4. Again: as the result of the study of mental philosophy, anger is now known to be a species of insanity. It deranges, more or less, all the faculties of the mind, and often disqualifies the possessor for doing any thing right, or acting rationally, while under its influence. It often causes him to act without reason or judgment, and is liable to drive him to the commission of crime. As well think of entering the cage of a tiger as to take up our abode in a heaven ruled by such a God,--a heaven controlled by a God bereft of reason by the ungovernable action of his own passions. We could not be happy in such a heaven: we should be constantly under the influence of fear and apprehension, lest he should become enraged, and his vengeance fall upon us. Where there is fear there is no heaven or happiness. If, as the Bible tells us, he is liable to repent, he might experience this mental perturbation at any time, and repent for having admitted us into the heavenly kingdom, and consequently expel us. Under such circumstances our motives would be very much weakened for laboring to reach such a heaven, not knowing that we should be permitted to remain there a single hour. How supremely ridiculous, when logically analyzed, is the conception of an angry God! It is entirely behind the age, and adapted only to the lowest stages of barbarism; and yet thousands of Christian clergymen preach this demoralizing doctrine from the pulpit every sabbath day. It is demoralizing, because no person can believe in an angry, sin-punishing God, without cherishing such feelings in his own bosom. It is impossible for him to avoid it. Indeed, he has no motives for trying to avoid it; but, on the contrary, he possesses the strongest motives for cultivating such feelings. For Archbishop Whately says, "Religious people always try to be like the God they worship." They consider it not only their privilege, but their duty, to imitate him. Hence, if they believe he gets mad occasionally, and pours out his vengeance upon his offending children (his disobedient subjects), they will naturally feel like following his example, and be cruel and revengeful to those who excite their anger. This preaching the doctrine of an angry God has a tendency to foster vengeful and vindictive feelings amongst the people; when, if the clergy would preach only a God of infinite love, infinite goodness, infinite perfection in all his attributes, we should soon see a marked change in society. Kindness, love, and good-will would be manifested between man and man; and cruel, vengeful, and vindictive feelings would gradually die out, and be numbered amongst the things which have been and are not. Then would the kingdom of peace be established on earth, and the millennium be ushered in. But we can not expect the priests to be better than their God, nor the people to be better than their priests. "Like God like priest, and like priest like people." The priest