and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that
down.

Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few pray long, the
others make a short-cut.

More men go to church than want to.

To forty-nine men in fifty the Sabbath day is a dreary, dreary bore.

Further, all sane people detest noise.

All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their lives.
Monotony quickly wearies them.

Now then, you have the facts. You know what men don't enjoy. Well,
they have invented a heaven, out of their own heads, all by
themselves; guess what it is like? In fifteen hundred years you
couldn't do it. They have left out the very things they care for
most their dearest pleasures--and replaced them with prayer!

In man's heaven everybody sings. There are no exceptions. The man
who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on
earth sings there. Thus universal singing is not casual, not
occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on all day
long and every day during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody
stays where on earth the place would be empty in two hours. The
singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is one hymn alone. The words
are always the same in number--they are only about a dozen--there is
no rhyme--there is no poetry. "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna unto the
highest!" and a few such phrases constitute the whole service.

Meantime, every person is playing on a harp! Consider the deafening
hurricane of sound. Consider, further, it is a praise service--a
service of compliment, flattery, adulation. Do you ask who it is
that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane
compliment, and who not only endures it but likes it, enjoys it,
requires it, commands it? Hold your breath: It is God! This race's
God I mean--their own pet invention.

Most of the ideas presented in this his last commentary on human
absurdities were new only as to phrasing. He had exhausted the topic
long ago, in one way or another; but it was one of the themes in which he
never lost interest. Many subjects became stale to him at last; but the
curious invention called man remained a novelty to him to the end.

From my note-book:

October 25. I am constantly amazed at his knowledge of history--all
history--religious, political, military. He seems to have read
ev