We say so too. Our names
quite balance his names collectively. The game of "authorities" can be
played on both sides. But is it worth playing at all? Is a great name
a substitute for argument? Is authority as good as evidence? Should
the jury decide according to the eminence of the pleader's friends, or
according to his facts and the force of his reasoning?

Taking advantage of his congregation's ignorance, or exposing his own,
Talmage declares that "The discovered monuments of Egypt have chiselled
on them the story of the sufferings of the Israelites in Egyptian
bondage, as we find it in the Bible." Now, to put it mildly, this is not
true. We are also told that "the sulphurous graves of Sodom and Gomorrah
have been identified." To put it mildly again, _this_ is not true. We
are told next that "the remains of the Tower of Babel have been found."
This is not true. Assyrian documents are also said to "echo and re-echo
the truth of Bible history," This is not true, according to Professor
Sayce, who knows more about Assyrian history than Talmage knows about
all things whatsoever. The witness of Assyria repeatedly contradicts the
Bible story, not merely in small matters, but in important features. The
fact is, Talmage does not know what he is talking about; or, he _does_
know what he is talking about, in which case he is playing a very dirty
trick on his hearers' credulity.

With respect to the Pentateuch, it does not trouble Talmage whether
it was written by "Moses or Hilkiah or Ezra or Samuel or Jeremiah, or
another group of ancients." He declares that "none of them wrote it,"
for "God wrote the Pentateuch"--that is to say, they "put down only what
God dictated; he signed it afterward." But where is the signature? And
what a paltry way is this of evading the question at issue! It is all
very well to say that the writers of the Pentateuch were "Jehovah's
stenographers or typewriters." What we want to know first of all is, who
they were, and when they lived.

It is useless to follow Talmage any farther. Suffice it to say that he
winds up by warning young Christians against a "Voltaire cyclone" on
the one side, and a "Tom Paine cyclone" on the other side. There is
something worse than either--a Talmage puddle. The young man who sports
in that is only fit for--well, Exeter Hall, or Colney Hatch.

MRS. BESANT ON DEATH AND AFTER.

When we first criticised Mrs. Besant's newly-found Theosophy, and
thereby incurred her s