hated naughty children, why did He make them naughty? At a moderate
estimate quite half Joan's wickedness, so it seemed to Joan, came to her
unbidden. Take for example that self-examination before the cheval
glass. The idea had come into her mind. It had never occurred to her
that it was wicked. If, as Mrs. Munday explained, it was the Devil that
had whispered it to her, then what did God mean by allowing the Devil to
go about persuading little girls to do indecent things? God could do
everything. Why didn't He smash the Devil? It seemed to Joan a mean
trick, look at it how you would. Fancy leaving a little girl to fight
the Devil all by herself. And then get angry because the Devil won! Joan
came to cordially dislike Mrs. Munday's God.

Looking back it was easy enough to smile, but the agony of many nights
when she had lain awake for hours battling with her childish terrors had
left a burning sense of anger in Joan's heart. Poor mazed, bewildered
Mrs. Munday, preaching the eternal damnation of the wicked--who had loved
her, who had only thought to do her duty, the blame was not hers. But
that a religion capable of inflicting such suffering upon the innocent
should still be preached; maintained by the State! That its educated
followers no longer believed in a physical Hell, that its more advanced
clergy had entered into a conspiracy of silence on the subject was no
answer. The great mass of the people were not educated. Official
Christendom in every country still preached the everlasting torture of
the majority of the human race as a well thought out part of the
Creator's scheme. No leader had been bold enough to come forward and
denounce it as an insult to his God. As one grew older, kindly mother
Nature, ever seeking to ease the self-inflicted burdens of her foolish
brood, gave one forgetfulness, insensibility. The condemned criminal
puts the thought of the gallows away from him as long as may be: eats,
and sleeps and even jokes. Man's soul grows pachydermoid. But the