As far back as the mind of man can trace the history of the race we
see bleeding Right on the scaffold and triumphant Wrong sitting on the
throne. If this is contrary to God’s plan, he is slow to correct error.
Cain slew his brother Abel because he was the stronger and most brutal.
The meek and humble Abel gave up his life to the violence of wrong, and
Cain’s punishment was rather mild. He was allowed to hunt a wife and
marry her and raise a family, while the name of his victim was wiped from
the face of nature.
Again, was it right that Jesus Christ should be crucified on a cross?
This is the most horrible death any living animal can die—nailed alive
to a cross of wood with cruel nails driven through feet and hands, and
left to die of terrible pain and anguish of soul. The good book says God
planned it. If so, then God himself indorses the rule of wrong and the
sufferings of right.
Socrates was forced to drink the deadly hemlock, for the crime of
teaching men the right. Socrates knew that the system taught by the
ruling spirits of his country was a wrong theory. It kept the people in
darkest ignorance and darkest slavery. He strove to lift them up and free
them from their mental and physical slavery. The men who fattened on the
spoils of the wrong system realized that Socrates would ultimately rob
them of their slaves and half-fed servants, by teaching them the truth,
and their natural rights, so they put Socrates to death. God did not
interfere or intervene; so he must surely indorse the violent rule of
wrong.
Almost every one knows of King Leopold’s cruelty to the natives of the
Congo Free State. It is said of him that he had instructed his agents to
inflict terrible punishment on the natives if they failed to bring in the
required quantity of rubber. Many of the poor, god-forsaken creatures
have had a hand cut off, or a foot removed, for failing to bring in
wealth to the agents of this monstrosity of a ruler. If I stood on the
banks of the crater known as the bottomless pit and saw such deeds of
brutality inacted in hell, I could not believe my own eyes; and to hear
of such things being done on top of ground, makes one’s soul groan in
utter despair of Right ever being able to dethrone Wrong and usher in the
rule of peace and love.
And the latest outrage Wrong has perpetrated against the world was the
murder of Ferrer, the Spanish reformer. And they tell me it was done in
the name of religion! The shameless idea of that half-idiot, Alfonso,
King of Spain, ordering the death of a man towering intellectually so far
above the pigmy dummy who ornaments the Spanish throne, insults the very
fiber of my soul.
Ferrer was teaching the men the science of human rights, just as Socrates
had done centuries ago. The crime is always the same, and the excuse for
killing the reformer is always the same. The world is made to believe
that the killing is done to protect religion, and to defend God. The plot
is dark and deep—deeper than orthodox hell itself; for hell is said to be
the everlasting abode of wrong, and wrong doers.
Will the mists ever clear away from men’s eyes, so that they can
recognize Wrong on the throne and Right hanging by the neck on the
scaffold erected by the willing tools of Wrong? Will they? I very much
doubt it. The world’s history has been written by the sword of the
tyrant, dipped in the blood of the many victims who died for the cause of
human liberty, and the sleeping world has been made to believe that it
was all done in the name of religion.
Does God care? Go to the graves of the millions slain by Wrong; go to the
stake where the thousands were burned and left their ashes to cry to high
heaven for human liberty; go to the prison dungeons where the thousands
of martyrs wasted their lives and died in filth and misery—and ask there
if God cares that this monster, Wrong, shall longer rule the destinies of
men. I cannot see a single ray of hope. These insects we call men, are
brutal as the beasts of the field. They glory in bloodshed.