This life is nothing compared with that which is to come. Its most innocent pleasures are sins; for the body itself is sinful, and by sin man came into the world. Pressed down beneath the weight of universal disaster, the doctrine of Jesus was the wail of despair. Take no heed of the morrow. Live only for to-day. Give all to the poor. Resist not the tyrant wrong. This life is a vale of tears, and the eye that weeps most shall be the brightest in glory in the life which is to come. O Jesus, on thy cross, what infinite misery has come from this misconception of thy teachings! Men, believing that their immortal spirits were chained to sinful bodies, rushed in herds to the mountain cave or lonely desert, and, by fasting and thirst, by hair-cloth garments wearing through the flesh to the bone, by flagellation and daily crucifixion, sought to expiate the sins of the body, and enter the next life purified. Believing in an immortal life, they sought to force their belief on others, and proselyte by sword and torture. Dogmatism grew rankly luxuriant in this hot-bed of ignorance and superstition. Humanity was bound to the wheel; and ingenuity exhausted its skill in demoniacal inventions whereby severer pangs might be evoked, that through physical suffering the spirit might gain purification. Poor humanity might well exclaim, “Blessed be oblivion to this curse of Immortality!” Not to lead a happy and perfect life, but to avoid the pangs of hell, to escape the consequences of original sin, was the object to which all energies were directed. And there was obligation to propagate this belief until received by all the world. Out of this doctrine came centuries of persecution, such as the heathen world never dreamed of. If your relative or friend accepted what you regarded erroneous dogmas, which would send him to eternal torment would it not be plain duty for you to use every means to persuade and convince him, even if necessary, by force? For should you, in last extremity, destroy his body, what fleeting consequence, if you saved thereby his soul! The savage, having killed his enemy, trembles at the thought that the spirit has escaped, and may work untold mischief. He sits down at the cannibal feast, that, by eating the body, he may absorb the spirit, and thus be doubly avenged, by blotting out his foe, by making his body and spirit a part of himself.