the gloom. Many of the highest judgment and character now entertain
views which their fathers would have repudiated as rank heresy.

* * * * *

It is a most unfortunate thing that we have derived from our
bloodthirsty ancestors an impression of divine cruelty that is utterly
opposed to the fact. And it is not so very long ago that such traditions
were handed down to us. "What we forget," says the New York Evening
Post, "is the short distance of time and space that separates us from
our ferocious forefathers." Dr. Johnson in his 'Journey to the Western
Islands,' relates the tradition that the Macdonalds--honored name
to-day--surrounded the Culloden Church on Sunday, fastened the doors,
and burnt the congregation alive. The entertainment received its
perfecting touch when the Macdonald piper mocked the shrieks of the
perishing crowd with the notes of his bagpipes.

* * * * *

"Perhaps an even more striking illustration of the survival of savagery
may be found in men's religious beliefs--say, in the conception of a God
who is a cruel man endowed with omnipotence. Grave divines were telling
us within a generation that a just and merciful Father, for his good
pleasure, had doomed certain of the non-elect to the most hideous
physical tortures for all eternity. It was in 1879, about thirty years
ago, that Herbert Spencer in 'The Data of Ethics,' stated the theory
quite nakedly: The belief that the sight of suffering is pleasing to the
gods,' He added: 'Derived from bloodthirsty ancestors, such gods are
naturally conceived as gratified by the infliction of pain; when living
they delighted in torturing other beings; and witnessing torture is