preachers, 226,000
Sunday-school scholars, and about $1,000,000,000 invested in church
property. I find, in looking over the history of the world, that there
are 40,000,000 or 50,000,000,000 of people born a year, and if they are
saved at the rate of 30,000 a year, about how long will it take that
doctrine to save this world? Good, honest people; they are mistaken.

In old times they were very simple. Churches used to be like barns.
They used to have them divided--men on that side, and women on this. A
little barbarous. We have advanced since then, and we now find as a
fact, demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by the woman he
loves can thank God as heartily as though sitting between two men that
he has never been introduced to.

There is another thing these Methodists should remember, and that is,
that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. And
they should remember that the Free-Thinkers have always treated them
kindly and well.

There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North that I like.
But I find that it is not Methodism that does that. I find that the
Methodist Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the
Methodist Church North is in favor of liberty. So it is not Methodism
that is in favor of liberty or slavery. They differ a little in their
creed from the rest. They do not believe that God does everything.
They believe that He does His part, and that you must do the rest, and
that getting to heaven is a partnership business.

The next church is the Presbyterians--in my judgment the worst of all,
as far as creed is concerned. This Church was founded by John Calvin,
a murderer! John Calvin, having power in Geneva, inaugurated human
torture. Voltaire abolished torture in France. The man who abolished
torture, if the Christian religion be true, God is now torturing in
hell; and the man who inaugurated torture, is now a glorified angel in
heaven. It won't do.

John Knox started this doctrine in Scotland, and there is this
peculiarity about Presbyterianism, it grows best where the soil is
poorest. I read the other day an account of a meeting between John
Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a
famine! Imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! As I read
their conversation it seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin
were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper
and lower jaws of