in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved,
when they reach shore, are to look back with joy
upon the great ship going down to the eternal depths!
This is what I call the unutterable meanness of or-
thodox Christianity.

Mr. Talmage speaks of the "meanness of in-
"fidelity."

The meanness of orthodox Christianity permits the
husband to be saved, and to be ineffably happy, while
the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell.

The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the
boy that he can go to heaven and have an eternity
of bliss, and that this bliss will not even be clouded
by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes in
eternal pain.

The meanness of orthodox Christianity allows
a soul to be so captivated with the companionship
of angels as to forget all the old loves and friend-
ships of this world.

170

The meanness of orthodox Christianity, its un-
speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult
in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time
to care nothing for the damnation of all the rest.

The orthodox Christian says that if he can only
save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into
heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's gate,
if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite
bank of Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it
matters not to him what becomes of brother or
sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is willing
that they should burn if he can sing.

Oh, the unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris-
tianity, the infinite heartlessness of the orthodox
angels, who with tearless eyes will forever gaze upon
the agonies of those who were once blood of their
blood and flesh of their flesh!

Mr. Talmage describes a picture of the scourging
of Christ, painted by Rubens, and he tells us that
he was so appalled by this picture—by the sight of
the naked back, swollen and bleeding—that he could
not have lived had he continued to look; yet this
same man, who could not bear to gaze upon a
painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven,
while countiess billions of actual—not painted—men,

171

women, and children writhe—not in a pictured flame,
but in the real and quenchless fires of hell.

Question. Mr. Talmage also claims that we are
indebted to Christianity for schools, colleges, univer-
sities, hospitals and asylums?

Answer. This shows that Mr. Talmage has not
read the history of the world. Long before Chris-
tianity had a place, there were vast libraries. There
were thousands of schools before a Christian existed
on the earth. There were hundreds of hospitals
before a line of the New Testament was written.
Hundreds of years before Christ, there were hospitals
in India,—not only for men, women and children, but
even for beasts. There were hospitals in Egypt long
before Moses was born. They knew enough then
to cure insanity with music. They surrounded the
insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness.

The great libraries at Alexandria were not Chris-
tian. The most intellectual nation of the Middle
Ages was not Christian. While Christians were
imprisoning people for saying that the earth is round,
the Moors in Spain were teaching geography with
globes. They had even calculated the circumference
of the earth by the tides of the Red Sea.

Where did education come from? For a thousand

172

years Christianity destroyed books and paintings and
statues. For a thousand years Christianity was filled
with hatred toward every effort of the human mind.
We got paper from the Moors. Printing had been
known thousands of years before, in China. A few
manuscripts, containing a portion of the literature of
Greece, a few enriched with the best thoughts of
the Roman world, had been preserved from the
general wreck and ruin wrought by Christian hate.
These became the seeds of intellectual progress.
For a thousand years Christianity controlled Europe.
The Mohammedans were far in advance of the
Christians with hospitals and asylums and institutions
of learning.

Just in proportion that we have done away with
what is known as orthodox Christianity, humanity
has taken its place. Humanity has built all the asy-
lums, all the hospitals. Humanity, not Christianity,
has done these things. The people of this country
are all willing to be taxed that the insane may be
cared for, that the sick, the helpless, and the desti-
tute may be provided for, not because they are
Christians, but because they are humane; and they
are not humane because they are Christians.

The colleges of this country have been poisoned by

173

theology, and their usefulness almost destroyed. Just
in proportion that they have gotten from ecclesiastical
control, they have become a good. That college, to-
day, which has the most religion has the least true
learning; and that college which is the nearest free,
does the most good. Colleges that pit Moses against
modern geology, that undertake to overthrow the
Copernican system by appealing to Joshua, have
done, and are doing, very little good in this world.

Suppose that in the first century Pagans had said
to Christians: Where are your hospitals, where are
your asylums, where are your works of charity, where
are your colleges and universities?

The Christians undoubtedly would have replied:
We have not been in power. There are but few
of us. We have been persecuted to that degree
that it has been about as much as we could do to
maintain ourselves.

Reasonable Pagans would have regarded such an
answer as perfectly satisfactory. Yet that question
could have been asked of Christianity after it had
held the reins of power for a thousand years, and
Christians would have been compelled to say: We
have no universities, we have no colleges, we have
no real asylums.

174

The Christian now asks of the atheist: Where
is your asylum, where is your hospital, where is your
university? And the atheist answers: There have
been but few atheists. The world is not yet suffi-
ciently advanced to produce them. For hundreds
and hundreds of years, the minds of men have been
darkened by the superstitions of Christianity. Priests
have thundered against human knowledge, have de-
nounced human reason, and have done all within
their power to prevent the real progress of mankind.

You must also remember that Christianity has
made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums
for. Christianity has driven more men and women
crazy than all other religions combined. Hundreds
and thousands and millions have lost their reason in
contemplating the monstrous falsehoods of Chris-
tianity. Thousands of mothers, thinking of their
sons in hell—thousands of fathers, believing their
boys and girls in perdition, have lost their reason.

So, let it be distinctly understood, that Christianity
has made ten lunatics—twenty—one hundred—
where it has provided an asylum for one.

Mr. Talmage also speaks of the hospitals. When
we take into consideration the wars that have been
waged on account of religion, the countless thou-

175

sands who have been maimed and wounded, through
all the years, by wars produced by theology—then I
say that Christianity has not built hospitals enough
to take care of her own wounded—not enough to
take care of one in a hundred. Where Christianity
has bound up the wounds of one, it has pierced the
bodies of a hundred others with sword and spear,
with bayonet and ball. Where she has provided
one bed in a hospital, she has laid away a hundred
bodies in bloody graves.

Of course I do not expect the church to do
anything but beg. Churches produce nothing. They
are like the lilies of the field. "They toil not, neither
"do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not
"arrayed like most of them."

The churches raise no corn nor wheat. They
simply collect tithes. They carry the alms' dish.
They pass the plate. They take toll. Of course
a mendicant is not expected to produce anything.
He does not support,—he is supported. The church
does not help. She receives, she devours, she
consumes, and she produces only discord. She ex-
changes mistakes for provisions, faith for food,
prayers for pence. The church is a beggar. But we
have this consolation: In this age of the world, this

176

beggar is not on horseback, and even the walking is
not good.

Question. Mr. Talmage says that infidels have
done no good?

Answer. Well, let us see. In the first place,
what is an "infidel"? He is simply a man in advance
of his time. He is an intellectual pioneer. He is
the dawn of a new day. He is a gentleman with an
idea of his own, for which he gave no receipt to the
church. He is a man who has not been branded as
the property of some one else. An "infidel" is one
who has made a declaration of independence. In
other words, he is a man who has had a doubt. To
have a doubt means that you have thought upon
the subject—that you have investigated the question;
and he who investigates any religion will doubt.

All the advance that has been made in the religious
world has been made by "infidels," by "heretics,"
by "skeptics," by doubters,—that is to say, by
thoughtful men. The doubt does not come from the
ignorant members of your congregations. Heresy is
not born of stupidity,—it is not the child of the brain-
less. He who is so afraid of hurting the reputation
of his father and mother that he refuses to advance,

177

is not a "heretic." The "heretic" is not true to
falsehood. Orthodoxy is. He who stands faithfully
by a mistake is "orthodox." He who, discovering
that it is a mistake, has the courage to say so, is an
"infidel."

An infidel is an intellectual discoverer—one who
finds new isles, new continents, in the vast realm of
thought. The dwellers on the orthodox shore de-
nounce this brave sailor of the seas as a buccaneer.

And yet we are told that the thinkers of new
thoughts have never been of value to the world.
Voltaire did more for human liberty than all the
orthodox ministers living and dead. He broke a
thousand times more chains than Luther. Luther
simply substituted his chain for that of the Catholics.
Voltaire had none. The Encyclopaedists of France
did more for liberty than all the writers upon theology.
Bruno did more for mankind than millions of "be-
"lievers." Spinoza contributed more to the growth
of the human intellect than all the orthodox theolo-
gians.

Men have not done good simply because they have
believed this or that doctrine. They have done good
in the intellectual world as they have thought and
secured for others the liberty to think and to ex-

178

press their thoughts. They have done good in the
physical world by teaching their fellows how to
triumph over the obstructions of nature. Every
man who has taught his fellow-man to think, has
been a benefactor. Every one who has supplied his
fellow-men with facts, and insisted upon their right
to think, has been a blessing to his kind.

Mr. Talmage, in order to show what Christians
have done, points us to Whitefield, Luther, Oberlin,
Judson, Martyn, Bishop Mcllvaine and Hannah
More. I would not for one moment compare George
Whitefield with the inventor of movable type, and
there is no parallel between Frederick Oberlin and
the inventor of paper; not the slightest between
Martin Luther and the discoverer of the New World;
not the least between Adoniram Judson and the in-
ventor of the reaper, nor between Henry Martyn
and the discoverer of photography. Of what use to
the world was Bishop Mcllvaine, compared with
the inventor of needles? Of what use were a
hundred such priests compared with the inventor
of matches, or even of clothes-pins? Suppose that
Hannah More had never lived? about the same
number would read her writings now. It is hardly fair
to compare her with the inventor of the steamship?

179

The progress of the world—its present improved
condition—can be accounted for only by the discov-
eries of genius, only by men who have had the
courage to express their honest thoughts.

After all, the man who invented the telescope
found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of
prayer had ever discovered. I feel absolutely certain
that the inventor of the steam engine was a greater
benefactor to mankind than the writer of the Presby-
terian creed. I may be mistaken, but I think that
railways have done more to civilize mankind, than any
system of theology. I believe that the printing press
has done more for the world than the pulpit. It is
my opinion that the discoveries of Kepler did a
thousand times more to enlarge the minds of men
than the prophecies of Daniel. I feel under far
greater obligation to Humboldt than to Haggai.
The inventor of the plow did more good than the
maker of the first rosary—because, say what you
will, plowing is better than praying; we can live by
plowing without praying, but we can not live by
praying without plowing. So I put my faith in the
plow.

As Jehovah has ceased to make garments for his
children,—as he has stopped making coats of skins,

180

I have great respect for the inventors of the spinning-
jenny and the sewing machine. As no more laws
are given from Sinai, I have admiration for the real
statesmen. As miracles have ceased, I rely on
medicine, and on a reasonable compliance with the
conditions of health.

I have infinite respect for the inventors, the
thinkers, the discoverers, and above all, for the un-
known millions who have, without the hope of fame,
lived and labored for the ones they loved.





FIFTH INTERVIEW.

Parson. You had belter join the church; it is
the safer way.

Sinner. I can't live up to your doctrines, and you
know it.

Parson. Well, you can come as near it in the
church as out; and forgiveness

will be easier if you join us.

Sinner. What do you mean by that?

Parson. I will tell you. If you join the church,
and happen to back-slide now and then, Christ will
say to his Father: "That man is a "friend of mine,
and you may charge his account to me."

Question. What have you to say about the
fifth sermon of the Rev. Mr. Talmage in reply
to you?

Answer. The text from which he preached is:
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"
I am compelled to answer these questions in the
negative. That is one reason why I am an infidel.
I do not believe that anybody can gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles. That is exactly my doctrine.
But the doctrine of the church is, that you can. The

184

church says, that just at the last, no matter if you
have spent your whole life in raising thorns and thistles,
in planting and watering and hoeing and plowing
thorns and thistles—that just at the last, if you will
repent, between hoeing the last thistle and taking the
last breath, you can reach out the white and palsied
hand of death and gather from every thorn a cluster
of grapes and from every thistle an abundance of
figs. The church insists that in this way you can
gather enough grapes and figs to last you through all
eternity.

My doctrine is, that he who raises thorns must
harvest thorns. If you sow thorns, you must reap
thorns; and there is no way by which an innocent
being can have the thorns you raise thrust into his
brow, while you gather his grapes.

But Christianity goes even further than this. It
insists that a man can plant grapes and gather thorns.
Mr. Talmage insists that, no matter how good you
are, no matter how kind, no matter how much you
love your wife and children, no matter how many
self-denying acts you do, you will not be allowed to
eat of the grapes you raise; that God will step be-
tween you and the natural consequences of your
goodness, and not allow you to reap what you sow.

185

Mr. Talmage insists, that if you have no faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, although you have been good
here, you will reap eternal pain as your harvest; that
the effect of honesty and kindness will not be peace
and joy, but agony and pain. So that the church
does insist not only that you can gather grapes from
thorns, but thorns from grapes.

I believe exactly the other way. If a man is a
good man here, dying will not change him, and he
will land on the shore of another world—if there is
one—the same good man that he was when he left
this; and I do not believe there is any God in this
universe who can afford to damn a good man. This
God will say to this man: You loved your wife,
your children, and your friends, and I love you.
You treated others with kindness; I will treat you
in the same way. But Mr. Talmage steps up to
his God, nudges his elbow, and says: Although he
was a very good man, he belonged to no church;
he was a blasphemer; he denied the whale story, and
after I explained that Jonah was only in the whale's
mouth, he still denied it; and thereupon Mr. Tal-
mage expects that his infinite God will fly in a
passion, and in a perfect rage will say: What! did
he deny that story? Let him be eternally damned!

186

Not only this, but Mr. Talmage insists that a man
may have treated his wife like a wild beast; may have
trampled his child beneath the feet of his rage; may
have lived a life of dishonesty, of infamy, and yet,
having repented on his dying bed, having made his
peace with God through the intercession of his Son,
he will be welcomed in heaven with shouts of joy.
I deny it. I do not believe that angels can be so
quickly made from rascals. I have but little confi-
dence in repentance without restitution, and a hus-
band who has driven a wife to insanity and death by
his cruelty—afterward repenting and finding himself
in heaven, and missing his wife,—were he worthy to
be an angel, would wander through all the gulfs of
hell until he clasped her once again..

Now, the next question is, What must be done with
those who are sometimes good and sometimes bad?
That is my condition. If there is another world, I
expect to have the same opportunity of behaving
myself that I have here. If, when I get there, I fail
to act as I should, I expect to reap what I sow. If,
when I arrive at the New Jerusalem, I go into the
thorn business, I expect to harvest what I plant. If
I am wise enough to start a vineyard, I expect to
have grapes in the early fall. But if I do there as I

187

have done here—plant some grapes and some thorns,
and harvest them together—I expect to fare very
much as I have fared here. But I expect year by
year to grow wiser, to plant fewer thorns every
spring, and more grapes.

Question. Mr. Talmage charges that you have
taken the ground that the Bible is a cruel book, and
has produced cruel people?

Answer. Yes, I have taken that ground, and I
maintain it. The Bible was produced by cruel people,
and in its turn it has produced people like its authors.
The extermination of the Canaanites was cruel.
Most of the laws of Moses were bloodthirsty and
cruel. Hundreds of offences were punishable by
death, while now, in civilized countries, there are only
two crimes for which the punishment is capital. I
charge that Moses and Joshua and David and Samuel
and Solomon were cruel. I believe that to read and
believe the Old Testament naturally makes a man
careless of human life. That book has produced
hundreds of religious wars, and it has furnished the
battle-cries of bigotry for fifteen hundred years.

The Old Testament is filled with cruelty, but its
cruelty stops with this world, its malice ends with

188

death; whenever its victim has reached the grave,
revenge is satisfied. Not so with the New Testament.
It pursues its victim forever. After death, comes
hell; after the grave, the worm that never dies. So
that, as a matter of fact, the New Testament is in-
finitely more cruel than the Old.

Nothing has so tended to harden the human heart
as the doctrine of eternal punishment, and that
passage: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
"saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,"
has shed more blood than all the other so-called
"sacred books" of all this world.

I insist that the Bible is cruel. The Bible invented
instruments of torture. The Bible laid the foundations
of the Inquisition. The Bible furnished the fagots and
the martyrs. The Bible forged chains not only for the
hands, but for the brains of men. The Bible was at
the bottom of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Every man who has been persecuted for religion's
sake has been persecuted by the Bible. That sacred
book has been a beast of prey.

The truth is, Christians have been good in spite of
the Bible. The Bible has lived upon the reputations of
good men and good women,—men and women who
were good notwithstanding the brutality they found


189

upon the inspired page. Men have said: "My mother
"believed in the Bible; my mother was good; there-
"fore, the Bible is good," when probably the mother
never read a chapter in it.

The Bible produced the Church of Rome, and
Torquemada was a product of the Bible. Philip of
Spain and the Duke of Alva were produced by the
Bible. For thirty years Europe was one vast battle-
field, and the war was produced by the Bible. The re-
vocation of the Edict of Nantes was produced by the
sacred Scriptures. The instruments of torture—the
pincers, the thumb-screws, the racks, were produced
by the word of God. The Quakers of New England
were whipped and burned by the Bible—their children
were stolen by the Bible. The slave-ship had for its
sails the leaves of the Bible. Slavery was upheld in
the United States by the Bible. The Bible was the
auction-block. More than this, worse than this,
infinitely beyond the computation of imagination, the
despotisms of the old world all rested and still rest
upon the Bible. "The powers that be" were sup-
posed to have been "ordained of God;" and he who
rose against his king periled his soul.

In this connection, and in order to show the state
of society when the church had entire control of civil

190

and ecclesiastical affairs, it may be well enough to
read the following, taken from the New York Sun of
March 21, 1882. From this little extract, it will be
easy in the imagination to re-organize the government
that then existed, and to see clearly the state of so-
ciety at that time. This can be done upon the same
principle that one scale tells of the entire fish, or one
bone of the complete animal:

"From records in the State archives of Hesse-
"Darmstadt, dating back to the thirteenth century,
"it appears that the public executioner's fee for boiling
"a criminal in oil was twenty-four florins; for decapi-
"tating with the sword, fifteen florins and-a-half; for
"quartering, the same; for breaking on the wheel,
"five florins, thirty kreuzers; for tearing a man to
"pieces, eighteen florins. Ten florins per head was
"his charge for hanging, and he burned delinquents
"alive at the rate of fourteen florins apiece. For ap-
"plying the 'Spanish boot' his fee was only two
"florins. Five florins were paid to him every time he
"subjected a refractory witness to the torture of the
"rack. The same amount was his due for 'branding
"'the sign of the gallows with a red-hot iron upon
"'the back, forehead, or cheek of a thief,' as well as
"for 'cutting off the nose and ears of a slanderer or

191

"'blasphemer.' Flogging with rods was a cheap
"punishment, its remuneration being fixed at three
"florins, thirty kreuzers."

The Bible has made men cruel. It is a cruel book.
And yet, amidst its thorns, amidst its thistles, amidst
its nettles and its swords and pikes, there are some
flowers, and these I wish, in common with all good
men, to save.

I do not believe that men have ever been made
merciful in war by reading the Old Testament. I do
not believe that men have ever been prompted to
break the chain of a slave by reading the Pentateuch.
The question is not whether Florence Nightingale and
Miss Dix were cruel. I have said nothing about
John Howard, nothing about Abbott Lawrence.
I say nothing about people in this connection. The
question is: Is the Bible a cruel book? not: Was
Miss Nightingale a cruel woman? There have been
thousands and thousands of loving, tender and char-
itable Mohammedans. Mohammedan mothers love
their children as well as Christian mothers can.
Mohammedans have died in defence of the Koran—
died for the honor of an impostor. There were
millions of charitable people in India—millions in
Egypt—and I am not sure that the world has ever

192

produced people who loved one another better than
the Egyptians.

I think there are many things in the Old Testament
calculated to make man cruel. Mr. Talmage asks:
"What has been the effect upon your children? As
"they have become more and more fond of the
"Scriptures have they become more and more fond
"of tearing off the wings of flies and pinning grass-
"hoppers and robbing birds' nests?"

I do not believe that reading the bible would make
them tender toward flies or grasshoppers. According
to that book, God used to punish animals for the
crimes of their owners. He drowned the animals in
a flood. He visited cattle with disease. He bruised
them to death with hailstones—killed them by the
thousand. Will the reading of these things make
children kind to animals? So, the whole system of
sacrifices in the Old Testament is calculated to harden
the heart. The butchery of oxen and lambs, the killing
of doves, the perpetual destruction of life, the con-
tinual shedding of blood—these things, if they have
any tendency, tend only to harden the heart of child-
hood.

The Bible does not stop simply with the killing of
animals. The Jews were commanded to kill their

193

neighbors—not only the men, but the women; not
only the women, but the babes. In accordance with
the command of God, the Jews killed not only their
neighbors, but their own brothers; and according to
this book, which is the foundation, as Mr. Talmage
believes, of all mercy, men were commanded to kill
their wives because they differed with them on the
subject of religion.

Nowhere in the world can be found laws more un-
just and cruel than in the Old Testament.

Question. Mr. Talmage wants you to tell where
the cruelty of the Bible crops out in the lives of Chris-
tians?

Answer. In the first place, millions of Christians
have been persecutors. Did they get the idea of
persecution from the Bible? Will not every honest
man admit that the early Christians, by reading the
Old Testament, became convinced that it was not
only their privilege, but their duty, to destroy heathen
nations? Did they not, by reading the same book,
come to the conclusion that it was their solemn duty
to extirpate heresy and heretics? According to the
New Testament, nobody could be saved unless he
believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. The early Chris-

194

tians believed this dogma. They also believed that
they had a right to defend themselves and their
children from "heretics."

We all admit that a man has a right to defend his
children against the assaults of a would-be murderer,
and he has the right to carry this defence to the
extent of killing the assailant. If we have the right
to kill people who are simply trying to kill the bodies
of our children, of course we have the right to kill
them when they are endeavoring to assassinate, not
simply their bodies, but their souls. It was in this
way Christians reasoned. If the Testament is right,
their reasoning was correct. Whoever believes the
New Testament literally—whoever is satisfied that it
is absolutely the word of God, will become a perse-
cutor. All religious persecution has been, and is, in
exact harmony with the teachings of the Old and
New Testaments. Of course I mean with some of
the teachings. I admit that there are passages in
both the Old and New Testaments against persecu-
tion. These are passages quoted only in time of
peace. Others are repeated to feed the flames of
war.

I find, too, that reading the Bible and believing the
Bible do not prevent even ministers from telling false-

195

hoods about their opponents. I find that the Rev.
Mr. Talmage is willing even to slander the dead,—
that he is willing to stain the memory of a Christian,
and that he does not hesitate to give circulation
to what he knows to be untrue. Mr. Talmage
has himself, I believe, been the subject of a church
trial. How many of the Christian witnesses against
him, in his judgment, told the truth? Yet they were
all Bible readers and Bible believers. What effect, in
his judgment, did the reading of the Bible have upon
his enemies? Is he willing to admit that the testi-
mony of a Bible, reader and believer is true? Is he
willing to accept the testimony even of ministers?
—of his brother ministers? Did reading the Bible
make them bad people? Was it a belief in the Bible
that colored their testimony? Or, was it a belief in
the Bible that made Mr. Talmage deny the truth of
their statements?

Question. Mr. Talmage charges you with having
said that the Scriptures are a collection of polluted
writings?

Answer. I have never said such a thing. I have
said, and I still say, that there are passages in the
Bible unfit to be read—passages that never should

196

have been written—passages, whether inspired or
uninspired, that can by no possibility do any human
being any good. I have always admitted that there
are good passages in the Bible—many good, wise
and just laws—many things calculated to make men
better—many things calculated to make men worse.
I admit that the Bible is a mixture of good and bad,
of truth and falsehood, of history and fiction, of sense
and nonsense, of virtue and vice, of aspiration and
revenge, of liberty and tyranny.

I have never said anything against Solomon's
Song. I like it better than I do any book that pre-
cedes it, because it touches upon the human. In the
desert of murder, wars of extermination, polygamy,
concubinage and slavery, it is an oasis where the
trees grow, where the birds sing, and where human
love blossoms and fills the air with perfume. I do
not regard that book as obscene. There are many
things in it that are beautiful and tender, and it is
calculated to do good rather than harm.

Neither have I any objection to the book of Eccle-
siastes—except a few interpolations in it. That book
was written by a Freethinker, by a philosopher.
There is not the slightest mention of God in it, nor
of another state of existence. All portions in which

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God is mentioned are interpolations. With some of
this book I agree heartily. I believe in the doctrine
of enjoying yourself, if you can, to-day. I think it
foolish to spend all your years in heaping up treas-
ures, not knowing but he who will spend them is to
be an idiot. I believe it is far better to be happy with
your wife and child now, than to be miserable here,
with angelic expectations in some other world.

Mr. Talmage is mistaken when he supposes that all
Bible believers have good homes, that all Bible readers
are kind in their families. As a matter of fact, nearly all
the wife-whippers of the United States are orthodox.
Nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries are
believers. Scotland is one of the most orthodox
countries in the world, and one of the most intem-
perate. Hundreds and hundreds of women are
arrested every year in Glasgow for drunkenness.
Visit the Christian homes in the manufacturing dis-
tricts of England. Talk with the beaters of children
and whippers of wives, and you will find them be-
lievers. Go into what is known as the "Black
"Country," and you will have an idea of the Chris-
tian civilization of England.

Let me tell you something about the "Black
"Country." There women work in iron; there women

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do the work of men. Let me give you an instance:
A commission was appointed by Parliament to ex-
amine into the condition of the women in the "Black
"Country," and a report was made. In that report
I read the following:

"A superintendent of a brickyard where women
"were engaged in carrying bricks from the yard to
"the kiln, said to one of the women:

"'Eliza, you don't appear to be very uppish this
"morning.'"

"'Neither would you be very uppish, sir,' she re-
"plied, 'if you had had a child last night.'"

This gives you an idea of the Christian civilization
of England.

England and Ireland produce most of the prize-
fighters. The scientific burglar is a product of Great
Britain. There is not the great difference that Mr.
Talmage supposes, between the morality of Pekin
and of New York. I doubt if there is a city in
the world with more crime according to the population
than New York, unless it be London, or it may be
Dublin, or Brooklyn, or possibly Glasgow, where
a man too pious to read a newspaper published on
Sunday, stole millions from the poor.

I do not believe there is a country in the world

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where there is more robbery than in Christian lands—
no country where more cashiers are defaulters, where
more presidents of banks take the money of depositors,
where there is more adulteration of food, where
fewer ounces make a pound, where fewer inches make
a yard, where there is more breach of trust, more
respectable larceny under the name of embezzlement,
or more slander circulated as gospel.

Question. Mr. Talmage insists that there are no
contradictions in the Bible—that it is a perfect har-
mony from Genesis to Revelation—a harmony as
perfect as any piece of music ever written by
Beethoven or Handel?

Answer. Of course, if God wrote it, the Bible
ought to be perfect. I do not see why a minister
should be so perfectly astonished to find that an
inspired book is consistent with itself throughout.
Yet the truth is, the Bible is infinitely inconsistent.

Compare the two systems—the system of Jehovah
and that of Jesus. In the Old Testament the doctrine
of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was
taught. In the New Testament, "forgive your
"enemies," and "pray for those who despitefully
"use you and persecute you." In the Old Testament

200

it is kill, burn, massacre, destroy; in the New forgive.
The two systems are inconsistent, and one is just
about as far wrong as the other. To live for and
thirst for revenge, to gloat over the agony of an
enemy, is one extreme; to "resist not evil" is the
other extreme; and both these extremes are equally
distant from the golden mean of justice.

The four gospels do not even agree as to the terms
of salvation. And yet, Mr. Talmage tells us that
there are four cardinal doctrines taught in the Bible—
the goodness of God, the fall of man, the sympathetic
and forgiving nature of the Savior, and two desti-
nies—one for believers and the other for unbelievers.
That is to say:

1. That God is good, holy and forgiving.

2. That man is a lost sinner.

3. That Christ is "all sympathetic," and ready to
take the whole world to his heart.

4. Heaven for believers and hell for unbelievers.

First. I admit that the Bible says that God is

good and holy. But this Bible also tells what God
did, and if God did what the Bible says he did, then I
insist that God is not good, and that he is not holy,
or forgiving. According to the Bible, this good
God believed in religious persecution; this good

201

God believed in extermination, in polygamy, in con-
cubinage, in human slavery; this good God com-
manded murder and massacre, and this good God
could only be mollified by the shedding of blood.
This good God wanted a butcher for a priest. This
good God wanted husbands to kill their wives—
wanted fathers and mothers to kill their children.
This good God persecuted animals on account of the
crimes of their owners. This good God killed the
common people because the king had displeased him.
This good God killed the babe even of the maid
behind the mill, in order that he might get even with
a king. This good God committed every possible
crime.

Second. The statement that man is a lost sinner
is not true. There are thousands and thousands of
magnificent Pagans—men ready to die for wife, or
child, or even for friend, and the history of Pagan
countries is filled with self-denying and heroic acts.
If man is a failure, the infinite God, if there be one,
is to blame. Is it possible that the God of Mr. Tal-
mage could not have made man a success? Accord-
ing to the Bible, his God made man knowing that in
about fifteen hundred years he would have to drown
all his descendants.

202

Why would a good God create a man that he
knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds
of thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at
last would be doomed to an eternity of suffering?
Can such a God be good? How could a devil have
done worse?

Third. If God is infinitely good, is he not fully as
sympathetic as Christ? Do you have to employ
Christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? Is Christ
any more willing to take to his heart the whole world
than his Father is? Personally, I have not the
slightest objection in the world to anybody believing
in an infinitely good and kind God—not the slightest
objection to any human being worshiping an infi-
nitely tender and merciful Christ—not the slightest
objection to people preaching about heaven, or about
the glories of the future state—not the slightest.

Fourth. I object to the doctrine of two destinies
for the human race. I object to the infamous false-
hood of eternal fire. And yet, Mr. Talmage is en-
deavoring to poison the imagination of men, women
and children with the doctrine of an eternal hell.
Here is what he preaches, taken from the "Constitu-
"tion of the Presbyterian Church of the United
"States:"

203

"By the decrees of God, for the manifestation of
"his glory, some men and angels are predestinated
"to everlasting life, and others foreordained to ever-
"lasting death."

That is the doctrine of Mr. Talmage. He wor-
ships a God who damns people "for the manifesta-
"tion of his glory,"—a God who made men, knowing
that they would be damned—a God who damns
babes simply to increase his reputation with the
angels. This is the God of Mr. Talmage. Such a
God I abhor, despise and execrate.

Question. What does Mr. Talmage think of man-
kind? What is his opinion of the "unconverted"?
How does he regard the great and glorious of the
earth, who have not been the victims of his particular
superstition? What does he think of some of the
best the earth has produced?

Answer. I will tell you how he looks upon all
such. Read this from his "Confession of Faith:"

"Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety
"of the tempter, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.
"By this sin, they fell from their original righteous-
"ness and communion with God, and so became
"dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties

204

"and parts of soul and body; and they being the
"root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was
"imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted
"nature conveyed to all their posterity. From this
"original corruption—whereby we are utterly indis-
"posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,
"and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual
"transgressions."

This is Mr. Talmage's view of humanity.

Why did his God make a devil? Why did he
allow the devil to tempt Adam and Eve? Why did
he leave innocence and ignorance at the mercy of
subtlety and wickedness? Why did he put "the
"tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the
garden? For what reason did he place temptation
in the way of his children? Was it kind, was it just,
was it noble, was it worthy of a good God? No
wonder Christ put into his prayer: "Lead us not
"into temptation."

At the time God told Adam and Eve not to eat,
why did he not tell them of the existence of Satan?
Why were they not put upon their guard against the
serpent? Why did not God make his appearance
just before the sin, instead of just after. Why did
he not play the role of a Savior instead of that of a

205

detective? After he found that Adam and Eve had
sinned—knowing as he did that they were then
totally corrupt—knowing that all their children
would be corrupt, knowing that in fifteen hundred
years he would have to drown millions of them, why
did he not allow Adam and Eve to perish in accord-
ance with natural law, then kill the devil, and make a
new pair?

When the flood came, why did he not drown all?
Why did he save for seed that which was "perfectly
"and thoroughly corrupt in all its parts and facul-
"ties"? If God had drowned Noah and his sons
and their families, he could have then made a new
pair, and peopled the world with men not "wholly
"defiled in all their faculties and parts of soul and
"body."

Jehovah learned nothing by experience. He per-
sisted in his original mistake. What would we think
of a man who finding that a field of wheat was
worthless, and that such wheat never could be
raised with profit, should burn all of the field with the
exception of a few sheaves, which he saved for seed?
Why save such seed? Why should God have pre-
served Noah, knowing that he was totally corrupt,
and that he would again fill the world with infamous

206

people—people incapable of a good action? He
must have known at that time, that by preserving
Noah, the Canaanites would be produced, that these
same Canaanites would have to be murdered, that
the babes in the cradles would have to be strangled.
Why did he produce them? He knew at that time,
that Egypt would result from the salvation of Noah,
that the Egyptians would have to be nearly de-
stroyed, that he would have to kill their first-born,
that he would have to visit even their cattle with
disease and hailstones. He knew also that the
Egyptians would oppress his chosen people for two
hundred and fifteen years, that they would upon the
back of toil inflict the lash. Why did he preserve
Noah? He should have drowned all, and started
with a new pair. He should have warned them
against the devil, and he might have succeeded, in
that way, in covering the world with gentlemen and
ladies, with real men and real women.

We know that most of the people now in the
world are not Christians. Most who have heard the
gospel of Christ have rejected it, and the Presby-
terian Church tells us what is to become of all these
people. This is the "glad tidings of great joy."
Let us see:

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"All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with
"God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made
"liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself,
"and to the pains of hell forever."

According to this good Presbyterian doctrine, all
that we suffer in this world, is the result of Adam's
fall. The babes of to-day suffer for the crime of the
first parents. Not only so; but God is angry at us
for what Adam did. We are under the wrath of an
infinite God, whose brows are corrugated with eternal
hatred.

Why should God hate us for being what we are
and necessarily must have been? A being that God
made—the devil—for whose work God is responsible,
according to the Bible wrought this woe. God of his
own free will must have made the devil. What did
he make him for? Was it necessary to have a devil
in heaven? God, having infinite power, can of
course destroy this devil to-day. Why does he per-
mit him to live? Why did he allow him to thwart his
plans? Why did he permit him to pollute the inno-
cence of Eden? Why does he allow him now to
wrest souls by the million from the redeeming hand
of Christ?

According to the Scriptures, the devil has always

208

been successful. He enjoys himself. He is called
"the prince of the power of the air." He has no
conscientious scruples. He has miraculous power.
All miraculous power must come of God, otherwise
it is simply in accordance with nature. If the devil
can work a miracle, it is only with the consent and
by the assistance of the Almighty. Is the God of
Mr. Talmage in partnership with the devil? Do
they divide profits?

We are also told by the Presbyterian Church—
I quote from their Confession of Faith—that "there
"is no sin so small but it deserves damnation.'' Yet
Mr. Talmage tells us that God is good, that he is filled
with mercy and loving-kindness. A child nine or ten
years of age commits a sin, and thereupon it deserves
eternal damnation. That is what Mr. Talmage calls,
not simply justice, but mercy; and the sympathetic
heart of Christ is not touched. The same being who
said: "Suffer little children to come unto me," tells
us that a child, for the smallest sin, deserves to be
eternally damned. The Presbyterian Church tells us
that infants, as well as adults, in order to be saved,
need redemption by the blood of Christ, and regen-
eration by the Holy Ghost.

I am charged with trying to take the consolation

209

of this doctrine from the world. I am a criminal
because I am endeavoring to convince the mother
that her child does not deserve eternal punishment.
I stand by the graves of those who "died in their
"sins," by the tombs of the "unregenerate," over the
ashes of men who have spent their lives working for
their wives and children, and over the sacred dust of
soldiers who died in defence of flag and country,
and I say to their friends—I say to the living who
loved them, I say to the men and women for whom
they worked, I say to the children whom they edu-
cated, I say to the country for which they died:
These fathers, these mothers, these wives, these
husbands, these soldiers are not in hell.

Question. Mr. Talmage insists that the Bible is
scientific, and that the real scientific man sees no
contradiction between revelation and science; that,
on the contrary, they are in harmony. What is your
understanding of this matter?

Answer. I do not believe the Bible to be a sci-
entific book. In fact, most of the ministers now admit
that it was not written to teach any science. They
admit that the first chapter of Genesis is not geo-
logically true. They admit that Joshua knew nothing

210

of science. They admit that four-footed birds did
not exist in the days of Moses. In fact, the only
way they can avoid the unscientific statements of the
Bible, is to assert that the writers simply used the
common language of their day, and used it, not with
the intention of teaching any scientific truth, but for
the purpose of teaching some moral truth. As a
matter of fact, we find that moral truths have been
taught in all parts of this world. They were taught
in India long before Moses lived; in Egypt long be-
fore Abraham was born; in China thousands of
years before the flood. They were taught by hundreds
and thousands and millions before the Garden of
Eden was planted.

It would be impossible to prove the truth of a
revelation simply because it contained moral truths.
If it taught immorality, it would be absolutely certain
that it was not a revelation from an infinitely good
being. If it taught morality, it would be no reason
for even suspecting that it had a divine origin. But
if the Bible had given us scientific truths; if the
ignorant Jews had given us the true theory of our
solar system; if from Moses we had learned the
nature of light and heat; if from Joshua we had
learned something of electricity; if the minor pro-

211

phets had given us the distances to other planets;
if the orbits of the stars had been marked by the
barbarians of that day, we might have admitted that
they must have been inspired. If they had said any-