I want to see the time come when mothers won't have to explain to their
children that God has changed his mind about goodness and right since he
used to incite murder; that eighteen hundred years ago he was a criminal
with bloody hands and vile, polluted breath; that less than three
hundred years ago his greatest pleasure was derived from witnessing the
agony of pure young girls burning alive, whose only crime was beauty of
face or honesty of thought.*
* See Gage, "History of Woman Suffrage," p. 766.
I want it so that she won't allow her children to hear and believe such
a statement as Bishop Fallows made not long ago. He said, in effect,
that sins of omission are as heinous as those of commission: that Saul
committed two sins in his life, and that one of them was a refusal to
commit a coldblooded murder! He spared the life of a conquered enemy!
Out of a whole nation he saved one life--and that was a crime, a
sin! Bishop Fallows said that God expressly commanded Saul to utterly
exterminate that whole nation, and not only the nation but its flocks;
and that God took Saul's kingdom from him because he saved the life of
one fallen enemy.
That story, I think, is a libel; and I believe that if there is a God he
was never such a fiend! And I want it so that no mother will allow her
child to hear such an infamous travesty of the character of a Deity who
is called good, I want it so that all the lessons of the week, all
the careful training of a wise father or a good mother, will not be
antagonized on Sunday by such a statement as the Rev. Mr. Williamson
made at a large church convention recently. Speaking of prayer, he said:
"We should offer to God, by prayer, our virtue, our purity, and our
pious aspirations" (so far I do not object, for if it means anything I
fail to grasp it), "for by not doing so we claim self-control, which is
displeasing to God!"
I object! The lesson of self-control is precisely what we need. And when
we control ourselves and regulate our lives on principles of right and
truth, instead of allowing a Church to regulate them through a fear of
hell, we shall be a better people, and character will have a chance to
grow.
Then this same gentleman added: "We should also give him our vices, our
worry, our temper, and our passions, so that he may dispose of them."
Dispose of them yourselves! Don't try to shift your responsibilities
on to somebody else. Don't drive your tack into the brain of justice,
expecting to save your own soft skull. Don't enervate your strength
to do light by accepting the fatal doctrine of vicarious atonement. It
weakens every character that it touches.