"Were you ever baptized?" and the man should reply:
"I am sorry to say I never was."
Could a solitary person of sense hear that question asked, by the Supreme Being, without laughing, even if he knew that his own case was to be called next?
I happened to be in the company of six or seven Baptist elders—how I ever got into such bad company, I don't know,—and one of them asked what I thought about baptism. Well, I never thought much about it; did not know much about it; didn't want to say anything, but they insisted upon it. I said, "Well, I'll give you my opinion—with soap, baptism is a good thing."
The Reverend Mr. Guard has answered me, as I am informed, upon several occasions. I have read the reports of his remarks, and have boiled them down. He said some things about me not entirely pleasant, which I do not wish to repeat. In his reply he takes the ground:
First. That the Bible is not an immoral book, because he swore upon it or by it when he joined the Masons.
Second. He excuses Solomon for all his crimes upon the supposition that he had softening of the brain, or a fatty degeneration of the heart.
Third. That the Hebrews had the right to slay all the inhabitants of Canaan, according to the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." He takes the ground that the destruction of these Canaanites, the ripping open of women with child by the sword of war, was an act of sublime mercy. He justifies a war of extermination; he applauds every act of cruelty and murder. He says that the Canaanites ought to have been turned from their homes; that men guilty of no crime except fighting for their country, old men with gray hairs, old mothers and little, dimpled, prattling children, ought to have been sacrificed upon the altar of war; that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious persecution into the bodies of all, old and young. This is what the reverend gentleman is pleased to call mercy. If this is mercy let us have injustice. If there is in the heavens such a God I am sorry that man exists. All this, however, is justified upon the ground that God has the right to do as he pleases with the being he has created. This I deny. Such a doctrine is infamously false. Suppose I could take a stone and in one moment change it into a sentient, hoping, loving human being, would I have the right to torture it? Would I have the right to give it pain? No one but a fiend would either exercise or justify such a right. Even if there is a God who created us all he has no such right. Above any God that can exist, in the infinite serenity forever sits the figure of justice; and this God, no matter how great and infinite he may be, is bound to do justice.
Fourth. That God chose the Jews and governed them personally for thousands of years, and drove out the Canaanites in order that his peculiar people might not be corrupted by the example of idolaters; that he wished to make of the Hebrews a great nation, and that, consequently, he was justified in destroying the original inhabitants of that country. It seems to me that the end hardly justified the means. According to the account, God governed the Jews personally for many ages and succeeded in civilizing them to that degree, that they crucified him the first opportunity they had. Such an administration can hardly be called a success.
Fifth. The reverend gentleman seems to think that the practice of polygamy after all is not a bad thing when compared with the crime of exhibiting a picture of Antony and Cleopatra. Upon the corrupting influence of such pictures he descants at great length, and attacks with all the bitterness of the narrow theologian the masterpieces of art. Allow me to say one word about art. That is one of the most beautiful words in our language—Art. And it never seemed to me necessary for art to go in partnership with a rag. I like the paintings of Angelo, of Raffaelle. I like the productions of those splendid souls that put their ideas of beauty upon the canvas uncovered.