ng on--when the sun was
down the thing was over. I would sit three or four hours reading
Jenkins, and then go out and the sun would not have gone down
perceptibly. I used to think it stuck there out of simple, pure
cussedness. But it went down at last, it had to; that was a part of
the plan, and as the last rim of light would sink below the horizon,
off would go our hats and we would give three cheers for liberty once
again. I do not believe in making Sunday hateful for children. I
believe in allowing them to be happy, and no day can be so sacred but
that the laugh of a child will make it holier still. There is no God
in the heavens that is pleased at the sadness of childhood. You cannot
make me believe that. You fill their poor, little, sweet hearts with
the fearful doctrine of hell. A little child goes out into the garden;
there is a tree covered with a glory of blossoms and the child leans
against it, and there is a little bird on the bough singing and
swinging, and the waves of melody run out of its tiny throat, thinking
about four little speckled eggs in the nest, warmed by the breast of
its mate, and the air is filled with perfume, and that little child
leans against that tree and thinks about hell and the worm that never
dies; think of filling the mind of a child with that infamous dogma!

Where was that doctrine of hell born? Where did it come from? It came
from that gentleman in the dug-out; it was a souvenir from the lower
animal. I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the
glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for
their prey. I believe it was born in the yelping and howling and
growling and snarling of wild beasts, I believe it was born in the grin
of hyenas and in the malicious chatter of depraved apes, I despise it,
I defy it and hate it; and when the great ship freighted with the world
goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I will not be
guilty of the ineffable meanness of pushing from my breast my wife and
children and padding off in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with
those I love and with those who love me. I will go down with the ship
and with my race. I will go where there is sympathy. I will go with
those I love. Nothing can make me believe that there is any being that
is going to burn and torment and damn his children forever. No, sir!
You will never make me believe you can divide the world up into saints
and sinners, and