nd misery, between child
and want, as long as he can be of use, it is his duty to remain.

I believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny side of things,
in bearing with fortitude the evils of life, in struggling against
adversity, in finding the fuel of laughter even in disaster, in having
confidence in tomorrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints
and shards, and in changing by the alchemy of patience even evil things
to good. I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, of courage and
good-nature.

Of the future I have no fear. My fate is the fate of the world, of all
that live. My anxieties are about this life, this world. About the
phantoms called gods and their impossible hells, I have no care, no
fear.

The existence of God I neither affirm nor deny. I wait. The
immortality of the soul I neither affirm nor deny. I hope, hope for
all of the children of men. I have never denied the existence of
another world, nor the immortality of the soul. For many years I have
said that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed
in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating
against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any
book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human
affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and
clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.

What I deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity of torture.

After all, the instinct of self-preservation is strong. People do not
kill themselves on the advice of friends or enemies. All wish to be
happy, to enjoy life; all wish for food and roof and raiment, for
friends, and as long as life gives joy the idea of self-destruction
never enters the human mind.

The oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the rights of others,
the robbers of the poor, those who put wages below the living point,
the ministers who make people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal
pain; these are the men who drive the weak, the suffering and the
helpless down to death.

It will not do to say that "God" has appointed a time for each to die.
Of this there is, and there can be, no evidence. There is no evidence
that any god takes any interest in the affairs of men--that any sides
with the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or rescues the
oppressed. Even the clergy admit that their God, through all ages, has
all