e same charge. In _Cain_ and elsewhere, the great poet does
not impeach God; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. We may sum up
the whole matter briefly. No man satirises the god he believes in, and
no man believes in the god he satirises.

We shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of "blasphemy!" which is
exactly what the Jewish priests shouted against Jesus Christ. If there
is a God, he cannot be half such a fool and blackguard as the Bible
declares. In destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. And
as it is better, in the words of Plutarch, to have no notion of the gods
than to have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the Lord
(if he exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in
his name.

The real blasphemers are those who believe in God and blacken his
character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less
intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who
represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart
of a savage and the brain of a fool. These are the blasphemers.

When the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of God on
his lips, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he resists education
and science, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes freedom
of thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. When, in the name
of God, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he
blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes the equal rights of
all, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he preaches content to the
poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious
tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And
when he takes the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the
inspiration of God, he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness.

Who are the blasphemers? Not we who preach freedom and progress for all
men; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, to burden
it, in God's name, with all the foul superstitions of its ignorant past.

CHRISTIANITY AND COMMON SENSE.

There are two things in the world that can never get on
together--religion and common sense. Religion deals with the next life,
common sense with this; religion points to the sky, common sense to the
earth; religion is all imagination, common sense all reason; religion
deals with what nobody can understand, common sense with what ev