No vision of heaven, no thought of glory for himself, can tempt Othello to forget his crime. He prefers hell for himself as the only thing with which his awakened conscience can be calmed. That is the way to be converted! The Christian doctrine of forgiveness is the doctrine of license. Jesus commands us to forgive "seventy times seven." He does not seem to realize that the more accommodating we are to the criminal, the more we sap the foundations of morality. "Judge not," says Jesus, "that ye be not judged." That is very queer advice. We are not to see wrong or crime in others lest they should find the same in us. It is the religion of a guilty conscience--which abstains from criticising lest his own faults should be exposed. "You say nothing about me and I'll agree to say nothing about you," is a conspiracy to defeat justice. "For with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged," continues Jesus. Not at all. If a man has slandered you, must you slander him? If you have been robbed, must you rob in return? Do you have to judge another with the same prejudice, bigotry and malice with which he judges you? And must you refrain from passing any righteous judgments from fear of being misjudged or misunderstood by the world? Were we to follow this false teaching, we would be giving crime a free sway,--with every tongue tied against it. But did not Jesus say "Love one another," and is not that enough? If it were enough, the past twenty centuries would have been centuries of peace and brotherhood. Instead, they have been centuries of war and persecution. The world is in need of a Jesus who can _make_ people love. If Jesus has this power--why is Europe still armed to the teeth? I do not deny the good intentions of Jesus. I question his _power_. He has not even succeeded in making his own followers, Catholics and Protestants, to love one another. Christianity has had a good, long chance to show results. A religion which is split up into an ever-increasing number of sects is not going to bring about unity and brotherhood. "He that believeth not shall be damned," and "depart from me ye cursed," takes from the rose of love both petals and perfume, and leaves only the thorns. But Jesus also said "Love your enemies." The advice of Confucius to "love our benefactors and to be just to our enemies," is more sensible. It is neither practical nor desirable to love one's enemies. Can we love the slanderer, the oppressor, the murderer? If our "enemy" is not all this, he is not an enemy. But we can be just to the people who are mean, deceitful, spiteful or pitiless toward us. Did Jesus love his enemies? Why then was not Judas saved? And why did he say to his disciples that for the people who rejected them there awaited the awful fate of Sodom and Gomorrah?