uliar thing I might as well speak of
here. While the world has made gods, it has also made devils; and as a
rule the devils have been better friends to man than the gods. It was
not a devil that drowned the world; it was not a devil that covered
with the multitudinous waves of an infinite sea the corpses of men,
women and children.

That was the good god. The devil never sent pestilence and famine; the
devil never starved women and children; that was the good God. The
meanest thing recorded of the devil is what happened concerning my
servant Job. According to that book God met the devil and said:
"Where have you been?" "Oh, been walking up and down." "Have you
noticed my man Job; nobody like him!" "Well, who wouldn't be; you have
given him everything; but take away what he has, and he will curse you
to your face." And so the devil went to work and tried it. It was a
mean thing. And that was all done to decide what you might call a wager
on a difference of opinion between the serene highnesses. He took away
his property, but Job didn't sin; and when God met the devil, he said:
"Well, what did I tell you, smarty?" "Ah," he said, "that is all very
well, but you touch his flesh and he will curse you; and he did, but
Job didn't curse him. And then what did God do to help him! He gave
him some other children better looking than the first ones. What kind
of an idea is that for a God to kill our children and then give us
better looking ones! If you have loved a child, I don't care if it is
deformed, if you have held it in your arms and covered its face with
kisses, you want that child back and no other.

I find in this bible that there was an old gentleman a little short of
the article of hair. And as he was going through the town a number of
little children cried out to him "Go up, thou bald head!" And this man
of God turned and cursed them. A real good-humored old fellow! And
two bears came out of the woods and tore in pieces forty-two children!
How did the bears get there? Elisha could not control the bears.
Nobody but God could control the bears in that way. Now just think of
an infinite God making a shining star, having his attention attracted
by hearing some children saying to an old gentlemen, "Go up, thou bald
head!" and then speaking to his secretary or somebody else, "Bring in a
couple of bears now!" What a magnificent God! What would the devil
have done under the same circumstances? And yet tha