the offer for fear of depriving men
of their free choice; for where is there freedom of choice where
men are bribed with bread? Man shall not live by bread
alone--was Thine answer. Thou knewest not, it seems, that it was
precisely in the name of that earthly bread that the terrestrial
spirit would one day rise against, struggle with, and finally
conquer Thee, followed by the hungry multitudes shouting: "Who is
like unto that Beast, who maketh fire come down from heaven upon
the earth!" Knowest Thou not that, but a few centuries hence, and
the whole of mankind will have proclaimed in its wisdom and
through its mouthpiece, Science, that there is no more crime,
hence no more sin on earth, but only hungry people? "Feed us
first and then command us to be virtuous!" will be the words
written upon the banner lifted against Thee--a banner which
shall destroy Thy Church to its very foundations, and in the
place of Thy Temple shall raise once more the terrible Tower of
Babel; and though its building be left unfinished, as was that of
the first one, yet the fact will remain recorded that Thou
couldst, but wouldst not, prevent the attempt to build that new
tower by accepting the offer, and thus saving mankind a
millennium of useless suffering on earth. And it is to us that
the people will return again. They will search for us catacombs,
as we shall once more be persecuted and martyred--and they will
begin crying unto us: "Feed us, for they who promised us the fire
from heaven have deceived us!" It is then that we will finish
building their tower for them. For they alone who feed them shall
finish it, and we shall feed them in Thy name, and lying to them
that it is in that name. Oh, never, never, will they learn to
feed themselves without our help! No science will ever give them
bread so long as they remain free, so long as they refuse to lay
that freedom at our feet, and say: "Enslave, but feed us!" That
day must come when men will understand that freedom and daily
bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had
together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two
among themselves. And they will also learn that they can never be
free, for they are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities born
wicked and rebellious. Thou has promised to them the bread of
life, the bread of heaven; but I ask Thee again, can that bread
ever equal in the sight of the weak and the vicious, the ever
ungrateful human race, their d