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Thomas And Lorimer

Robert Green Ingersoll

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Contents of this file                            page

A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.    1882       1
A REPLY TO REV. JOHN HALL AND WARNER VAN NORDEN. 1892  11
A REPLY TO THE REV. DR. PLUMB.               1898      15
A REPLY TO THE NEW YORK CLERGY ON SUPERSTITION. 1898   19

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This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.

Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201

The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Whenever I lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their
duty to reply for the purpose of showing either that I am unfair,
or that I am blasphemous, or that I laugh. And laughing has always
been considered by theologians as a crime. Ministers have always
said you will have no respect for our ideas unless you are solemn.
Solemnity is a condition precedent to believing anything without
evidence. And if you can only get a man solemn enough, awed enough,
he will believe anything.

In this city the Rev. Dr. Thomas has made a few remarks, and
I may say by way of preface that I have always held him in the
highest esteem. He struggles, according to his statement, with the
problem of my sincerity, and he about half concludes that I am not
sincere. There is a little of the minister left in Dr. Thomas.
Ministers always account for a difference of opinion by attacking
the motive. Now, to him, it makes no difference whether I am
sincere or insincere; the question is, Can my argument be answered?
Suppose you could prove that the maker of the multiplication table
held mathematics in contempt; what of it? Ten times ten would be a
hundred still.

My sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument
-- not the slightest. But this gentleman begins to suspect that I
am doing what I do for the sake of applause. What a commentary on
the Christian religion, that, after they have been preaching it for
sixteen or eighteen hundred years, a man attacks it for the sake of
popularity -- a man attacks it for the purpose of winning applause!
When I commenced to speak upon this subject there was no
appreciable applause; most of my fellow-citizens differed with me;
and I was denounced as though I had been a wild beast. But I have
lived to see the majority of the men and women of intellect in the
United States on my side; I have lived to see the church deny her
creed; I have lived to see ministers apologize in public for what
they preached; and a great and glorious work is going on until, in
a little while, you will not find one of them, unless it is some
old petrifaction of the red-stone period, who will admit that he
ever believed in the Trinity, in the Atonement, or in the doctrine
of Eternal Agony. The religion preached in the pulpits does not

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

satisfy the intellect of America, and if Dr. Thomas wishes to know
why people go to hear infidelity it is this: Because they are not
satisfied with the orthodox Christianity of the day. That is the
reason. They are beginning to hold it in contempt.

But this gentleman imagines that I am insincere because I
attacked certain doctrines of the Bible. I attacked the doctrine of
eternal pain. I hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if
there be a God in this universe who made a hell; if there be a God
in this universe who denies to any human being the right of
reformation, then that God is not good, that God is not just, and
the future of man is infinitely dark. I despise that doctrine, and
I have done what little I could to get that horror from the cradle,
that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the hearts
of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. It is
a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all
the hopes of mankind. I despise it.

And the gentleman also charges that I am wanting in reverence.
I admit here to-day that I have no reverence for a falsehood. I do
not care how old it is, and I do not care who told it, whether the
men were inspired or not. I have no reverence for what I believe to
be false, and in determining what is false I go by my reason. And
whenever another man gives me an argument I examine it. If it is
good I follow it. If it is bad I throw it away. I have no reverence
for any book that upholds human slavery. I despise such a book. I
have no reverence for any book that upholds or palliates the
infamous institution of polygamy. I have no reverence for any book
that tells a husband to kill his wife if she differs with him upon
the subject of religion. I have no reverence for any book that
defends wars of conquest and extermination. I have no reverence for
a God that orders his legions to slay the old and helpless, and to
whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers and babes. I
have no reverence for such a book; neither have I any reverence for
the author of that book. No matter whether he be God or man, I have
no reverence. I have no reverence for the miracles of the Bible. I
have no reverence for the story that God allowed bears to tear
children in pieces. I have no reverence for the miraculous, but I
have reverence for the truth, for justice, for charity, for
humanity, for intellectual liberty, and for human progress.

I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it.
I have never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to
think for himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence
for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence
for the savagery of the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice
of the New. And let me tell you here to-night that the Old
Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old
Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was
satisfied when his enemy was dead. It was reserved for the New
Testament -- it was reserved for universal benevolence -- to rend
the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of
man upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse
than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the
fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that the New
Testament is good. I have no reverence for any book that teaches a
doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it
is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have
died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no
reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.

Dr. Thomas seems to think that I should approach these things
with infinite care, that I should not attack slavery, or polygamy,
or religious persecution, but that I should "mildly suggest" --
mildly, -- should not hurt anybody's feelings. When I go to church
the ministers tell me I am going to hell. When I meet one I tell
him, "There is no hell," and he says: "What do you want to hurt our
feelings for? "He wishes me mildly to suggest that the sun and moon
did not stop, that may be the bears only frightened the children,
and that, after all. Lot's wife was only scared. Why, there was a
minister in this city of Chicago who imagined that his congregation
were progressive, and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not
believe the story of Lot's wife -- said that he did not think that
any sensible man would believe that a woman was changed into salt;
and they tried him, and the congregation thought he was entirely
too fresh. And finally he went before that church and admitted that
he was mistaken, and owned up to the chloride of sodium. and said:
"I not only take the Bible cum grano salis, but with a whole
barrel-full."

My doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so; no need
of going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps,
possibly, peradventure. That is the ministerial way, but I do not
like it. I am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good
as well as the bad. I say here today that never in my life have I
said one word against honesty, one word against liberty, one word
against charity, one word against any institution that is good. I
attack the bad, not the good, and I would like to have some
minister point out in some lecture or speech that I have delivered,
one word against the good, against the highest happiness of the
human race.

I have said all I was able to say in favor of Justice, in
favor of liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children,
in favor of progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not
one word in favor of the bad, and I never expect to.

Dr. Thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in
spite of us.

Doesn't it? Can any man tell what he is going to think
to-morrow? You see, you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell --
these are the avenues by which Nature approaches the brain, the
consequence of this is thought, and you cannot by any possibility
help thinking.

Neither can you determine what you will think. These
impressions are made independently of your will. "But," says this
reverend doctor, "Whence comes this conception of space?" I can
tell him. There is such a thing as matter. We conceive that matter
occupies room -- space -- and, in our minds, space is simply the
opposite of matter. And it comes naturally -- not supernaturally.

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of God
for us to conceive of a place where there is nothing? We know there
is something. We can think of the opposite of something, and
therefore we say space. "But," says this gentleman, "Where do we
get the idea of good and bad?" I can tell him; no trouble about
that. Every man has the capacity to enjoy and the capacity to
suffer -- every man. Whenever a man enjoys himself he calls that
good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad. The animals that are
useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the hurtful, he calls
bad. The vegetables that he can eat and use he calls good; those
that are of no use except to choke the growth of the good ones, he
calls bad. When the sun shines, when everything in nature is out
that ministers to him, he says "this is good;" when the storm comes
and blows down his hut, when the frost comes and lays down his
crop, he says "this is bad." And all phenomena that affect men well
he calls good; all that affect him ill he calls bad.

Now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is
the effect in nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of
suffering. That is the foundation of conscience; and if man could
not suffer, if man could not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of
the word conscience; and the words right and wrong never could have
passed human lips. There are no supernatural fields. We get our
ideas from experience -- some of them from our forefathers, many
from experience. A man works -- food does not come of itself. A man
works to raise it, and, after he has worked in the sun and heat, do
you think it is necessary that he should have a revelation from
heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it than the
man who did not work? And yet, according to these gentlemen, we
never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the Ten
Commandments been given from Mount Sinai.

You go into a savage country where they never heard of the
Bible, and let a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one
little bird, and the hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take
it from him, and you would see whether he would need a direct
revelation from God in order to make up his mind who had the better
right to that bird. Our ideas of right and wrong are born of our
surroundings, and if a man will think for a moment he will see it.
But they deny that the mind thinks in spite of us. I heard a story
of a man who said, "No man can think of one thing a minute, he will
think of something else." Well, there was a little Methodist
preacher. He said he could think of a thing a minute -- that he
could say the Lord's Prayer and never think of another thing.
"Well," said the man, "I'll tell you what I will do. There is the
best road-horse in the country. I will give you that horse if you
will just say the Lord's Prayer, and not think of another thing."
And the little fellow shut up his eyes: "Our Father which art in
Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done --
I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"

I have always insisted, and I shall always insist, until I
find some fact in Nature correcting the statement, that Nature sows
the seeds of thought -- that every brain is a kind of field where
the seeds are sown, and that some are very poor. and some are very
barren, and some are very rich. That is my opinion.

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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Again he asks; If one is not responsible for his thought, why
is any one blamed for thinking as he does? "It is not a question of
blame, it is a question of who is right -- a question of who is
wrong. Admit that every one thinks exactly as he must, that does
not show that his thought is right; that does not show that his
thought is the highest thought. Admit that every piece of land in
the world produces what it must; that does not prove that the land
covered with barren rocks and a little moss is just as good as the
land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it prove that the
mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it prove
that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold
men responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for
their actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty
is this -- the right to do anything that does not interfere with
another -- in other words, to act right; and intellectual liberty
is this -- the right to think right, and the right to think wrong,
provided you do your best to think right. I have always said it,
and I expect to say it always.

The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual
theory. I believe in that theory.

If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the
direct interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is
right. It is a theory of evolution.

I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that
chemistry came from the black art; and I also contend that religion
will be lost in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the
budding of the seed, the shining of the sun, the dropping of the
rain; I believe in the spreading and the growing; and that is as
true in every other department of the world as it is in vegetation.
I believe it; but that does not account for the Bible doctrine. We
are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it will not do to
say God gradually grows. If he is infinite now, he knows as much as
he ever will. If he has been always infinite, he knew as much at
the time he wrote the Bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently,
whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. You see
they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with religion -- a
little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the
supernatural.

Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the
clergymen in the world could not get one drop of rain out of the
sky. I insist on it. All the prayers on earth cannot produce one
drop of rain. I also said all the clergymen of the world could not
save one human life. They tried it last year. They tried it in the
United States. The Christian world upon its knees implored God to
save one life, and the man died. The man died! Had the man
recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in answer
to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say now? What
is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is prayer
and there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else
say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" I do.
Let us put it another way. There is rain and there is infidelity;
can any one say there is no possible relation between the two? How
does Dr. Thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

crops? And yet this gentleman really throws out the idea that there
is some possible relation between prayer and rain, between rain and
health; and he tells us that he would have died twenty-five years
ago had it not been for prayer. I doubt it. prayer is not a
medicine. Life depends upon certain facts -- not upon prayer. All
the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of
the blood. All the prayer in the world is no substitute for
digestion. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of
food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he eats
considerable besides. It will not do. Again: This reverend Doctor
says: "Shall we say that all the love of the unseen world" -- how
does he know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love
of God" -- how does he know there is any love in God? "heed not the
cries and tears of earth?"

I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of
religious persecution. Let him read the history of those who were
put in dungeons. of those who lifted their chained hands to God and
mingled prayer with the clank of fetters; men that were in the
dungeons simply for loving this God, simply for worshiping this
God. And what did God do? Nothing. The chains remained upon the
limbs of his worshipers. They remained in the dungeons built by
theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God do? Nothing.
Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled
around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did God
do? Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds
and thousands of men, women and children perished. Women lifted
their hands to God and implored him to protect their children,
their daughters; and what did God do? Nothing. Whole races were
enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the naked back of toil.
What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from the arms of
mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the
brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human beings,
his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what
did God do? Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the
shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does God do? Nothing.
There come plague and pestilence and famine. What does God do?
Thousands and thousands perish. Little children die upon the
withered breasts of mothers; and what does God do? Nothing.

What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man
have ever touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to
the history of the world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and
agony, and imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the
bravest and best. Have they ever touched the heart of the Infinite?
Has the hand of help ever been reached from heaven? I do not know;
but I do not believe it.

Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right
has he to tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He
had too much brain to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a
doubt -- and a doubt is born of an idea. And his doctrine has been
declared by his own church to be unorthodox. They have passed on
his case and they have found him unconstitutional. What right has
he to state what is orthodox? And here is what he says:

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

"Christianity" -- orthodox Christianity I suppose he means --
"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and punishments
are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of the
government of God are the same there as here; that character, and
not profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens,
and all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall
receive their just rewards; that souls will always be in the place
in which for the time, be it now or a million years hence, they are
fitted. That is what Christianity teaches."

If it does, never will I have another word to say against
Christianity. It never has taught it. Christianity -- orthodox
Christianity -- teaches that when you draw your last breath you
have lost the last opportunity for reformation. Christianity
teaches that this little world is the eternal line between time and
eternity, and if you do not get religion in this life, you will be
eternally damned in the next. That is Christianity. They say: "Now
is the accepted time." If you put it off until you die, that is too
late; and the doctrine of the Christian world is that there is no
opportunity for reformation in another world. The doctrine of
orthodox Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in
the next world. You must believe on him here and that if you fail
here, God in his infinite wisdom will never give you another
chance. That is orthodox Christianity; and according to orthodox
Christianity, the greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world
are now in hell. And why is it that they say it is not orthodox
Christianity? I have made them ashamed of their doctrine. When I
called to their attention the fact that such men as Darwin, such
men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow, Laplace, Shakespeare, and
Humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company
in heaven would not be very interesting with such men left out.

And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those
men another chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most
sanguine expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their
creeds; I have made them ashamed of their doctrine -- and that is
glory enough. They will let me in, a few years after I am dead. I
admit that the doctrine that God will treat us as we treat others
-- I admit that is taught by Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but it is not
taught by the Orthodox church. I want that understood. I admit also
that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and that he was driven out of the
church because he thought God too good to damn men forever without
giving them the slightest chance. Why, the Catholic Church is a
thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that
question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory -- that is, a
place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new
trial.

Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think.
Tell your congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by
divine inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your
people whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery. Do not
shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld
polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of
religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people
whether you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad

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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

one and the bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you
really think and there will not be as much difference between you
and myself as you imagine.

The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He
comes to the rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from
the fact that he is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God
has a choice as to the manner in which a man or babe shall be
dampened. This gentleman regards modern infidelity as "pitifully
shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and as to its
philosophical views of the universe and of the problems regarding
man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully shallow!"

What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern
conception is that the universe always has been and forever will
be. The modern conception of the universe is that it embraces
within its infinite arms all matter, all spirit, all forms of
force, all that is, all that has been, all that can be. That is the
modern conception of this universe. And this is called "pitiful."

What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in
the universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish
Jehovah who made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs
of this world. And they even go so far as to say that that Being
made experiments in which he signally failed. That Being made man
and woman and put them in a garden and allowed them to become
totally depraved. That Being of infinite wisdom made hundreds and
millions of people when he knew he would have to drown them. That
Being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children,
knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire.
That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That is an infamous
conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception of
Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of
Tyndall and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of
the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think
that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step
toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom: it
feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and
full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by
an old bachelor for all eternity.

Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I
propose to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin
and our relations to the present and to the possible future from
human thought. I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world
at a time. Why? Do not make yourself miserable about another. Why?
Because I do not know anything about it, and it may be good. So do
not worry. That is all. You do not know where you are going to
land. It may be the happy port of heaven. Wait until you get there.
It will be time enough to make trouble then. This is what I have
said. I have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom
emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it. Life is a
shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short
steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love,
to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and
where the only salutation is "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good
morning I do not know, but I am willing to wait.

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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build
palaces for the future, but do not let us spend time making
dungeons for men who happen to differ from us. I am willing to take
the conceptions of Humboldt and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and
I am willing to compare their splendid conceptions with the
doctrine embraced in the Baptist creed. This gentleman has his
ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that, "No one
has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and Darwin are
castaways." Why not? They were not Christians. They did not believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration
of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are
castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy
condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right,
and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what
I say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the
best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of
God. or in the divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. Does it
not say it? Is there an orthodox minister in this town now who will
stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? He will not.
Let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy.

I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of
judgment, and they cross-examine him, and they say to him:

"Did you believe the Bible?"

"No."

"Did you belong to the church?"

"No."

"Did you take care of your wife and children?"

"Yes?"

"Pay your debts?"

"Yes."

"Love your country?"

"Yes."

"Love the whole world?"

"Yes."

"Never made anybody unhappy?"

"Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever
wronged let them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am;
but," said he, "I did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in
the divinity of Jesus Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not
believe in the existence of God. I now find I was mistaken; but
that was my doctrine."

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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Now, I want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is
done with that man? He is sent to hell.

That is their doctrine.

Then the next fellow comes. He says:

"Where did you come from?"

And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side
and he says:

"I came from the gallows. I was just hung."

"What were you hung for?" " Murdering my wife. She wasn't a
Christian either, she got left. The day I was hung I was washed in
the blood of the Lamb."

That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the
band play!"

That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged --
there is a minister there, and the minister tells him he is all
right. All he has to do is just to believe on the Lord.

Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am
scurrilous. Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he
is not scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards."
That is simply to show that he is not scurrilous.

Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks
independently of the will; and I propose to prove by him that it
does. He is the last man in the world to controvert that doctrine
-- the last man. In spite of himself his mind absorbed the sermon
of another man, and he repeated it as his own. I am satisfied he is
an honest man; consequently his mind acted independently of his
will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in favor of my
position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely obliged
to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.

He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and
renders him unfit for the discharge of the highest duties
pertaining to life, and that we show the greatest shallowness when
we endeavor to overthrow Calvinism. What is Calvinism? It is the
doctrine that an infinite God made millions of people, knowing that
they would be damned. I have answered that a thousand times. I
answer it again. No God has a right to make a mistake, and then
damn the mistake. No God has a right to make a failure, and a man
who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. No God
has a right to make an investment that will not finally pay a
dividend.

The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life
and all mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all
going wrong, that immorality was stalking through the land, that
crime was about to engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their
prophecies, the world has steadily grown better, and there is more

Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
10

A REPLY TO REV'D DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

justice, more charity, more kindness, more goodness, and more
liberty in the world to-day than ever before. And there is more
infidelity in the world to-day than ever before.

END