But the proposition that there can be no morality without God--that the earth would be a hell without Christ, in its final analysis means this: People will not be moral without the belief in a future life. It is the hope of future rewards which gives to the God idea its value. St. Paul himself admitted that if the Christians believed in Christ for this life only "they were of all men the most miserable." Were the clergy to tell their flocks this morning that although they felt sure of the existence of God, they had their doubts about another life, how many of them would return to worship on the following Sunday? Yes, it is the mingled hope and fear of the future which gives the belief in a God its importance. If there were no death--if men could live here forever, they would not much concern themselves about spirits and invisible beings. It is the idea that when we die we fall into the hands of God, the idea that it is a terrible thing, as the Bible says, to fall into the hands of the living God--it is this idea which lights the altars, bends the knee, and builds churches. To placate the deity that he may reward us in the future is, frankly, the object of all religious ceremonies. If this be true, then the proposition that without God there can be no morality amounts to this: Without future rewards and punishments no man will live a moral life. This doctrine leads to the following conclusions: First, man is naturally immoral, and the only way he can be arrested in his career of vice and crime is to promise him future rewards if he will behave himself, and to menace him with hell fire if he will not. Secondly, the proposition implies that morality _per se_ is not desirable, that no one could be virtuous enough to desire virtue for its own sake, and that without great and eternal rewards morality would go a-begging. And this is religion! What then is atheism?