s were evil. For every one that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved._"[382] Your life, however, is but a long illustration of this
principle. Have you not willingly remained in ignorance of the contents
of the Bible, because you dislike its commands?

There is another fact of the same science--there, in the gutter before
you, wallowing in his own vomit, covered with rags, besmeared with mud,
smelling worse than a hog, his bruised and bleeding mouth unable to
articulate the obscenities and curses he tries to utter. "Is it possible
that can be Bill Brown! Why, only three years ago we worked at the same
bench. It was he who introduced me to the Sunday Institute; as clever a
workman and as jovial a comrade as I ever knew, but would get on a spree
now and again. He had a good father and mother, got considerable
schooling, had good wages, got married to a clever girl, and had two
fine children. Is it possible he could make such a beast of himself in
such a short time?" Yes, quite possible, and more, quite certain. Not
only in his case, but in all others, the law of moral gravitation is
universal and infallible. "_Evil men and seducers wax worse and
worse._"[383] The degradation may not always be in this precise form,
nor always as speedy; as all heavy bodies do not fall to the same place,
nor with like rapidity. But it is always as certain and always as deep,
and will one day be far more public. Fix it firmly in your mind. It
concerns you more than all the science you will ever know. You, too, are
in the course of sin, and you know it. You have already begun to fall.

Come again into this room. "What, into a prayer-meeting? I don't go to
such places." But, if you want to study the phenomena of religion
scientifically, you should go to such places; just as if you want to
study geology, you should go to the places where the strata are exposed
to view. I do not ask you to speak, and to ask people to pray for you,
but only to look on and listen. If you are a philosopher I wish you to
cease dogmatizing about fanaticism, and enthusiasm, and the ignorance,
and credulity of believers, at least until you philosophically examine
the evidence upon which they believe. You can set aside, if you please,
their unfounded beliefs concerning matters beyond their capacity, and
also their confident hopes for futurity. What I wish you to examine is
their _actual experience of religion_, as t