eth
of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the
young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of
grey hairs.

I think I have quoted enough to show that what I say of the Jewish God
Jehovah is based on fact. But I could, if needful, heap proof on proof,
for the books of the Old Testament reek with blood, and are horrible
with atrocities.

Now, consider, is the God of whom we have been reading a God of love?
Is He the Father of Christ? Is He not rather the savage idol of a savage
tribe?

Man and his gods: what a tragi-comedy it is. Man has never seen one of
his gods, never heard the voice of one of his gods, does not know the
shape, expression, or bearing of one of his gods. Yet man has cursed
man, hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered man, for the sake
of shadows and fantasies of his own terror, or vanity, or desire. We
tiny, vain feeblenesses, we fussy ephemera; we sting each other, hate
each other, hiss at each other, for the sake of the monster gods of
our own delirium. As we are whirled upon our spinning, glowing planet
through the unfathomable spaces, where myriads of suns, like golden
bees, gleam through the awful mystery of "the vast void night," what
are the phantom gods to us? They are no more than the waterspouts on the
ocean, or the fleeting shadows on the hills. But the man, and the woman,
and the child, and the dog with its wistful eyes; these know us, touch
us, appeal to us, love us, serve us, grieve us.

Shall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for the sake of the
lurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in his box?

Do you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who prized nothing but
his own aggrandisement, and slew or cursed all who offended him, is
the Creator, the same who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and the
resplendent mystery of the Milky Way?

Is this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of Christ? Is he the God
who inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and
Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in
rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and
polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities,
and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter--we
may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable
personality. It is time to ha