The Church used to keep a box about four feet long and two feet wide which it called the sacred ark of God. It was certain death for any man not a priest to touch that box. It is supposed that they kept in it gold and jewels which they extorted from their dupes, and that for fear of robbery they made superstition their banker. Well, they had to move that jewelry-box once for some reason, and it is not said that anything happened to the men who put it on the cart; but as the man who drove the oxen--in one place it says that they were oxen, in another that they were cows with young calves, and you will be damned if you don't believe both--anyhow, as the driver walked along in horrid fear lest something should happen to that ark of God, the oxen shied, and the ark toppled, and instinctively the driver put out his hand to steady the sacred thing. Well, you would think that any sane man, any reasonable being, would have commended him for it; but no! Jehovah struck him dead for his pains. Why? Because that box was so supremely sacred. Supreme nonsense! Suppose he had not touched it and it had fallen? What then? Most likely Jehovah would then have struck him dead for not touching it. It strikes me that the only reasonable, sensible being connected with that whole story was the driver, the man they abuse, the man the priests murdered, I suspect because he discovered what was in that ark, and threatened to expose the humbug. Whenever any man uses judgment and common-sense the Church calls him wicked and dangerous. They say he "touches with unholy hands holy things;" and when he dies, whether his death was expedited or otherwise, they say God killed him. Now, if God did kill that man for touching the ark to save it from falling, what do you think of him--as a God? I can tell you what you would think of him as a man. You would think he was a ruffian and a murderer--that is what you would think of him as a man. Truly gods are made of poor stuff. If I can't have a god that is nobler and better and truer and kinder than the very best man I ever saw, then I don't want any god at all. And candor forbids me to state that I ever saw, heard, or read of any such a god. All the gods I ever read or heard of have fallen infinitely below a few men I know.