“And what lesson does this learned and cultured age draw from these facts?  Simply this:  that the plan of Nature necessarily involves cruelty, suffering, injustice, destruction, death.

“We are told by a school of philanthropists more numerous in the old time, fortunately, than they are at present, that men should not be happy while their fellow-men are miserable; that we must decrease our own pleasures to make others comfortable; and much more of the same sort.  But, my brethren, does Nature preach that gospel to the cat when it destroys the field-mouse?  No; she equips it with special aptitudes for the work of slaughter.

“If Nature, with her interminable fecundity, pours forth millions of human beings for whom there is no place on earth, and no means of subsistence, what affair is that of ours, my brethren?  We did not make them; we did not ask Nature to make them.  And it is Nature’s business to feed them, not yours or mine.  Are we better than Nature?  Are we wiser?  Shall we rebuke the Great Mother by caring for those whom she has abandoned?  If she intended that all men should be happy, why did she not make them so?  She is omnipotent.  She permits evil to exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away forever.  But it is part of her scheme of life.  She is indifferent to the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe.  With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol.  Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation is based on destruction; her lives live only by murder.  The cruel images of the pagan are truer delineations of Nature than the figures which typify the impotent charity of Christendom—­an exotic in the midst of an alien world.

“Let the abyss groan.  Why should we trouble ourselves.  Let us close our ears to the cries of distress we are not able to relieve.  It was said of old time, ‘Many are called, but few chosen.’  Our ancestors placed a mythical interpretation on this text; but we know that it means:—­many are called to the sorrows of life, but few are chosen to inherit the delights of wealth and happiness.  Buddha told us, ‘Poverty is the curse of Brahma’; Mahomet declared that ’God smote the wicked with misery’; and Christ said, ’The poor ye have always with you.’  Why, then, should we concern ourselves about the poor?  They are part of the everlasting economy of human society.  Let us leave them in the hands of Nature.  She who made them can care for them.

“Let us rejoice that out of the misery of the universe we are reserved for happiness.  For us are music, painting, sculpture, the interweaving glories of the dance, the splendors of poetry and oratory, the perfume of flowers, all delicate and dainty viands and sparkling wines and nectars; and above all Love!  Love!  Entrancing, enrapturing Love!  With its glowing cheeks—­its burning eyes—­its hot lips—­its wreathing arms—­its showering kisses—­its palpitating bosoms—­its intertwining symmetry of beauty and of loveliness.”