placed them in celestial
habitations.

What is true of the gods is equally so of all the supernaturalistic
dogmas of the several traditional interpretations of religion. Insofar
as they are not pure superstitions they are symbols of imaginary events
which people think should or must have occurred in the past or should or
must occur in the future; not statements of historical events which have
occurred or are to occur.

So far I have not found it necessary to renounce the Christian God or
any of the things which go with him and I have no idea of doing this,
any more than I have of renouncing the American Uncle Sam and the things
which go with him, but I place the Brother Jesus of the Christian
religion and the Uncle Sam of the American politics on the same footing
with each other and with others of their kind as subjective realities. I
could be a Jew and an Englishman as conscientiously as a Christian and
an American. Many of the early Christians were also Pagans, worshippers
of other Gods than Jesus.

Nor is this all or even much more than half of my religious and
political levelism.

On the one hand as a religionist I can be any and everything but an
orthodox sectarian. This orthodoxy is a libel against humanity. The
world owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles--those
which are brought about by the triune devil of persecution, ignorance
and superstition.

On the other hand as a politician I can be any and everything but a
nationalistic sectarian. This nationalism is a libel against humanity.
The world owes to it a great part of all its unnecessary troubles--those
which are brought upon it by the triune devil of war, poverty and
slavery.

Hoping that you will abandon Jesuine socialism for Marxian communism and
join me in an effort to banish the fictitious, superstitious gods from
the skies and the lying, robbing capitalists from the earth, I am with
every good wish,

Very cordially yours,
WM. M. BROWN.

Brownella Cottage,
Galion, Ohio.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] This letter was written in July, 1919, and sent to the press in
September, 1920. In the interim several of its representations and
arguments were made more complete: therefore, some among the additions
bear the marks of dates belonging to later months.

[E] According to the showing of the science of biblical criticism there
is more than one Jesus of whom we have an account in the New Testament:
(1) a naturalistic, this-worldly, pacific,