unbelieving Jew. It is nothing to me now,--now, when without hope, or faith or love, I am about to take the final plunge into eternal darkness and silence,--but for the sake of those who _have_ the comfort of a religion I ask, why, in a so-called Christian country, is such a hideous blasphemy as 'Before a Crucifix' allowed to circulate among the people without so much as one reproof from those who elect themselves judges of literature? I have seen many noble writers condemned unheard,--many have been accused of blasphemy, whose works tend quite the other way,--but these lines are permitted to work their cruel mischief unchecked, and the writer of them is glorified as though he were a benefactor to mankind. I quote them here, from bitter memory, that I may not be deemed as exaggerating their nature-- "So when our souls look back to thee, They sicken, seeing against thy side, _Too foul to speak of or to see_, The leprous likeness of a bride, Whose kissing lips through his lips grown _Leave their God rotten to the bone_. When we would see thee man, and know What heart thou had'st towards man indeed, Lo, thy blood-blackened altars; lo, The lips of priests that pray and feed, _While their own hell's worm curls and licks The poison of the crucifix_. Thou bad'st the children come to thee,-- _What children now but curses come_, What manhood in that God can be Who sees their worship and is dumb?-- No soul that lived, loved, wrought, and died _Is this, their Carrion Crucified!_ Nay, if their God and thou be one If thou and _this thing_ be the same, Thou should'st not look upon the sun, _The sun grows haggard at thy name!_ Come down, be done with, cease, give o'er, Hide thyself, strive not, _be no more!_"