make all her daughters rich in holy affection, "If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live without him. I love him." Then magnanimously said the Supreme Brahma, "I will spare you both, and watch over you and your children forever!" Now, tell me truly, which is the grander story? The book containing this story is full of good things; and yet Christians style as heathens those who have adopted this book as their guide, and spend thousands of dollars annually in sending missionaries to convert them! It has been too often conceded that because the new testament contains, in many passages, a lofty and terse expression of love as the highest duty of man, Christianity must have a tendency to ennoble his nature. But Christianity is like sweetened whisky and water--it perverts and destroys that which it should nourish and strengthen. Christianity makes an often fatal attack on a man's morality--if he happens to be blessed with any--by substituting for the sentiments of love and duty to our neighbors, a sense of obligation of blind obedience to an infinite, mysterious, revengeful, tyrannical God! The real principle of Christian morality, is servile obedience to a dangerous Power! Dispute the assertions of even your priest as to the requirements, dislikes, desires and wishes of the Almighty, and you might as well count yourself as lost, sulphurically lost! If you are one of God's chosen, or in other words, have been saved, and are even so fortunate as to attain to the glories and joys of the gold-paved streets of heaven, you are expected, in looking over the banisters of heaven down into the abyss of eternal torture, to view with complacency the agonized features of your mother, sister, brother, or infant child--who are writhing in hell--and laugh at their calamity! You are not allowed to carry them a drop of water to cool their parched tongue! And if you are a Christian, you at this moment believe you will enjoy the situation! If a man in a quarrel cuts down his neighbor in his sins, the poor, miserable victim goes directly to hell! The murderer may reasonably count on a lease of a few weeks of life, interviews his pastor, confesses the crime, repents, accepts the grace of God, is forgiven, and then smoothly and gently slides from the rudely-constructed scaffold into a haven of joy and bliss, there to sing the praises of the Lamb of God forever and forever! Poor, unfortunate victim! Happy murderer! Ah, what a beautiful religion humanitarianism and charity* might become!