A Dark Chapter in Mankind’s Story

He claimed that God had specially sent

Him into the world with the clear intent

To be His spokesman for all time to come

For all human beings, and not just some,

And that they who believed what he said

Would go to Paradise when they were dead,

While those who rejected what he’d tell

Would be tortured by God forever in Hell.

No evidence at all for his claims he had,

His own people declared he’d gone mad

For all the preposterous things that he said,

Thinking him to be demon-possessed instead.

In his mad frenzy he went on to declare

(For truth, it seems, he just didn’t care)

That all that he spoke, every single word,

Was from a great angel what he’d heard,

And that the angel was sent by God to say

To him things He that went on to convey,

Claiming that it whispered this into his ear,

(But in such a way none else could hear!)

And that nothing he said was of his own,

But that it was fully God’s word alone,

And that all he did was to faithfully repeat

What the angel revealed when they’d meet.

Not many folks believed this fanciful tale,

And it seems his scheme was about to fail,

But then he devised a plot really most vile,

By which vast hordes he managed to beguile.

(There’s no need for me here to repeat

How he succeeded in this most foul feat,

Many an ancient and authentic account

This grave tragedy in much detail recount).

This vile charlatan from the distant past

Left the world completely aghast

By the evil he and his many minions did,

Which turned to be a story most horrid,

Filled with hate, woe and war most gory,

A dark, grim chapter in mankind’s story.