ts mate--singing and swinging, and the music coming rippling
out of its throat, and the flowers blossoming and the air full of
perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky; and that
little boy would lean up against that trunk, and think of hell.

That's true! I have heard them preach when I sat in the pew, and my
feet didn't come within eighteen inches of the floor, about that hell.
And they said, "Suppose that once in a million years a bird would come
from some far distant planet, and carry in its bill a grain of sand,
the time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth
would be carried away;" and the old preacher said, in order to impress
upon the boys the length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't
be sun-up in hell yet."

Think of that to preach to children! I tell you, my friends, no day
can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it
holier still--no day! And yet, at that time, the minds of children
were polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment; and I
denounce it today as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of language
to express. Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for the
children of men come from? It came from that wretch in the dug-out.
Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals, and the
doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when they
hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was a doctrine born
of the howling and barking and growling of wild beasts; it was born in
the grin of the hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and
I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in
the serene heaven that will damn his children for the expression of an
honest belief!

There have been more men who died in their sins, according to your
orthodox religion, than there are leaves on all the forests of this
world ten thousand times over. Tell me they are in hell! Tell me they
are to be punished for ever and ever! I denounce it as an infamous lie!

And when the great ship containing the hope and aspiration of the
world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the
night of death and disaster, I will go down with the ship. I don't
want to paddle off in any orthodox canoe. I will go down with the
ship; and if there is a God who will damn his children forever I had
rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an
infamous