my health will ever
add to theirs. The fact is, I am exceedingly well, and my throat
is better than it has been for many years. Any one who imagines
that I am disposed to lay down my arms can read by Reply to Dr.
Field in the November number of the _North American Review_. I
see no particular difference in myself, except this; that my hatred
of superstition becomes a little more and more intense; on the
other hand, I see more clearly, that all the superstitions were
naturally produced, and I am now satisfied that every man does as
he must, including priests and editors of religious papers.

This gives me hope for the future. We find that certain soil, with
a certain amount of moisture and heat, produces good corn, and we
find when the soil is poor, or when the ground is too wet, or too
dry, that no amount of care can, by any possibility, produce good
corn. In other words, we find that the fruit, that is to say, the
result, whatever it may be, depends absolutely upon the conditions.
This being so, we will in time find out the conditions that produce
good, intelligent, honest men. This is the hope for the future.
We shall know better than to rely on what is called reformation,
or regeneration, or a resolution born of ignorant excitement. We
shall rely, then, on the eternal foundation--the fact in nature--
that like causes produce like results, and that good conditions
will produce good people.

_Question_. Every now and then some one challenges you to a
discussion, and nearly every one who delivers lectures, or speeches,
attacking you, or your views, says that you are afraid publicly to
debate these questions. Why do you not meet these men, and why do
you not answer these attacks?

_Answer_. In the first place, it would be a physical impossibility
to reply to all the attacks that have been made--to all the "answers."
I receive these attacks, and these answers, and these lectures
almost every day. Hundreds of them are delivered every year. A
great many are put in pamphlet form, and, of course, copies are
received by me. Some of them I read, at least I look them over,
and I have never yet received one worthy of the slightest notice,
never one in which the writer showed the slightest appreciation of
the questions under discussion. All these pamphlets are about the
same, and they could, for the matter, have all been produced by
one person. They are impudent, shallow, abusive, illogical, and
in most respect