who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them
saved. Here is what we are taught by the church today. We are taught
by it that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy
in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy
there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his
life, in hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we
believe in now is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the
mean things you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any
remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven? Or
will you be so good then that you won't care how you used to be? Don't
you see what an infinitely mean belief that is? I tell you today that,
no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are
spending the summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged you
will drop a little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part of
hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose
nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire
will cool up a little. According to this Christian doctrine, when you
are in heaven you won't care how mean you were once. What must be the
social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never
would have been there if he had not got scared? What must be the
social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had
not pitied him he ought to have been damned? Is it a compliment to an
infinite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned
the minute He got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has not
had a chance to make over. Is it possible that somebody else can be
good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor
for the human soul?

For instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a
splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got
about him splendid children whom he has loved and cared for with all
his heart. But he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not
believe in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some
children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two
bears and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart,
and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody
fragments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of
grief; he th