Max Havelaar
163
obey a false prophet, there are even those among them who worship another God, or rather other gods; yes, gods of wood and stone, which they themselves have made in their own image—black, abominable, with flat noses, and devilish. Yes, beloved! tears almost arrest me; for deeper still is the depravity of the race of Ham. There are amongst them, that know no God under any name whatever; who think it sufficient to obey the laws of society; who consider a harvest-song, wherein they express their joy on the success of their labour, as a sufficient thanksgiving to the Supreme Being who made the harvest ripen.
“There are ignorant men, my beloved, who think that it is sufficient to love wife and child, and not to take from their fellow-beings what does not belong to them, and that they may then calmly lay down their heads and sleep! Do you not shiver with horror at this picture? does not your heart shrink when you think of what will be the fate of all those fools as soon as the trumpet shall sound which will summon the dead and separate the faithful from the unfaithful? Do you not hear? Yes, you do hear; for from the text you have perceived that your God is a mighty God, and a God who will inflict vengeance—yes, you hear the breaking bones, and the crackling of the flames in the eternal Gehenna, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth: there, there they burn and perish not, for the punish-