dimpled hands of children; and he regarded these things as the justice
and mercy of God. And all today who believe in this eternal punishment
are the barbarians of the nineteenth century. That man believed in a
devil, that had a long tail terminating with a fiery dart; that had
wings like a bat--a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing
brimstone, that had a cloven foot, such as some orthodox clergymen seem
to think I have. And there has not been a patentable improvement made
upon that devil in all the years since. The moment you drive the devil
out of theology, there is nothing left worth speaking of. The moment
they drop the devil, away goes atonement. The moment they kill the
devil, their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for
mankind. You must keep the devil and, you must keep Hell. You must
keep the devil, because with no devil no priest is necessary. Now, all
I ask is this--the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon
his dug-out, and that is what I am going to do, the best I can. No
matter what church you belong to, or what church belongs to us. Let us
be honor bright and fair.

I want to ask you: Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest
if there was one at that time, had told these gentlemen in the dug-out:
"That dug-out is the best boat that can be built by man; the pattern of
that came from on high, from the great God of storm and flood, and any
man who says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle of it
and a rag on the stick, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the
stake;" what, in your judgment--honor bright--would have been the
effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? Suppose the king, if
there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and I presume there
was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose the king and
priest had said: "The tomtom is the most beautiful instrument of music
of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in
Heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud, golden in
the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so
entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped
it--that is how we obtained it; and any man who says it can be improved
by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and
getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall
die the death,"--I ask you, what effect would that have ha