hing Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why didn't He keep
him from getting in? Why didn't He have His flood first and drown the
devil, before He made man and woman?

And yet people who call themselves intelligent--professors in colleges
and presidents of venerable institutions--teach children, and young men
who ought to be children, that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute,
historical fact! Well, I guess it will not be long until that will
fade from the imagination of men. I defy any man to think of a more
childish thing. This God waiting around there, knowing all the while
what would happen, made them on purpose so it would happen; and then
what does he do? Holds all of us responsible; and we were not there.
Here is a representative before the constituency had been born. Before
I am bound by a representative, I want a chance to vote for or against
him; and if I had been there, and known all the circumstances, I should
have voted against him. And yet, I am held responsible.

What did Adam do? I cannot see that it amounted to much anyway. A god
that can create something out of nothing ought not to have complained
of the loss of an apple. I can hardly have the patience to speak upon
such a subject. Now, that absurdity gave birth to another--that, while
we could be rightfully charged with the rascality of somebody else, we
could also be credited with the virtues of somebody else; and the
atonement is the absurdity which offsets the other absurdity of the
fall of man. Let us leave them both out; it reads a great deal better
with both of them out; it makes better sense.

Now, in consequence of that, everybody is alienated from God. How?
Why? Oh, we are all depraved, you know; we all want to do wrong. Well,
why? Is that because we are depraved? No. Why do we make so many
mistakes? Because there is only one right way, and there is an almost
infinite number of wrong ones; and as long as we are not perfect in our
intellects we must make mistakes. There is no darkness but ignorance;
and alienation, as they call it, from God, is simply a lack of
intellect upon our part. Why were we not given better brains? That
may account for the alienation. But the church teaches that every soul
that finds its way to the shore of this world is against God--naturally
hates God; that the little dimpled child in the cradle is simply a
chunk of depravity. Everybody against God! It is a libel upon the
human race; it