rror.

All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence
and famine, in fire and flood--all the pangs and pains of every
disease and every death--all this is as nothing compared with the
agonies to be endured by one lost soul.

This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the
justice of God--the mercy of Christ.

This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable
enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal
pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition,
forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the
lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the
coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless
thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It
subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed
men to fiends, and banished reason from the brain.

Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every
orthodox creed.

It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the
one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public
curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below
this Christian dogma, savagery can not go. It is the infinite of
malice, hatred and revenge.

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its
creator, God.

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all
my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite
lie.

Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in
eternal pain is growing weaker every day--that thousands of
ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that
Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of
hell are burning low--flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a
few years to die out forever.

For centuries Christendom was a madhouse. Popes, cardinals,
bishops, priests, monks and heretics were all insane.

Only a few--four or five in a century--were sound in heart and
brain. Only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the
savage cries, heard Reason's voice. Only a few, in the wild rage of
ignorance, fear and zeal, preserved the perfect calm that wisdom
gives.

We have a