le, others
might follow his example, until none would be left to light the holy
fires of the auto da fe. It would not do for so great, so successful
an enemy of the church to die without leaving some shriek of fear, some
shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by
lips covered with blood and foam. For many centuries the theologians
have taught that an unbeliever--an infidel--one who spoke or wrote
against their creed, could not meet death with composure; that in his
last moments God would fill his conscience with the serpents of
remorse. For a thousand years the clergy have manufactured the facts
to fit this theory--this infamous conception of the duty of man and the
justice of God. The theologians have insisted that crimes against men
were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes against God. That,
while kings and priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows
wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the innocent
and helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality; but when
some honest man, some great and tender soul, expressed a doubt as to
the truth of the scriptures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the
right one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a wounded
tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering flesh tore the wretched
soul.

There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has
been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world
of the innocent child being shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are
being committed ever day--men are at this moment lying in wait for
their human prey--wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and
death--little children begging for mercy, lifting imploring,
tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers--sweet
girls are deceived, lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent
these things--no time to defend the good and protect the pure. He is
too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows. He listens for
blasphemy; looks for persons who laugh at priests; examines baptismal
registers; watches professors in college who begin to doubt the geology
of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He does not particularly object
to stealing, if you don't swear. A great many persons have fallen dead
in the act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men, women and
children have been stolen from their homes and used as beasts of
burden, but no one engaged