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were the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone.

Verse 19: For their power is in their mouths and their tails; and their tails were like unto serpents, etc.

Chapter x, 4: Seven thunders utter voices. John takes the little book out of the angel’s hands, eats it up, and it is as sweet as honey but bitter in his belly.

We pass on through the extravagances of the succeeding chapter to xvi. Seven angels and seven plagues and seven vials of wrath. The first vial of wrath was poured upon earth; the second vial of wrath was poured upon the sea; the third vial of wrath was poured upon rivers and fountains of water; the fourth angel poured his vial upon the sun; the fifth angel poured his vial upon the seat of heat; the sixth angel poured his vial into the river Euphrates, and the waters were dried up, unclean spirits like frogs came out of the mouth of the dragon, etc. The seventh angel poured his vial into air—voices—thunder—lightning.

A more jumbled mass of hysterical nonsense was never concocted by the brain of man.

With this silly twaddle of an over-excited nervous system, he continues to give vent to absurd impulses and perverted impressions of a theoleptic nature.

In chapter xx he sees an angel from heaven having the keys of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. Verse 3: “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up,” etc., etc. Verse 9: “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.” Verse 10: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beasts and the false prophets are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever,” etc.

That this so-called revelation is not the product of a healthy brain is self-evident. That John was reveling in the realms of fantasie, while he was laboring under a theological nightmare, is so palpable, that he might almost be accused of being a monomaniac. And that this abominable concoction of absurdities should form the basis of a system of moral education, and be tolerated as a supernatural production, is an outrage on common sense. The whole construction is the fabric of a man bordering on a state of hallucination, where fancy, fact, and fiction are indiscriminately mixed and compounded with the theoleptical effervescence of an almost demented enthusiast.

There is not a particle of sense in the entire twenty-two chapters, except such as refer to earthly particulars. The combination is false in conception, and pernicious in its tendencies. He sees and hears things so glaringly ridiculous that it is really surprising that any sensible preacher can regard the writings in the light of seriousness. It is perhaps as unique an erratic compilation of material substances as was ever produced, based on ignorance, superstition, and a diseased mind. That man, St. John the Divine, had no more conception of the size of this earth or its configuration than he had of electricity, or a steam-engine. Of course I understand that theologians do not—or pretend not to—look upon the statements literally. They may interpret the contents of Revelation from a spiritual point of view, nothing will or can relieve it of its defects. Whatever he meant by his ravings, in those days, they do not contain a particle of practical sense. When he beheld the doors of heaven open and heard a sound of a trumpet, he was immediately in the spirit. Then his mind spliced together thrones of jasper, emerald, seats, elders, white raiment, crowns of gold, seven lamps, seven spirits, a sea of glass, and four beasts full of eyes, a lion, calf, man, eagle, six wings, four horses, death and hell, seven angels, seven vials of wrath, hail, fire, blood, thunder, lightning, brimstone, a bottomless pit, etc., etc. Thoughts were flying through his brain that embraced pretty much all he knew, that he had either heard, read about, or had had some personal experience of, bringing all the things, objects, substances, and phenomena to bear upon his imagination, forming ideas to illustrate his heaven or hell, his saints and sinners, his salvation and his perdition. The mind was in a state of delirious confusion. John’s mind had had a larger experience, his imagination was more amplified and expanded, than the mind and imagination of his predecessors Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah. The time and locality were not the same. The burden of John’s thoughts was of a quite different nature. The nervous phenomena of theological excitement and irritation was purely visionary, while those of the Old Testament were largely tainted with the politics of their time. The former writers were loaded down with the expected ruin of their nationality; were filled with patriotism; were hoping and wishing for some one to come and help them out of their dire distress. Their ideas and thoughts led them to flights of imagination within the limits of their knowledge. John was fully charged with the philosophy and teachings of his times, and he mustered all his knowledge to open the gulf between the two extremes of bliss and punishment, the saved and lost. Thus he invented the appearance of heaven, with all the material substances, to exhibit its fearful glory, and showed the interior of his bottomless pit with its darkness, fire and brimstone. All these things might have appeared very terrible to the ignorant fishermen he had to deal with. It may still leave a strongly unpleasant impression on a great many of our ignorant population. Very few sensible people take any stock in John’s incoherent, erratic flight of imagination. It may be regarded as a very curious composition of antiquity—senseless, useless, meaningless; admirable in its way, but nothing more than a production of an overwrought, unbalanced, over-stimulated, and over-exalted imagination.

We may distinctly perceive the progress that had been made in the evolution of the imagination, in the multiplication of ideas, in the amplification of thought, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to David, from David to Isaiah, from Isaiah to John.

The nervous system, the brain, had undergone some modifications among these people, but not of a nature that was likely to be a lasting benefit to humanity. On the contrary, these speculative ideas caused a great deal of friction of thought, bitter quarrels, hatred, crime, and bloodshed.

Neighboring nations, who had neither Jehova nor Christ, revealed to us the light of science that never produced a friction nor a quarrel—being based on eternal truth. From the very beginning of their conception to the present day this remains unchanged, unaltered and untouched, a monument of Truths, an inheritance for all future generations.

The God-Christ-Holy-Ghost idea has ever been a source of greed, selfishness, intolerance, bigotry, quarrel, hatred, licentiousness, cruelty, and crime. Bickering and quarreling are still going on. And the grasping hand of greed holds the ignorant bigot by the throat to squeeze the last cent out of him, to enrich and aggrandize the most pernicious organization humanity was ever plagued with. Heresy, blasphemy, is as fashionable to-day as it was in the rankest days of popery. Fortunately the civil law reigns supreme, otherwise these ecclesiastical monomaniacs would be at each other’s throats. At this stage of scientific civilization, we can afford to look on at the theological quarrels and antics as a result of a nervous craze that is perfectly harmless.

After all it is but the physiological effect of an educational training, the development of the faculties and the evolution of the imagination; the brain functions in proportion to the progress made in the culture in general, harmonizing with the times, circumstances, and conditions of the period in which we live.

Every age has its turn in the evolution of the mental faculties, and it must go through its stage. The visionary period, the result of a theological hallucination of an over-exalted imagination, can occur only under certain favorable conditions, viz., on the one hand a highly susceptible nervous temperament, a strongly biased educational training, and an enthusiastic excitability, and on the other, an ignorant, bigoted, poor, and helpless population.

SHADES OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.

FROM BARBARISM TO CIVILIZATION, MULTIPLICITY OF GODS TO NATURE, DARKNESS TO LIGHT.

Barbarism, savagery, ignorance, idolatry.
MANY GODS.
PHYSICAL GOD.
Very little light. Chaldaism.
Astronomy.
(Paganism 766,312,000 remaining).
Hebrewism, 6,000,000. Women degraded slaves.
Blocks in decreasing shades of gray representing darkness of era. Barbarians. 200 B.C.
A.D. 1893.
1921–450 B.C. Physiology, science, mathematics, mythology, women honored science breaking. Greece a nation. 1921–500–0 B.C. Ignorance, superstition. Uncivilization (to our notion).
Caste rule. Buddhism, 320,000,000.
Confucianism.
Brahmanism, 120,000,000.
Philosophy, 320,000,000 gods. 1100 B.C. ONE GOD.
Polygamy. Mohammedanism, 166,000,000. Tyrants. A.D. 600. FIVE GODS.
Father, Son, and Ghost, Virgin, saints, relics, etc. Idolatry, figure-painting, ignorance, intolerance, non-progression, superstition, bigotry. Roman Catholic Christianity, 200,000,000.
Greek Christianity, 80,000,000. Still degraded. A.D. 325.
A.D. 800. Dark Ages. A.D. 325 to 1517. THREE GODS.
Class Rule.
Progression, toleration, superstition, bigotry, civilization, selfishness, greed. Protestantism—Luther, Calvin—100,000,000.
Episcopalianism.
Presbyterianism.
Baptists.
Methodism. Wesley. Women subordinate. 200 to 300 sects. A.D. 1517.
A.D. 1693.
A.D. 1572.
A.D. 1730. ONE GOD.
Enlightened, advancing. Universalism.
Unitarianism.
Ethical Culture. A.D. 1691. DOUBTFUL GOD.
Latest theological metamorphosis. A.D. 1550.
A.D. 1870. NO GOD. Science, nature, fact, truth. Manhood, womanhood. Intellectual development.

In modern times, if a man should attempt to rave after the style of John, he would certainly be declared a fit candidate for an insane asylum.

What was possible on the Isle of Patmos by John would be an utter impossibility to-day. It is not because we have not religious fanatics enough, but education, reason, and science have advanced, so that such extravagant fire-works of the imagination would be declared evidence of an insane condition of the mind.

On the following page a diagram of various shading shows the growth of intelligence and enlightenment of the various religious denominations, indicating the beginning of actual progress with the Reformation, and how little there is left of the entire religious fabric that has been handed down these many centuries.

The darkness of ignorance is still hiding the truth. The church is doing its utmost to train the young in the pernicious doctrine of superstition and falsehood of antiquity. The clergy would stop our public school system, if they could drag humanity back into the mire of brutality.

The sooner the Bible, with its God, Jehova, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the prophets and the apostles, with all the angels, heaven, and hell, are placed under a glass case to be viewed and admired as a matter of antique curiosity the better.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PLANETARY GODS.

The Terrestrial God.

Why man should claim that the terrestrial God, the God that

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