“It does seem to leave you in the shade,” said I. “Expressions such as ‘black as sin’ ought to be deleted from the language. One might as well say ‘white as sin.’” I ransacked my brain rapidly. “We say ‘pale as envy,’” said I. “‘Black spite,’” he retorted. “Why should it be black?” I could not say. “Then Adam and Eve in the Garden,” he went on, “are always shown as beautifully white creatures, whereas, considering the climate, they may well have been as dark-skinned as any Negro couple in Alabama. Babylon was built by Negroes.” “Would you have Adam and Eve painted black?” “Why, yes, I would.” This struck me as rather diverting, but it was quite serious. Later, in New York one night at Liberty Hall, before I was driven out as a white interloper, I heard an orator say to an admiring host of Negroes: “Why, I ask you, is God always shown as white? It is because He is the white man’s God. It is the God of our masters. (Yes, brothers, that’s it.) It’s the God of those who persecute and despise the colored people. Brothers, we’ve got to knock that white God down and put up a black God. We’ve got to rewrite the Old Testament and the New from a black man’s point of view. Our theologians must get busy on a black God.” This was what we Whites call clap trap, and irreverent as well. But it seemed to take well with the Harlem brothers. Once more a lesson may be derived for older children—— If you make God in your own image, it does not follow that other children will agree that it is like—— It reminded me of the enthusiasm of the soldiers when they got home from the war and took a good look at their own womenkind; they thought them so much more good looking than French or German girls. Girls and dolls, angels and Gods, we like them to correspond to our own complexion.