Part 13

What is the next thing here? They all also believe in the resurrection of the dead, and in their confession of faith hereto attached I find they also believe in the resurrection of the body. Does anybody believe that, that has ever thought? Here is a man, for instance, that weighs 200 pounds, and gets sick and dies weighing 120; how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrection? Here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and we know that the atoms that you eat go into your body and become a part of you. After the cannibal has eaten the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself, and then he dies, who will the atoms belong to in the morning of the resurrection in an action of replevin brought by the missionary against the cannibal? It has been demonstrated again and again that there is no creation in nature, and no destruction in nature. It has been demonstrated again and again that the atoms that are in us have been in millions of other beings; grown in the forest, in the grass, blossomed in the flowers, been in the metals; in other words, there are atoms in each one of us that have been in millions of others, and when we die these atoms return to the earth, and again spring in vegetation, taken up in the leaves of the trees, turned into wood. And yet we have a church, in the nineteenth century, getting up this doctrine, presided over by professors, by presidents of colleges, and by theologians, who tell us that they believe in the resurrection of the body.

They know better. There is not one so ignorant but what knows better.

And what is the next thing? "And in a final judgment." It will be a set day. All of us will be there, and the thousands, and millions, and billions, and trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there. It will be the day of judgment, and the books will be opened and our case will be called. Does anybody believe in that now that has got the slightest sense?--one who knows enough to chew gum without a string?"

"The issues of which are everlasting punishment for the wicked and everlasting life for the redeemed. "That is the doctrine today of the Congregational church, and that is the doctrine that I oppose. That is the doctrine that I defy and deny.

But I must hasten on. Now this comes to us after all the discussion that has been, and we are told that this religion is finally to conquer this world. This is the same religion that failed to successfully meet the hordes of Mohammed. Mohammed wrested from the disciples of the cross the fairest part of Europe. It was known that he was an impostor. They knew he was because the people of Mecca said so, and they knew that Christ was not because the people of Jerusalem said he was. This impostor wrested from the disciples of Christ the fairest part of Europe, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust and infidelity in the minds of the Christian world. And the next was an effort to rescue from the infidels the empty sepulchre of Christ. That commenced in the eleventh century and ended in 1291. Europe was almost depopulated. For every man owed a debt, the debt was discharged if he put a cross upon his breast and joined the Crusades. No matter what crime he had committed the doors of the prison were open for him to join the Crusades. And what was the result? They believed that God would give them victory over the infidel, and they carried in front of the first Crusade a goat and a goose, believing that both those animals had been blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And I may say that those same animals are in the lead today in the orthodox world. Until 1291 they endeavored to get that sepulchre, until finally the hosts of Christ were driven back, baffled, beaten, and demoralized--a poor, miserable religious rabble. They were driven back, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust in Christendom. You know at that time the world believed in trial by battle--that God would take the side of right--and there had been a trial by battle between the Cross and Mohammed, and Mohammed had been victorious.

Well, what was the next? You know when Christianity came into power it destroyed every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. It defaced and obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it destroyed the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it destroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and burned every library that it could reach with its torch. And the result was the night of the middle ages fell upon the human race. But by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts escaped the fury of religious zeal; a few statues had been buried; and the result was, that these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization of today. A few forms of beauty were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the civilized world is filled with art, with painting, and with statuary, in spite of the rage of the early church.

What is the next blow that that this church received? The discovery of America. That is the next. The Holy Ghost, who inspired a man to write the bible, did not know of the existence of this continent, never dreamed of it; the result was that His bible never spoke of it. He did not dream that the earth is round. He believed it was flat, although He made it Himself, and at that time heaven was just up there beyond the clouds. There was where the gods lived, there was where the angels were, and it was against that heaven that Jacob's ladder was that the angels ascended and descended. It was to that heaven that Christ ascended after His resurrection. It was up there where the New Jerusalem was, with its streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition; there was where the devils lived; there was where a pit was dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains, and I say that for this reason: That just in proportion that you have brains, just in that proportion your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this religion. And just in proportion that you lack brains, your chances are increased. They believe, under there that they discovered America. They found that the earth is round. It was circumnavigated by Magellan. In 1519 that brave man set sail. The church told him: "The earth is flat, my friend; don't go off. You will go off the edge." Magellan said: "I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and I have more confidence in the shadow even than I have in the church." The ship went round. The earth was circumnavigated. Science passed its hand above it and beneath it, and where was the heaven, and where was the hell? Vanished forever! And they dwell now only in the religion of superstition. We found there was no place for Jacob's ladder to lean against; no place there for the gods and angels to live; no place there to empty the waters of the deluge; no place there to which Christ could have ascended; and the foundations of the New Jerusalem crumbled, and the towers and domes fell and became simply space--space sown with an infinite number of stars; not with New Jerusalems, but with constellations.

Then man began to grow great, and with that you know came astronomy. Now just see what they did in that. In 1473 Copernicus was born. In 1543 his great work. In 1616 the system of Copernicus was condemned by the pope, by the infallible Catholic church, and the church is about as near right upon that subject as upon any other. The system of Copernicus was denounced. And how long do you suppose the church fought that? Let me tell you. It was revoked by Pius VII. in the year of grace 1821. For 205 years after the death of Copernicus the church insisted that that system was false, and that the old idea was true. Astronomy is the first help that we ever received from heaven. Then came Kepler in 1609, and you may almost date the birth of science from the night that Kepler discovered his first law. That was the dawn of the day of intelligence--his first law, that the planets do not move in circles; his second law, that they described equal spaces in equal times; his third law, that there was a direct relation between weight and velocity. That man gave us a key to heaven. That man opened its infinite book, and we now read it, and he did more good than all the theologians that ever lived. I have not time to speak of the others--of Galileo, of Leonardo da Vinci, and of hundreds of others that I could mention.

The next thing that gave this church a blow was statistics. Away went special providence. We found by taking statistics that we could tell the average length of human life; that this human life did not depend upon infinite caprice; that it depended upon conditions, circumstances, laws and facts, and that those conditions, circumstances, and facts were ever active. And now you will see the man who depends entirely upon special providence gets his life insured. He has more confidence even in one of these companies than he has in the whole Trinity. We found by statistics that there were just so many crimes on an average committed; just so many crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so many suicides, so many deaths by drowning; just so many accidents on an average; just so many men marrying women, for instance, older than themselves; just so many murders of a particular kind; just the same number of accidents; and I say tonight statistics utterly demolish the idea of special providence. Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. He knew it. He had been the subject of it. Yes, sir! A few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he was detained; he didn't go, and the ship was lost and all on board. Yes! I said, "Do you think the fellows that were drowned believed in special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with 500 passengers, and they go down to the bottom of the sea--fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands, and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. Here is one poor little wretch that didn't happen to go! And he thinks that God, the infinite being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. That is special providence!

You know we have a custom every year of issuing a proclamation of thanksgiving. We say to God, "Although You have afflicted all the other countries, although You have sent war, and desolation, and famine on everybody else, we have been such good children that you have been kind to us, and we hope you will keep on." It don't make a bit of difference whether we have good times or not--not a bit; the thanksgiving is always exactly the same. I remember a few years ago a governor of Iowa got out a proclamation of that kind. He went on to tell how thankful the people were, how prosperous the State had been; and there was a young fellow in the State who got out another proclamation, saying: "Fearing that the Lord might be misled by official correspondence," he went on to say that the governor's proclamation was entirely false; that the State was not prosperous; that the crops had been an almost entire failure; that nearly every farm in the state was mortgaged; that if the Lord did not believe him, all he asked was He would send some angel in whom he had confidence to look the matter over for himself.

Of course I have not time to recount the enemies of the church. Every fact is an enemy of superstition. Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever happened testified against the supernatural. I have only spoken of a few of the blows that shattered the shield and shivered the lance of superstition. Here is another one--the doctrine of Charles Darwin. This century will be called Darwin's century, one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin there (on the one hand) and the name of every theologian that ever lived there (on the other hand), and from that name has come more light to the world than from all those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the bible is a book written by ignorance--by the instigation of fear! Think of the man who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no parson too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn, and the contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest.

Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and the doctrine of evolution is now an accepted fact. His light has broken in on some of the early clergy, and the greatest man who today occupies the pulpit is a believer in the evolution theory of Charles Darwin--and that is Henry Ward Beecher--a man of more brains than the entire clergy of that entire church put together. And yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion is about to conquer the world. It will be driven to the wilds of Africa. It must go to some savage country; it has lost its hold upon civilization, and I tell you it is unfortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a nation. It is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good and noble heart protests. Let us have a good one or none. O! my pity has been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the passages of scripture to fit some demonstration in science. These pious evasions! These solemn pretenses! When they are caught in one way they give a different meaning to the words and say the world was not made in seven days. They say "good whiles"--epochs. And in this same confession here of faith and creeds they believe the Lord's day is holy--every seventh day. Suppose you lived near the north pole, where the day is three months long. Then which day will you keep? Suppose you could get to the north pole, you could prevent Sunday from ever overtaking you. You could walk around the other way faster than the world could revolve. How would you keep Sunday then? Suppose we ever invent any thing that can go 1,000 miles an hour? We can just chase Sunday clear around the globe. Is there anything that can be more perfectly absurd than that a space of time can be holy! You might as well talk about a pious vacuum. These pious evasions. I heard the other night of an old man. He was not very well educated, you know, and he got into the notion that he must have reading of the bible and have family worship; and there was a bad boy in the family--a pretty smart boy--and they were reading the bible by course, and in the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians is this passage: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be changed." And this boy rubbed out the "c" in the "changed." So next night the old man got on his specs and got down his bible and said: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be hanged." The old lady said, "Father, I don't think it reads that way." He says, "Who is reading this?" "Yes, mother, it says be hanged, and, more than that, I see the sense of it. Pride is the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging."

I keep going back to this book; I keep going back to the miracles, to the prophecies, to the fables, and people ask me, if I take away the bible, what are we going to do? How can we get along without the revelation that no one understands? What are we going to do if we have no bible to quarrel about? What are we to do without hell? What are we going to do with our enemies? What are we going to do with the people we love but don't like? They tell me that there never would have been any civilization if it had not been for this bible. Um! The Jews had a bible; the Romans had not. Which had the greater and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome had no bible. God cared nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men come up by chance. His time was taken up by the Jewish people. And yet Rome conquered the world, and even conquered God's chosen people. The people that had the bible were defeated by the people who had not. How was it possible for Lucretius to get along without the bible? How did the great and glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece? No bible. Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens comes the beauty and intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with the mythology of Judea. One covering the earth with beauty, and the other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no bible; they had been forsaken by the creator, and yet they became the greatest metaphysicians of the world. Egypt had no bible. Compare even Egypt with Judea. What are we to do without the bible? What became of the Jews who had no bible; their temple was destroyed and their city was taken; and, as I said before, they never found real prosperity until their God deserted them. Do without the bible?

Now I come again to the new testament. There are a few things in there, I give you my word, I cannot believe. I cannot--I cannot believe in the miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. I believe He was the son of Joseph and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly and legally married; that He was the legitimate offspring of that marriage, and nobody ever believed the contrary until He had been dead 150 years. Neither Matthew, Mark nor Luke ever dreamed that He was of divine origin. He did not say to either Matthew, Mark or Luke, or to any one in their hearing, that He was the son of God, or that He was miraculously conceived. He did not say it. The angel Gabriel, who, they say, brought the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. His mother never wrote a word upon the subject. His father never wrote a word upon the subject. We are lacking in the matter of witnesses. I would not believe it now! I cannot believe it then. I would not believe people I know, much less would I believe people I don't know. I say that at that time Matthew, Mark and Luke believed that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. And why? They say He descended from the blood of David, and in order to show that He was of the blood of David they gave the genealogy of Joseph. And if Joseph was not his father, why not give the genealogy of Pontius Pilate or Herod? Could they, by giving the genealogy of Joseph, show that He was of the blood of David if Joseph was in no way related to David; and yet that is the position into which the Christian world is now driven. It says the son of Joseph, and then interpolated the words "as was supposed." Why, then, do they give a supposed genealogy. It will not do. And that is a thing that cannot in any way, by any human testimony, be established; and if it is important for us to know that He was the Son of God, I say then that it devolves upon God to give us evidence. Let Him write it across the face of the heavens, in every language of mankind. If it is necessary for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf next year. No man should be damned for not believing unless the evidence is overwhelming. And he ought not to be made to depend upon say-so. He should have it directly for himself. A man says God told him so and so, and he tells me, and I haven't anyone's word but that fellow's. He may have been deceived. If God has a message for me He ought to tell it to me, and not somebody that has been dead 4,000 or 5,000 years, and in another language; God may have changed His mind on many things; He has on slavery at least, and polygamy; and yet His church now wants to go out here and destroy polygamy in Utah with a sword. Why don't they send missionaries there with copies of the old testament? By reading the lives of Abraham, and Isaac, and Lot, and a few other fellows that ought to have been in the penitentiary, they can soften their hearts.

Now, there is another miracle I do not believe. I want to speak about it as we would about any ordinary transaction in the world. In the first place, I do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there was, you can't prove it. Why? Because it is altogether more reasonable that the people lied about it than that it happened. And why? Because, according to human experience, we know that people will not always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle, and we have got to be governed by our experience, and if we go by our experience, it is in favor that the thing never happened; that the man is mistaken. Now, I want you to remember it. Here is a man that comes into Jerusalem, and the first thing he does he cures the blind. He lets the light of day visit the darkness of blindness. The eyes are opened and the whole world is again pictured upon the brain. Another man is clothed with leprosy. He touches him, and the disease falls from him, and he stands pure, and clean, and whole. Another man is deformed, wrinkled, bent. He touches him and throws upon him again the garment of youth. A man is in his grave, and He says, "Come forth!" and he again walks in life, feeling his heart throb and beat, and his blood going joyously through his veins. They say that happened. I don't know. There is one wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised--we don't hear of them any more. What became of them? Why, if there was a man in this town that had been raised from the dead, I would go to see him tonight. I would say, "Where were you when you got the notice to come back? What kind of country is it? What kind of opening there for a young man? How did you like it?" But nobody ever paid the slightest attention to them there. They didn't even excite interest when they died the second time. Nobody said, "Why, that man isn't afraid. He has been there." Not a word. They pass away quietly. You see I don't believe it. There is something wrong somewhere about that business. And then there is another trouble in my mind. Now, you know I may suffer eternal punishment for all this.

Here is a man that does all these things, and thereupon they crucify Him. Now, then, let us be honest. Suppose a man came into Chicago and he should meet a funeral procession, and he should say, "Who is dead?" and they should say, "The son of a widow; her only support," and he should say to the procession, "Halt!" And to the undertaker, "Take out that coffin, unscrew that lid." "Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" And the latter should step from the coffin, and in one moment after hold his mother in his arms. Suppose he should go to your cemetery and should find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, "Who lies buried here?" and she should reply, "My husband," and he should say, "I say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead," and the husband should rise and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little children with their arms around his neck. Suppose that it is so. Do you think that the people of Chicago would kill him? Do you think any one would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that every one who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their knees, and beg him and implore him to give back their dead? Do you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death? Let me tell you tonight if there shall ever appear on this earth the master, the monarch of death, all human knees will touch the earth; he will not be crucified, he will not be touched. All the living who fear death; all the living who have lost a loved one will stand and cling to him. And yet we are told that this worker of miracles, this worker of wonders, this man who could clothe the dead in the throbbing flesh of life, was crucified by the Jewish people. It was never dreamed that he did a miracle until 100 years after he was dead.

There is another miracle I do not believe, I cannot believe it, and that is the resurrection. And why? If it was the fact, if the dead got out of the grave, why did He not show himself to his enemies? Why did He not again visit Pontius Pilate? Why did He not call upon Caiaphas, the high priest? Why did He not make another triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Why did He not again enter the temple and dispute with the doctors? Why didn't He say to the multitude: "Here are the wounds in My feet, and in My hands, and in My side. I am the one you endeavored to kill, but Death is My slave." Why didn't He? Simply because the thing never happened. I cannot believe it. But recollect, it makes no difference with its teachings. They are exactly as good whether He wrought miracles or not. Twice two are four; that needs no miracle. Twice two are five--a miracle would not help that. Christ's teachings are worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no difference about miracle or about wonder, but you must remember in that day every one believed in miracles. Nobody had any standing as a teacher, a philosopher, a governor, or a king, about whom there was not a something miraculous. The earth was then covered with the sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses. That was believed in Greece, in Rome, in Egypt, in Hindustan; everybody, nearly, believed in such things.

Then there is another miracle that I cannot believe in, and that is the ascension--the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ. Where was He going? Since the telescope has been pointed at the stars, where was He going? The New Jerusalem is not there. The abode of the gods is not there. Where was He going? Which way did He go? That depends upon the time of day that He left. If He left in the night He went exactly the opposite way from what He would in the day. Who saw this miracle? They say the disciples. Let us see what they say about it. Matthew did not think it was worth mentioning. He doesn't speak of it at all. On the contrary, he says that the last words of Christ were: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." That is what he says. Mark, he saw it. "So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God." That is all he has to say about the most wonderful thing that ever blessed human vision--about a miracle great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet we have one poor, little meagre verse. So, then, after He had quit speaking, He was caught up and sat on the right hand of God. How does he know He was on the right hand? Did he see Him after He had sat down? Luke says: "And it came to pass while He blessed them He was parted from them and was carried up into heaven." But John does not mention it. He gives as His last words this address to Peter: "Follow thou Me." Of course He did not say that as He ascended. In the Acts we have another account. A conversation is given not spoken of in any of the others, and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who said: "Men of Galilee, why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus that was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go up into Heaven." Matthew didn't see that; Mark forgot it; Luke didn't think it was worth mentioning, and John didn't believe it; and yet upon that evidence we are led to believe that the most miraculous of all miracles actually occurred. I cannot believe it.

I may be mistaken; but the church is now trying to parry, and when they come to the little miracles of the new testament all they say is: "Christ didn't cast out devils; these men had fits." He cured fits. Then I read in another place about the fits talking. Christ held a dialogue with the fits, and the fits told Him his name, and the fits at that time were in a crazy man. And the fits made a contract that they would go out of the man provided they would be permitted to go into swine. How can fits that attack a man take up a residence in swine? The church must not give up the devil. He is the right bower. No devil, no hell; no hell, no preacher; no fire, no insurance. I read another miracle--that this devil took Christ and put him on the pinnacle of a temple. Was that fits, too? Why is not the theological world honest? Why do they not come up and admit what they know the book means? They have not the courage. Now, their next doctrine is the absolute necessity of belief. That depends upon this: Can a man believe as he wants to? Can you? Can anybody? Does belief depend at all upon the evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases. How is it that when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence--hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law, and upon their oaths, are equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six for the defendant? It is because evidence does not have the same effect upon all people. Why? Our brains are not alike--not the same shape; we have not the same intelligence or the same experience, the same sense. And yet I am held accountable for my belief. I must believe in the Trinity--three times one is one, once one is three--and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum. And that is the poison part of Christianity--that salvation depends upon belief--that is the poison part, and until that dogma is discarded religion will be nothing but superstition. No man can control his belief. If I hear certain evidence I will believe a certain thing. If I fail to hear it I may never believe it. If it is adapted to my mind I may accept it; if it is not, I reject it. And what am I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only torch that this God has given me by which to find my way through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult the God--that is to say, my reason--and the oracle speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what God said to him?

I would not know a god if I should see one. I have said before, and I say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and I am not responsible for my thought. No more can I control the beating of my heart, the expansion and contraction of my lungs for a moment; no more can I stop the blood that flows through the rivers of the veins. And yet I am held responsible for my belief. Then why does not the God give me the evidence? They say He has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do not understand it as they do. Must I be false to my understanding? They say: "When you come to die you will be sorry you did not." Will I be sorry when I come to die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I be sorry I did not say I was a Christian when I was not? Will the fact that I was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? God cannot forgive me for that. They say when He was in Jerusalem, He forgave His murderers. Now He won't forgive an honest man for differing with Him on the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive your enemies." I say, "All right, I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine." God should be consistent. If He wants me to forgive my enemies, He should forgive His. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt Him. He certainly ought to be as generous as He asks us to be. And I want no God to forgive me unless I do forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is that this God should live according to His own doctrine. If I am to forgive my enemies I ask Him to forgive His. That is justice, that is right. Here are these millions today who say: "We are to be saved by belief, by faith; but what are we to believe?"

In St. Louis last Sunday I read an interview with a Christian minister--one who is now holding a revival. They call him the boy preacher--a name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. The question was whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy seats with white people, and that revivalist, preaching the unsearchable richness of Christ, said he would not allow the colored people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the church. The same people go and sit right next to them in heaven, swap harps with them, and yet this man, believing as he says he does, that if he did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ he would eternally perish, was not willing that the colored man should sit by a white man while he heard the gospel of everlasting peace. He was not willing that the colored man should get into the lifeboat of Christ, although those white men might be totally depraved, and if they had justice done them, according to his doctrine. would be eternally damned--and yet he has the impudence to put on airs, although he ought to be eternally damned, and go and sit by the colored man. His doctrine of religion, the color line, has not my respect. I believe in the religion of humanity, and it is far better to love our fellow-men than to love God, because we can help them, and we cannot help Him. You had better do what you can than to be always pretending to do what you cannot.

Now I come to the last part of the bible--this creed--and that is, eternal punishment, and I have concluded; and I have said I will never deliver a lecture that I do not give the full benefit of its name. That part of the Congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that crouches and crawls in the jungles of Africa. The man who now, in the nineteenth century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of eternal hell, has lived in vain. Think of that doctrine! The eternity of punishment! Why, I find in that same creed that Christ is finally going to triumph in this world and establish His kingdom; but if their doctrine is true, He will never triumph in the other world. He will have billions in hell forever. In this world we never will be perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the earth. As long as there is a penitentiary, behind the walls of which a human being is immured, we are not a civilized people. We will never be perfectly civilized until we do away with crime and criminals. And yet, according to this Christian religion, God is to have an eternal penitentiary; He is to be an everlasting jailor, an everlasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and He is going to keep prisoners there, not for the purpose of reforming them--because they are never going to get any better, only getting worse--just for the purpose of punishing them. And what for? For something they did in this world; born in ignorance, educated it may be in poverty, and yet responsible through the countless ages of eternity. No man can think of a greater horror; no man can think of a greater absurdity. For the growth of that doctrine, ignorance was soil and fear was rain. That doctrine came from the fanged mouths of wild beasts, and yet it is the "glad tidings of great joy."

"God so loved the world" He is going to damn most everybody, and, if this Christian religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived upon this earth, are suffering its torments tonight. It don't appear to make much difference, however, with this church. They go right on enjoying themselves as well as ever. If their doctrine is true, Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest, and best of men, who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of God tonight, while he endeavored to establish freedom among men. If the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearts, "Benjamin Franklin is in hell, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many years." That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed or change it. I want to impress it upon your mind, because the thing I wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell I want to keep at it just as long as there is one little coal red in the bottomless pit. As long as the ashes are warm, I shall denounce this infamous doctrine.

I want you to know that the men who founded this great and glorious government are there. The most of the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and wrested from the clutch of Great Britain this continent; have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of God. The old Revolutionary soldiers are in hell by the thousands. Let the preachers have the courage to say so. The men who fought in 1812, and gave to the United States the freedom of the seas, nearly all of them have been damned since 1815--all that were killed. The greatest of heroes, they are there. The greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the world beautiful and grand, they are all, I tell you, among the damned, if this creed is true. Humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind, Goethe, and Schiller, and Lessing, who almost created the German language--all gone! All suffering the wrath of God tonight, and every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra twang.

La Place, who read the heaven like an open book--he is there. Robert Burns, the poet of human love--he is there because he wrote the "Prayer of Holy Willie;" because he fastened upon the cross the Presbyterian creed, and made a lingering crucifixion. And yet that man added to the tenderness of human heart. Dickens, who put a shield of pity before the flesh of childhood God is getting even with him. Our own Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear Methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace, and the Holy Ghost is delighted that he is in hell tonight.

Longfellow refined hundreds and thousands of homes, but he did not believe in the miraculous origin of the Savior. No, sir; he doubted the report of Gabriel. He loved his fellow-men; he did what he could to free the slaves; he did what he could to make mankind happy; but God was just waiting for him. He had His constable right there. Thomas Paine, the author of the "Rights of Man," offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race, and one of the founders of the Republic--it has often seemed to me that if we could get God's attention long enough to point Him to the American flag, He would let him out. Compte, the author of the "Positive Philosophy," who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he made of humanity a God, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered with tears--they are getting their revenge on him now. Voltaire, who abolished torture in France; who did more for human liberty than any other man, living or dead; who was the assassin of superstition, and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of Catholicism--all the priests who have been translated have their happiness increased by looking at Voltaire. Glorious country where the principal occupation is watching the miseries of the lost. Geordani Bruno, Benedict Spinoza, Diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a small compass so that he could put the peasant on an equality with the prince intellectually; the man who wished to sow all over the world the seeds of knowledge; who loved to labor for mankind. While the priests wanted to burn, he did all he could to put out the fire--he has been lost long, long ago. His cry for water has, become so common that his voice is now recognized through all the realms of hell, and they say to one another, "That is Diderot." David Hume, the philosopher, he is there with the rest.

Beethoven, the Shakespeare of music, he has been lost, and Wagner, the master of melody, and who has made the air of this world rich forever, he is there, and they have better music in hell than in heaven.

Shelley, whose soul, like his own skylark, was a winged joy--he has been damned for many, many years; and Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who has done more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived and died--he is there; and all the founders of Inquisitions, the builders of dungeons, the makers of chains, the inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes and sellers of husbands, and wives, and children, the drawers of the swords, of persecution, and they who kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thousand years--they are in heaven tonight. Well, I wish heaven joy of such company.