.

Is it logical to expect of godsⒶtextual note whose unceasing and unchanging pastime is the malignant persecution of innocent men and animals, that they are going to provide an eternity of bliss, presently, for these very same creatures? If King Leopold II, the ButcherⒶtextual note, should proclaim that out of each hundred innocent and unoffending Congo negroes he is going to save one from humiliation, starvation, and assassination, and fetch that one home to Belgium to live with him in his palace and feed at his table, how many people would believe it? Everybody would say “A person’s character is a permanent thing. This act would not be in accordance with that butcher’s character. Leopold’s character is established beyond possibility of change, and it could never occur to him to do this kindly thing.”

Leopold’s character is Ⓐtextual note established. The character of the conspicuous godsⒶtextual note is alsoⒶtextual note established. It is distinctly illogical to suppose that either Leopold of Belgium or the heavenly LeopoldsⒶtextual note are ever going to think of inviting any fraction of their victims to the royal table and the comforts and conveniences of the regal palace.

According to hearsay evidence, the conspicuous godsⒶtextual note make a pet of one victim in a hundred—select him arbitrarily, without regard to whether he’s any better than the [begin page 142] other ninety-nine or not—but damn the ninety-nine through all eternity, without examining into their case. But for one slight defect this would be logical, and would properly reflect the known character of the godsⒶtextual note—that defect is the gratuitous and unplausible suggestion that one in a hundred is permitted to pull through. It is not likely that there will be a heavenⒶtextual note hereafter. It is exceedingly likely that there will be a hellⒶtextual note—and it is nearly dead certain that nobody is going to escape it.

As to the human race. There are many pretty and winning things about the human race. It is perhaps the poorest of all the inventions of all the godsⒶtextual note, but it has never suspected it once. There is nothing prettier than its naïveⒶtextual note and complacent appreciation of itself. It comes out frankly and proclaims, without bashfulness, or any sign of a blush, that it is the noblest work of God. It has had a billion opportunities to know better, but all signs fail with this ass. I could say harsh things about it, but I cannot bring myself to do it—it is like hitting a child.

Man is not to blame for what he isⒺexplanatory note. He didn’t make himself. He has no control over himself. All the control is vested in his temperament—which he did not create—and in the circumstances which hedge him round, from the cradle to the grave, and which he did not devise and cannot change by any act of his will, for the reason that he has no will. He is as purely a piece of automatic mechanism as is a watch, and can no more dictate or influence his actions than can the watch. He is a subject for pity, not blame—and not contempt. He is flung head over heels into this world without ever a chance to decline, and straightway he conceives and accepts the notion that he is in some mysterious way under obligations to the unknown Power that inflicted this outrage upon him—and thenceforth he considers himself responsible to that Power for every act of his life, and punishable for such of his acts as do not meet with the approval of that Power—yet that same man would argue quite differently if a human tyrant should capture him and put chains upon him and make him a slave. He would say that the tyrant had no right to do that; that the tyrant had no right to put commands upon him of any kind, and require obedience; that the tyrant had no right to compel him to commit murder and then put the responsibility for the murder upon him. Man constantly makes a most strange distinction between man and his Maker, in the matter of morals. He requires of his fellow man obedience to a very creditable code of morals, but he observes without shame or disapproval his God’s utter destitution of morals.

God ingeniously contrived man in such a way that he could not escape obedience to the laws of his passions, his appetites, and his various unpleasant and undesirable qualities. God has so contrived him that all his goings out and comings in are beset by traps which he cannot possibly avoid, and which compel him to commit what are called sins—and then God punishes him for doing these very things which from the beginning of time He had always intended that he should do. Man is a machine, and God made it—without invitation from any one. Whoever makes a machine, here below, is responsible for that machine’s performance. No one would think of such a thing as trying to put the responsibility upon the machine itself. We all know perfectly well—though [begin page 143] we all conceal it, just as I am doing, until I shall be dead, and out of reach of public opinion—we all know, I say, that God, and God alone, is responsible for every act and word of a human being’s life between cradle and grave. We know it perfectly well. In our secret hearts we haven’t the slightest doubt of it. In our secret hearts we have no hesitation in proclaiming as an unthinking fool anybody who thinks he believes that he is by any possibility capable of committing a sin against God—or who thinks he thinks he is under obligations to God and owes Him thanks, reverence, and worship.