ignorance, superstition and misery. The energies of man were wasted in
a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to be superior
to nature. For countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the altar
of this impossible god. To please him, mothers have shed the blood of
their own babies; martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of
flames; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns have forsworn
the ecstasies of love; old men have tremblingly implored; women have
sobbed and entreated; every pain has been endured, and every horror has
been perpetrated.

Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more
than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak,
the loving and the innocent. Women have been treated like poisonous
beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been
vermin. Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of
babies; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races
of men doomed to centuries of slavery, everywhere there has been outrage
beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years the
suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed;
the pale victims have implored, and heaven has been deaf and blind.

Of what use have the gods been to man?

It is no answer to say that some god created the world, established
certain laws, and then turned his attention to other matters, leaving
his children, weak, ignorant and unaided, to fight the battle of life
alone. It is no solution to declare that in some other world this god
will render a few or even all of his subjects happy. What right have we
to expect that a perfectly wise, good and powerful being will ever do
better than he has done, and is doing? The world is filled with