ings, I have this musical instrument, because I was
scared." What a glorious world; and then think of it! No reformation
in the next world--not the slightest. If you die in Arkansas that is
the end of you. At the end you will be told that being born in
Arkansas you had a fair chance. Think of telling a boy in the next
world, who lived and died in Delaware, that he had a fair show! Can
anything be more infamous? All on an equality--the rich and the poor,
those with parents loving them, those with every opportunity for
education, on an equality with the poor, the abject, and the
ignorant--and the little ray called life, this little moment with a
shadow and a tear, this little space between your mother's arms and the
grave, that balances an entire eternity. And God can do nothing for
you when you get there. A little Methodist preacher can do no more for
the soul here than its creator can when you get there. The soul goes
to heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples;
and they are all there, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet they can do
nothing for that poor unfortunate except to damn him. Is there any
sense in that? Why should this be a period of probation? It says in
the bible, I believe, "Now is the accepted time." When does that mean?
That means whenever the passage is pronounced. Now is the accepted
time. It will be the same tomorrow, won't it? And just as appropriate
then as today, and if appropriate at any time, appropriate through all
eternity. What I say is this: There is no world--there can be no
world--in which every human being will not have an opportunity of doing
right. That is my objection to this Christian religion, and if the
love of earth is not the love of heaven, if those who love us here are
to be separated there, then I want eternal sleep. Give me a good cold
grave rather than the furnace of Jehovah's wrath. Gabriel, don't blow!
Let me alone! If, when the grave bursts, I am not to meet faces that
have been my sunshine in this life, let me sleep on. Rather than that
the doctrine of endless punishment should be tried, I would like to see
the fabric of our civilization crumble and fall to unmeaning chaos and
to formless dust, where oblivion broods and where even memory forgets.
I would rather a Samson of some unprisoned force, released by chance,
should so wreck and strain the mighty world that man in stress and
strain of want and fear should shudderingly crawl