Hell still is tempting men with wealth and power,
And finds of Judases a fearful host;
Free thought and speech it everywhere assails,
Religion's sure decay loudly bewails,
But while it reads the tokens of the hour,
It still persists in threat and empty boast.
It mumbles prayers in legislative halls,
And in our courts of justice utters oaths;
It clutches every thing within its reach,
And hangs tenacious as the sucking leech;
Where'er we go its mocking presence palls,
And every thinking mind its workings loathes.
Its ministers assume superior airs,
And claim to compensate all earthly loss;
They help to rob the unsuspecting mass,
And for their sorrows, with a cheek of brass,
They give them rich rewards of empty prayers,
And impudently point unto the cross!
As if an instrument of torture could
Be grateful to the sight of suffering man!
Or he should willingly be crucified
Because good men upon the cross have died!
But hell adopts this horrid thing of wood
And bears the bloody symbol in the van.
It is a cruel mockery of all
That Christ has taught to an unthinking world—
A gross perversion of the living light
With which he sought to open human sight;
'Tis Satan's beacon, leading to enthrall—
Banner of night, by Satan's hosts unfurled.
All progress made has been despite the power
That marshaled all its forces 'neath the cross;
The hosts of light, led on by Christ, have fought
And slowly won the field in spite of aught
The foe beneath the symbol of the hour
Could treacherously do to bring them loss.
And Christ will overwhelmingly, at last,
Defeat the hosts of darkness and of death;
For Truth and Justice surely will bear sway,
To usher in the bright millennial day,
And Satan's hosts from power on earth to cast
And fill each longing soul with vital breath.
But just so long as men will give support
And countenance unto the wily church,
They may expect the fiends of wrong and wrath
To scatter want and woe along their path,
For by such act they gross injustice court
And will that on its banner victory perch.
Let all men, then, ignore the church and strive
For Justice, Truth, and true Fraternal Love;
Let them resolve to be forever free,
And walk in reason's light, so all may see
They tread the straight and narrow path, alive
To good and peace, as symboled by the dove.
Thus may a bloodless victory be won,
And Satan's hosts cast out forevermore;
The cross of hell from earth will disappear
Before the symbol of a higher sphere;
Thus may the reign of reason be begun,
And earth become to Heaven an open door.