"Suppose but two were left in hell--Judas Iscariot and Herbert
Spencer--the first great sinner after Jesus and the last of any
consequence. One betrayed his master and the other did likewise, only
with far greater subtlety and wickedness--teaching thousands to
disbelieve his claims to godhood--to regard Christianity as a crude
compound of Greek mythology and Jewish tradition--a thing built of myth
and fable. Even if these two were damned and all the rest were
saved--can you not see that a knowledge of their suffering would
embitter heaven itself to another hell? Father Riley was good enough to
tell us last week of the state of unbaptised infants after death. Will
you please consider coldly the infinite, good God setting a difference
for all eternity between two babies, because over the hairless pate of
one a priest had sprinkled water and spoken words? Can you not see that
this is untrue because it is absurd to our God-given senses of humour
and justice? Do you not see that such a God, in the act of separating
those children, taking into heaven the one that had had its little head
wetted by a good man, and sending the reprobate into what Father Riley
terms, 'in a wide sense, a state of damnation'--"

Father Riley smiled upon him with winning sweetness.

"--do you not see that such a God would be shamed off his throne and
out of heaven by the pitying laugh that would go up--even from sinners?

"You insist that the truth touching faith and morals is in your Bible,
despite its historical inaccuracies. But do you not see that you are
losing influence with the world because this is not so--because a higher
standard of ethics than yours prevails out in the world--a demand for a
veritable fatherhood of God and a veritable brotherhood of man--to