God was a kind of juggler. He did not wish man to be impudent or curious about how He did things. You must sit in audience and watch the tricks and ask no questions. In front of every fact He has hung the impenetrable curtain of blasphemy. Now, then, all the little reason that poor man had is useless. To say anything against the priest was blasphemy and to say anything against God was blasphemy--to ask a question was blasphemy. Finally we sank to the level of fetishism. We began to worship inanimate things. If you will read your bible you will find that the Jews had a sacred box. In it were the rod of Aaron and a piece of manna and the tables of stone. To touch this box was a crime. You remember that one time when a careless Jew thought the box was going to tip he held it. God killed him. What a warning to baggage smashers of the present day. We find also that God concocted a hair oil and threatened death to any one who imitated it. And we see that He also made a certain perfume and it was death to make anything that smelt like it. It seems to me this is carrying protection too far. It always has been blasphemy to say "I do not know whether God exists or not." In all Catholic countries it is blasphemy to doubt the bible, to doubt the sacredness of the relics. It always has been blasphemy to laugh at a priest, to ask questions, to investigate the Trinity. In a world of superstition, reason is blasphemy. In a world of ignorance, facts are blasphemy. In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy. Who are the real blasphemers? Webster offers the definition; blasphemy is an insult offered to God by attributing to Him a nature and qualities differing from His real nature and qualities, and dishonoring Him. A very good definition, if you only know what His nature and qualities are. But that is not revealed; for, studying Him through the medium of the bible, we find Him illimitably contradictory. He commands us not to work on the Sabbath day, because it is holy. Yet God works himself on the Sabbath day. The sun, moon and stars swing round in their orbits, and all the creation attributed to this God goes on as on other days. He says: "Honor thy father and mother," and yet this God, in the person of Christ, offered honors, and glory, and happiness a hundred fold to any who would desert their father and mother for Him. Thou shalt not kill, yet God killed the first-born of Egypt, and he commanded Joshua to kill all His enemies, not sparing old or young, man, woman or child, even an unborn child. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," he says, and yet this God gave the wives of defeated enemies to His soldiers of Joshua's army. Then again He says, "Thou shalt not steal." By this command He protected the inanimate property and the cattle of one man against the hand of another, and yet this God who said "Thou shalt not steal," established human slavery. The