ld men have tremblingly implored; women have
sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has
been perpetrated.

Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more
than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the
weak, the loving and the innocent. Women have been treated like
poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had
been vermin. Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood
of babies; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole
races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, everywhere there has been
outrage beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years
the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have
prayed; the pale victims have implored, and heaven has been deaf and
blind.

Of what use have the gods been to man?

It is no answer to say that some god created the world, established
certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving
his children, weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life
alone. It is no solution to declare that in some other world this god
will render a few or even all of his subjects happy. What right have
we to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever
do better than he has done, and is doing? The world is filled with
imperfections. If it was made by an infinite being, what reason have
we for saying that he will render it nearer perfect than it now is? If
the infinite Father allows a majority of his children to live in
ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will
ever improve their condition? Will god have more power? Will he
become more merciful? Will his love for his poor creatures increase?
Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? Is the
infinite capable of any improvement whatever.

We are informed by the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that
the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing
our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong,
virtuous and grand.

Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who die in
infancy? The little children, according to this philosophy, can never
be developed. They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling
influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence, are doomed to an
eternity of mental inferiority. If the clergy are right on thi