430 THE CHRISTIAN GOD. 



and troubled life with torture which will have no end. It 

 is not even a Man which theologians create; for no man 

 is quite without pity ; no man, however cruel he might 

 be, could bear to gaze for ever on the horrors of the 

 fire and the rack; no man could listen for ever to 

 voices shrieking with pain, and ever crying out for mercy 

 and forgiveness. And if such is the character of the 

 Christian God, if such is the idea which is worshipped 

 by compassionate and cultivated men, what are we to 

 expect in a barbarous age ? The God of Job was a 

 sultan of the skies, who, for a kind of wager, allowed 

 a faithful servant to be tortured, like that man who 

 performed vivisection on a favourite dog which licked 

 his hand throughout the operation. The Jehovah 

 of the Pentateuch was a murderer and bandit ; he 

 rejoiced in offerings of human flesh. The gods of 

 Homer were lascivious and depraved. The gods of 

 savages are merely savage chiefs. God, therefore, is 

 an image of the mind, and that image is ennobled and 

 purified from generation to generation, as the mind 

 becomes more noble and more pure. Europeans 

 believe in eternal punishment, partly because it has 

 been taught them in their childhood and because they 

 have never considered what it means ; partly because, 

 their imaginations are sluggish, and they are unable to 

 realise its cruelty ; and partly also, it must be feared, 

 because they have still the spirit of revenge and per- 

 secution in their hearts. The author of Job created 

 God in the image of an oriental king, and in the east 

 it is believed that all men by nature belong to the 

 king, and that he can do no wrong. The Bedouins of 

 the desert abhorred incontinence as a deadly sin ; but 

 brigandage and murder were not by them considered 



