he should use the faculties he has for his
own benefit, and the benefit of his fellow-man. There is no answer.
It is not within the power of man to substantiate the supernatural.
It is beyond the power of evidence.

_Question_. Why do the theological seminaries find it difficult
to get students?

_Answer_. I was told last spring, at New Haven, that the "theologs,"
as they call the young men there being fitted for the ministry,
were not regarded as intellectual by all the other students. The
orthodox pulpit has no rewards for genius. It has rewards only for
stupidity, for belief--not for investigation, not for thought; and
the consequence is that young men of talent avoid the pulpit. I
think I heard the other day that of all the students at Harvard
only nine are preparing for the ministry. The truth is, the ministry
is not regarded as an intellectual occupation. The average church
now consists of women and children. Men go to please their wives,
or stay at home and subscribe to please their wives; and the wives
are beginning to think, and many of them are staying at home. Many
of them now prefer the theatre or the opera or the park or the
seashore or the forest or the companionship of their husbands and
children at home.

_Question_. How does the religious state of California compare
with the rest of the Union?

_Answer_. I find that sensible people everywhere are about the
same, and the proportion of Freethinkers depends on the proportion
of sensible folks. I think that California has her full share of
sensible people. I find everywhere the best people and the brightest
people--the people with the most heart and the best brain--all
tending toward free thought. Of course, a man of brain cannot
believe the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. A man of heart
cannot believe in the doctrine of eternal pain. We have found that
other religions are like ours, with precisely the same basis, the
same idiotic miracles, the same Christ or Saviour. It will hardly
do to say that all others like ours are false, and ours the only
true one, when others substantially like it are thousands of years
older. We have at last found that a religion is simply an effort
on the part of man to account for what he sees, what he experiences,
what he feels, what he fears, and what he hopes. Every savage has
his philosophy. That is his religion and his science.

The religions of to-day are the sciences of the past; and it