All Roads Lead to Calvary | Page 5

Munday's wonder.
"I'se tooked them off," explained Joan. A piece of information that
really, all things considered, seemed unnecessary.
"But can't you see yourself, you wicked child, without stripping
yourself as naked as you were born?"
"No," maintained Joan stoutly. "I hate clothes." As a matter of fact she

didn't, even in those early days. On the contrary, one of her favourite
amusements was "dressing up." This sudden overmastering desire to
arrive at the truth about herself had been a new conceit.
"I wanted to see myself. Clothes ain't me," was all she would or could
vouchsafe; and Mrs. Munday had shook her head, and had freely
confessed that there were things beyond her and that Joan was one of
them; and had succeeded, partly by force, partly by persuasion, in
restoring to Joan once more the semblance of a Christian child.
It was Mrs. Munday, poor soul, who all unconsciously had planted the
seeds of disbelief in Joan's mind. Mrs. Munday's God, from Joan's
point of view, was a most objectionable personage. He talked a lot--or
rather Mrs. Munday talked for Him--about His love for little children.
But it seemed He only loved them when they were good. Joan was
under no delusions about herself. If those were His terms, well, then, so
far as she could see, He wasn't going to be of much use to her. Besides,
if He hated naughty children, why did He make them naughty? At a
moderate estimate quite half Joan's wickedness, so it seemed to Joan,
came to her unbidden. Take for example that self-examination before
the cheval glass. The idea had come into her mind. It had never
occurred to her that it was wicked. If, as Mrs. Munday explained, it was
the Devil that had whispered it to her, then what did God mean by
allowing the Devil to go about persuading little girls to do indecent
things? God could do everything. Why didn't He smash the Devil? It
seemed to Joan a mean trick, look at it how you would. Fancy leaving a
little girl to fight the Devil all by herself. And then get angry because
the Devil won! Joan came to cordially dislike Mrs. Munday's God.
Looking back it was easy enough to smile, but the agony of many
nights when she had lain awake for hours battling with her childish
terrors had left a burning sense of anger in Joan's heart. Poor mazed,
bewildered Mrs. Munday, preaching the eternal damnation of the
wicked--who had loved her, who had only thought to do her duty, the
blame was not hers. But that a religion capable of inflicting such
suffering upon the innocent should still be preached; maintained by the
State! That its educated followers no longer believed in a physical Hell,

that its more advanced clergy had entered into a conspiracy of silence
on the subject was no answer. The great mass of the people were not
educated. Official Christendom in every country still preached the
everlasting torture of the majority of the human race as a well thought
out part of the Creator's scheme. No leader had been bold enough to
come forward and denounce it as an insult to his God. As one grew
older, kindly mother Nature, ever seeking to ease the self-inflicted
burdens of her foolish brood, gave one forgetfulness, insensibility. The
condemned criminal puts the thought of the gallows away from him as
long as may be: eats, and sleeps and even jokes. Man's soul grows
pachydermoid. But the children! Their sensitive brains exposed to
every cruel breath. No philosophic doubt permitted to them. No learned
disputation on the relationship between the literal and the allegorical
for the easing of their frenzied fears. How many million tiny
white-faced figures scattered over Christian Europe and America,
stared out each night into a vision of black horror; how many million
tiny hands clutched wildly at the bedclothes. The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, if they had done their duty, would
have prosecuted before now the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Of course she would go to Hell. As a special kindness some generous
relative had, on Joan's seventh birthday, given her an edition of Dante's
"Inferno," with illustrations by Dore. From it she was able to form
some notion of what her eternity was likely to be. And God all the
while up in His Heaven, surrounded by that glorious band of
praise-trumpeting angels, watching her out of the corner of His eye.
Her courage saved her from despair. Defiance came to her aid. Let Him
send her to Hell! She was not going to pray to Him and make up to
Him. He was a wicked God. Yes, He was: a cruel, wicked God. And
one night she told Him so to His face.