ing bad. There are no perfect saints and no
totally bad persons. There is the seed of goodness in every human
heart and the capacity for improvement in every human soul. Isn't it
possible for a man who acts like Christ to be saved, whatever be his
belief? Cannot a soul be infinitely generous? And can any God damn
such a soul? If Mr. Talmage's creed be true, nearly all the great and
glorious men of the past are burning today. If it be true, the
greatest man England has produced in 100 years is in hell. The world
is poorer since I spoke here last, for Darwin has passed away. He was
a true child of nature--one who knew more about his mother than any
other child she had. Yet he was not a Calvinist. He did not get his
inspiration from any book, but from every star in the heavens, from the
insect in the sunbeam, from the flowers in the meadows, and from the
everlasting rocks.

If the doctrine of the Calvinists is true, what right had any one to
ask an unbeliever to fight for his country in the civil war? What right
has a believer to buy an unbelieving substitute, when some day he will
look over the edge of heaven, and pointing downward, would say to a
friend, "that is my substitute blistering there"?

Mr. Talmage says that my mind is poisoned, and that the reason why all
infidels' minds are poisoned is that they don't believe the Jew bible.
Let us see whether it is worth believing. I deny that an infinitely
merciful God would protect slavery or would uphold polygamy, which
pollutes the sweetest words in language. I will not believe that God
told men to exterminate their fellow-men, to plunge the sword into
women's breasts and into the hearts of tender babes. I am opposed to
the Jew bible because it is bad. I don't deny that there are many good
passages in it, nor that among all the thorns there are some roses. I
admit that many Christians are doing all they can to idealize the
frightful things in the old testament. It is the protest of human
nature. Now, they tell me that this book is inspired. Let us see what
inspired means. If it means anything, it is that the thoughts of God,
through the instrumentality of men, constitute this Jew bible, and that
these thoughts were written. Now just suppose that some voice
whispered in your ear, how would you know it was God's? How did these
gentlemen of old know it was God who was talking to them? If anyone
now told you that God whispered in his ear, you wouldn't be