and religious, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than
the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill
children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities
were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the
most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child
with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by
the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish
brutality.

One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world,
with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful
and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea.
This, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests
ever conceived, was the act not of a devil, but of God so-called, whom
men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would
leave upon the character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of
these gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in
the sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of
such savagery?

One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions
concerning human slavery: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant six years
shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If
he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married,
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a
wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her
children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if
the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my
children; I will not go out free; then his master shall bring him unto
the judges: he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the