e being who called that
wretch into existence is directly responsible. And yet we are to find
the providence of God in the history of nations. What little I have
read shows me that when man has been helped, man had to do it; when the
chains of slavery have been broken, they have been broken by man; when
something bad has been done in the government of mankind, it is easy to
trace it to man, and to fix the responsibility upon human beings. You
will not look to the sky; you need throw neither praise nor blame; you
can find the efficient causes nearer home--right here.

What is the next thing I find in this creed? "We believe that man was
made in the image of God, that he might know, love and obey God, and
enjoy Him for ever." I don't believe that anybody ever did love God,
because nobody ever knew anything about Him. We love each other. We
love something that we know. We love something that our experience
tells us is good and great, and good and beautiful. We cannot by any
possibility love the unknown. We can love truth, because truth adds to
human happiness. We can love justice, because it preserves human joy.
We can love charity. We can love every form of goodness that we know,
or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love the infinitely unknown.
And how can we be made in the image of something that has neither body
and parts nor passions?

"That our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation
of God, and that all men are so alienated from God that there is no
salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through God's
redeeming power." Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the
world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If there is, strike
here (tapping his forehead) and you will hear an echo. Something is
for rent. Does any human being now believe that God made man of dust
and a woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the
middle of it? Wasn't there room outside of the garden to put His tree,
if He didn't want people to eat His apple? If I didn't want a man to
eat my fruit I would not put him in my orchard.

Does anybody now believe in the snake story? I pity any man or woman
who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. Why
did they disobey? Why, they were tempted. Who by? The devil. Who
made the devil? What did He make him for? Why didn't He tell Adam and
Eve about this fellow? Why didn't he watch the devil instead of
watc