[BNP/E3, 13A – 40]

I saw the little children…

A hatred of institutions, of conventions kindled my soul with its fire. A hatred of priests and kings rose in me like a flooded stream. I had been a Christian, warm, fervent, sincere; my emotional, sensitive nature demanded food for its hunger, fuel for its fire. But when I looked upon these men and women, suffering and wicked, I saw how little they deserved the curse of a further hell. What greater hell than this life? What grater curse than living? “This free-will,” I cried to myself, “this also is a convention and a falsehood invented by men that they might punish and

[40^v]

slay and torture, with the hard “justice”, which is a nickname of crime. (Which is a hallowed crime). “Judge not”, the Bible has it – the Bible, “judge not that ye may not be judged!”

When I had been a Christ I had thought men responsible for the ill they did – I hated tyrants, I cursed kings and priests. When I had shaken off the immoral, the false influence of the philosophy of Christ, I hated tyranny, kinghood, priestdoom – evil in itself. Kings and priests is pitier because they were men {…}