with devout
fervor, "The Lord is my shepherd, _I_ shall not want." His mother, who
had the same shepherd, had wanted for much. She even wanted for a stone
to mark her grave, because the money she had left for that purpose
her holy son thought best to use, vicariously, upon himself. That man
believes in the Bible absolutely. He is a good Christian, and he abhors
an infidel! He knows he is going to heaven because he has faith in
Christ, and Christ had an extra stab on his account. He is willing to
take his heavenly home through the blood of Christ, and his earthly one
out of the pockets of a dead mother. The blood of the murdered Nazarene
obliterates the infamy of his acts over her dishonored grave.

And this is perfectly consistent! A religion of faith, a religion that
gets its good vicariously and shifts its sins and responsibilities on
to the past, is a religion that can never elevate character; _it simply
makes a man more intensely what he was before_. It is all self,
self, self. Think of the infinitesimal smallness, the irredeemable
worthlessness, the unutterable meanness of a soul that could forsake
those it had loved, and be happy believing that they were suffering and
eternally lost!

Yet who does not know men who go tramping about the country, living
on the charity of their dupes, and declaring that "the Lord is their
Shepherd, _they_ shall not want," whose families want for almost every
comfort of life? And this is true orthodox doctrine. "Ye shall forsake
father, mother, wife, and children," for what?--to "follow me!" Think of
the infamy of it!

If that is the kind of souls that go to heaven, I shall do all I can to
keep mine amongst more respectable spirits. I will go with the Goth. I
could suffer in hell (if there were such a place) with those I love, and
keep my self-respect.

If I believed I could be happy in heaven with my loved ones in agony
below--if I believed it of myself--there is no vile, slime-covered
reptile on earth that I would so loathe! Forsake father, mother,
husband, children to save my soul! Never! I will go with my people!

THE VICARIOUS THEORY THE CAUSE OF CRIME.

This idea of vicarious atonement has encouraged injustice and crime
of every kind. Out of eighty-four men who have been hanged recently,
seventy-one have gone directly to heaven. They asked the assembled
spectators to be as good as they conveniently could, and meet them
on the other shore. Their spiritual advisers a