of melody, and who has made the air of this world rich forever,
he is there, and they have better music in hell than in heaven.

Shelley, whose soul, like his own skylark, was a winged joy--he has
been damned for many, many years; and Shakespeare, the greatest of the
human race, who has done more to elevate mankind than all the priests
who ever lived and died--he is there; and all the founders of
Inquisitions, the builders of dungeons, the makers of chains, the
inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders
of human flesh, stealers of babes and sellers of husbands, and wives,
and children, the drawers of the swords, of persecution, and they who
kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thousand
years--they are in heaven tonight. Well, I wish heaven joy of such
company.

And that is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of
children. That is the doctrine that puts a fiend by their dying bed
and a prophesy of hell over every cradle. That is "glad tidings of
great joy." Only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon
the Ohio, sent by him who is ruling in the world and paying particular
attention to the affairs of nations, just in the gray of the morning
they saw a house floating down, and on its top a human being; and a few
men went out to the rescue in a little boat, and they found there a
mother, a woman, and they wanted to rescue her, and she said: "No, I
am going to stay where I am. I have three dead babes in this house."
Think of a love so limitless, stronger and deeper than despair and
death, and yet the Christian religion says that if that woman did not
happen to believe in their creed, God would send that mother's soul to
eternal fire. If there is another world, and if in heaven they wear
hats, when such a woman climbs up the opposite bank of the Jordan,
Christ should lift His to her.

That is the trouble I had with this Christian religion--its infinite
heartlessness; and I cannot tell them too often that during our last
war Christians who knew that if they were shot they would go right to
heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly
willing the men should go to hell, provided they could stay at home.
You see they are not honest in it; they do not believe it, or, as the
people say, "They don't sense it;" they have not religion enough to
conceive what it is they believe and what a terrific falsehood they
assert. And I beg of eve