V.

In the dear old religious days the earth was flat--a little dishing, if

anything--and just above it was Jehovah's house, and just below it was

where the Devil lived. God and his angels inhabited the third story, the

Devil and his imps the basement, and the human race the second floor.

Then they knew where heaven was. They could almost hear the harps and

hallelujahs. They knew where hell was, and they could almost hear the

groans and smell the sulphurous fumes. They regarded the volcanoes

as chimneys. They were perfectly acquainted with the celestial, the

terrestrial and the infernal. They were quite familiar with the

New Jerusalem, with its golden streets and gates of pearl. Then the

translation of Enoch seemed reasonable enough, and no one doubted

that before the flood the sons of God came down and made love to the

daughters of men. The theologians thought that the builders of Babel

would have succeeded if God had not come down and caused them to forget

the meaning of words.

In those blessed days the priests knew all about heaven and hell.

They knew that God governed the world by hope and fear, by promise and

threat, by reward and punishment. The reward was to be eternal and so

was the punishment. It was not God's plan to develop the human brain, so

that man would perceive and comprehend the right and avoid the wrong.

He taught ignorance nothing but obedience, and for obedience he offered

eternal joy. He loved the submissive--the kneelers and crawlers. He

hated the doubters, the investigators, the thinkers, the philosophers.

For them he created the eternal prison where he could feed forever the

hunger of his hate. He loved the credulous--those who believed without

evidence--and for them he prepared a home in the realm of fadeless

light. He delighted in the company of the questionless.

But where is this heaven, and where is this hell? We now know that

heaven is not just above the clouds and that hell is not just below

the earth. The telescope has done away with the ancient heaven, and

the revolving world has quenched the flames of the ancient hell. These

theological countries, these imagined worlds, have disappeared. No one

knows, and no one pretends to know, where heaven is; and no one knows,

and no one pretends to know, the locality of hell. Now the theologians

say that hell and heaven are not places, but states of mind--conditions.

The belief in gods and devils has been substantially universal. Back of

the good, man placed a god; back of the evil, a devil; back of health,

sunshine and harvest was a good deity; back of disease, misfortune and

death he placed a malicious fiend.

Is there any evidence that gods and devils exist? The evidence of the

existence of a god and of a devil is substantially the same. Both of

these deities are inferences; each one is a perhaps. They have not been

seen--they are invisible--and they have not ventured within the horizon

of the senses. The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how

could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a

trained theologian--like a doctor of divinity.

Now no intelligent man believes in the existence of a devil--no longer

fears the leering fiend. Most people who think have given up a personal

God, a creative deity. They now talk about the "Unknown," the "Infinite

Energy," but they put Jehovah with Jupiter. They regard them both as

broken dolls from the nursery of the past.

The men or women who ask for evidence--who desire to know the

truth--care nothing for signs; nothing for what are called wonders;

nothing for lucky or unlucky jewels, days or numbers; nothing for charms

or amulets; nothing for comets or eclipses, and have no belief in good

or evil spirits, in gods or devils. They place no reliance on general

or special providence--on any power that rescues, protects and saves the

good or punishes the vile and vicious. They do not believe that in the

whole history of mankind a prayer has been answered. They think that all

the sacrifices have been wasted, and that all the incense has ascended

in vain. They do not believe that the world was created and prepared

for man any more than it was created and prepared for insects. They do

not think it probable that whales were invented to supply the Eskimo

with blubber, or that flames were created to attract and destroy moths.

On every hand there seems to be evidence of design--design for the

accomplishment of good, design for the accomplishment of evil. On every

side are the benevolent and malicious--something toiling to preserve,

something laboring to destroy. Everything surrounded by friends and

enemies--by the love that protects, by the hate that kills. Design is as

apparent in decay, as in growth; in failure, as in success; in grief, as

in joy. Nature with one hand building, with one hand tearing down, armed

with sword and shield--slaying and protecting, and protecting but to

slay. All life journeying toward death, and all death hastening back to

life. Everywhere waste and economy, care and negligence.

We watch the flow and ebb of life and death--the great drama that

forever holds the stage, where players act their parts and disappear;

the great drama in which all must act--ignorant and learned, idiotic and

insane--without rehearsal and without the slightest knowledge of a part,

or of any plot or purpose in the play. The scene shifts; some actors

disappear and others come, and again the scene shifts; mystery

everywhere. We try to explain, and the explanation of one fact

contradicts another. Behind each veil removed, another. All things equal

in wonder. One drop of water as wonderful as all the seas; one grain

of sand as all the world; one moth with painted wings as all the things

that live; one egg from which warmth, in darkness, woos to life an

organized and breathing form--a form with sinews, bones and nerves, with

blood and brain, with instincts, passions, thoughts and wants--as all

the stars that wheel in space.

The smallest seed that, wrapped in soil, has dreams of April rains and

days of June, withholds its secret from the wisest men. The wisdom of

the world cannot explain one blade of grass, the faintest motion of

the smallest leaf. And yet theologians, popes, priests, parsons, who

speechless stand before the wonder of the smallest thing that is, know

all about the origin of worlds, know when the beginning was, when the

end will be, know all about the God who with a wish created all, know

what his plan and purpose was, the means he uses and the end he seeks.

To them all mysteries have been revealed, except the mystery of things

that touch the senses of a living man.

But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they

love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not

know."

After all, why should we worship our ignorance, why should we kneel to

the Unknown, why should we prostrate ourselves before a guess?

If God exists, how do we know that he is good, that he cares for us? The

Christians say that their God has existed from eternity; that he forever

has been, and forever will be, infinite, wise and good. Could this God

have avoided being God? Could he have avoided being good? Was he wise

and good without his wish or will?

Being from eternity, he was not produced. He was back of all cause. What

he is, he was, and will be, unchanged, unchangeable. He had nothing to

do with the making or developing of his character.

Nothing to do with the development of his mind. What he was, he is. He

has made no progress. What he is, he will be, there can be no change.

Why then, I ask, should we praise him? He could not have been different

from what he was and is. Why should we pray to him? He cannot change.

And yet Christians implore their God not to do wrong.

The meanest thing charged against the Devil is that he leads the

children of men into temptation, and yet, in the Lord's Prayer, God is

insultingly asked not to imitate the king of fiends.

"Lead us not into temptation."

Why should God demand praise? He is as lie was. He has never learned

anything; has never practiced any self-denial; was never tempted, never

touched by fear or hope, and never had a want. Why should he demand our

praise?

Does anyone know that this God exists; that he ever heard or answered

any prayer? Is it known that he governs the world; that he interferes

in the affairs of men; that he protects the good or punishes the wicked?

Can evidence of this be found in the history of mankind? If God governs

the world, why should we credit him for the good and not charge him with

the evil? To justify this God we must say that good is good and

that evil is also good. If all is done by this God we should make no

distinction between his actions--between the actions of the infinitely

wise, powerful and good. If we thank him for sunshine and harvest

we should also thank him for plague and famine. If we thank him for

liberty, the slave should raise his chained hands in worship and thank

God that he toils unpaid with the lash upon his naked back. If we thank

him for victory we should thank him for defeat.

Only a few days ago our President, by proclamation, thanked God for

giving us the victory at Santiago. He did not thank him for sending the

yellow fever. To be consistent the President should have thanked him

equally for both.

The truth is that good and evil spirits--gods and devils--are beyond the

realm of experience; beyond the horizon of our senses; beyond the limits

of our thoughts; beyond imagination's utmost flight.

Man should think; he should use all his senses; he should examine; he

should reason. The man who cannot think is less than man; the man who

will not think is traitor to himself; the man who fears to think is

superstition's slave.