On the whole Christianity I suppose is kinder than it was,

Helped to it, I fear, by the power of the civil arm.

Oh Christianity, Christianity,

That has grown kinder now, as in the political world

The colonial system grows kinder before it vanishes, are you vanishing?

Is it not time for you to vanish?

I do not think we shall be able to bear much longer the dishonesty

Of clinging for comfort to beliefs we do not believe in,

For comfort, and to be comfortably free of the fear

Of diminishing good, as if truth were a convenience.

I think if we do not learn quickly, and learn to teach children,

To be good without enchantment, without the help

Of beautiful painted fairy stories pretending to be true,

Then I think it will be too much for us, the dishonesty,

And, armed as we are now, we shall kill everybody,

It will be too much for us, we shall kill everybody.

Stevie Smith (1903-1971),  ‘How do you see?’ , 1975.