inflict torments upon one in his power, and
they supposed that God would inflict torture according to His power.
They knew the worst torture was a slow, burning fire; added to it the
idea of eternity, and hell was produced. That was their idea. All
meanness, revenge, selfishness, cruelty, and hatred of which men here
are capable burst into blossom and bore fruit in that one word, "Hell."

In this way a God of infinite wisdom experimented with man, keeping him
between an outstretched abyss beneath and a heaven above; and in time
the man came to believe that he could please God by having read a few
sacred books, could count beads, could sprinkle water, eat little
square pieces of bread, and that he could shut his eyes and say words
to the clouds; but the moment he left this world nothing remained
except to damn him. He was to be kept miserable one day in seven, and
he could slander and persecute other men all the other days in the
week. That was the chance that God gave a man here, but the moment he
left this world that settled it. He would go to eternal pain or else
to eternal joy. That was the way that the supernatural governed this
world--through fear, through terror, through eternity of punishment;
and that government, I say tonight, has failed. How has it been kept
alive so long? It was born in ignorance. Let me tell you, whoever
attacks a creed will be confronted with a list of great men who have
believed in it. Probably their belief in that creed was the only
weakness they had. But he will be asked, "So you know more than all the
great men who have taught and all the respectable men who have believed
in that faith?" For the church is always going about to get a
certificate from some governor, or even perhaps members of the
Legislature, and you are told, because so-and-so believed all these
things, and you have no more talents than they, that you should believe
the same thing. But I contend, as against this argument, that you
should not take the testimony of these men unless you are willing to
take at the same time all their beliefs on other subjects. Then,
again, they tell you that the rich people are all on their side, and I
say so, too. The churches today seek the rich, and poverty unwillingly
seeks them. Light thrown from diamonds adorns the repentant here. We
are told that the rich, the fortunate, and the holders of place are
Christians now; and yet ministers grow eloquent over the poverty of
Chris