before, and I
say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and I am not responsible
for my thought. No more can I control the beating of my heart, the
expansion and contraction of my lungs for a moment; no more can I stop
the blood that flows through the rivers of the veins. And yet I am
held responsible for my belief. Then why does not the God give me the
evidence? They say He has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do
not understand it as they do. Must I be false to my understanding?
They say: "When you come to die you will be sorry you did not." Will
I be sorry when I come to die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I
be sorry I did not say I was a Christian when I was not? Will the fact
that I was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? God cannot
forgive me for that. They say when He was in Jerusalem, He forgave His
murderers. Now He won't forgive an honest man for differing with Him
on the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive
your enemies." I say, "All right, I do;" but he says, "I will damn
mine." God should be consistent. If He wants me to forgive my enemies,
He should forgive His. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me.
God is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt Him. He certainly
ought to be as generous as He asks us to be. And I want no God to
forgive me unless I do forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is
that this God should live according to His own doctrine. If I am to
forgive my enemies I ask Him to forgive His. That is justice, that is
right. Here are these millions today who say: "We are to be saved by
belief, by faith; but what are we to believe?"

In St. Louis last Sunday I read an interview with a Christian
minister--one who is now holding a revival. They call him the boy
preacher--a name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. The
question was whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue
souls from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy
seats with white people, and that revivalist, preaching the
unsearchable richness of Christ, said he would not allow the colored
people to sit with white people; they must go to the back of the
church. The same people go and sit right next to them in heaven, swap
harps with them, and yet this man, believing as he says he does, that
if he did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ he would eternally
perish, was not willing that the colored man should s