MARK TWAIN

Every volunteer in the army offers his life to save his
country or his country's honor, and does it on the chance
that his death may land him in hell, not on the great
white throne, which was Christ's sure destination. For
men to throw their lives away for other people's sake is
one of the commonest events in our everyday history. It
is ludicrous to see the Church make something fine out
of the only instance of it where nothing was risked that
was of consequence, for nothing was involved but a few
hours of pain; and every girl takes a risk superior to that
when she marries and subjects herself to the probable
pains of childbirth, indefinitely repeated.

There seems to be nothing connected with the atone-
ment scheme that is rational. If Christ was God, He is in
the attitude of One whose anger against Adam has grown
so uncontrollable in the course of ages that nothing but a
sacrifice of life can appease it, and so without noticing
how illogical the act is going to be, God condemns Himself
to death—commits suicide on the cross, and in this in-
genious way wipes off that old score. It is said that the
ways of God are not like ours. Let us not contest this
point.

If Christ was God, then the crucifixion is without dig-
nity. It is merely ridiculous, for to endure several hours'
pain is nothing heroic in God, in any case.

A paragraph or two of this entry has been
omitted, being a repetition of what he has said
elsewhere.

There being 210 varieties of Christians in the world,
each with a name of its own (remark in a notice of the
dispute between Marcus Clarke and an ecclesiastic of the
Church of England—a Bishop) and each believing itself
to be the nearest right of all of them, the savage hates to
give up a certainty for an uncertainty. He has no doubts

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