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Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and the doctrine of
evolution is now an accepted fact. His light has broken in on some of
the early clergy, and the greatest man who today occupies the pulpit is
a believer in the evolution theory of Charles Darwin--and that is Henry
Ward Beecher--a man of more brains than the entire clergy of that entire
church put together. And yet we are told in this little creed that
orthodox religion is about to conquer the world. It will be driven to
the wilds of Africa. It must go to some savage country; it has lost
its hold upon civilization, and I tell you it is unfortunate to have a
religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a nation. It is
unfortunate to have a religion against which every good and noble heart
protests. Let us have a good one or none. O! my pity has been excited
by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp and twist the passages of
scripture to fit some demonstration in science. These pious evasions!
These solemn pretenses! When they are caught in one way they give a
different meaning to the words and say the world was not made in seven
days. They say "good whiles"--epochs. And in this same confession here
of faith and creeds they believe the Lord's day is holy--every seventh
day. Suppose you lived near the north pole, where the day is three
months long. Then which day will you keep? Suppose you could get to
the north pole, you could prevent Sunday from ever overtaking you. You
could walk around the other way faster than the world could revolve.
How would you keep Sunday then? Suppose we ever invent any thing that
can go 1,000 miles an hour? We can just chase Sunday clear around the
globe. Is there anything that can be more perfectly absurd than that a
space of time can be holy! You might as well talk about a pious vacuum.
These pious evasions. I heard the other night of an old man. He was
not very well educated, you know, and he got into the notion that he
must have reading of the bible and have family worship; and there was a
bad boy in the family--a pretty smart boy--and they were reading the
bible by course, and in the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians is this
passage: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not all
die, but we shall be changed." And this boy rubbed out the "c" in the
"changed." So next night the old man got on his specs and got down his
bible and said: "Behold, brethren, I show you a mystery; we shall not
all die, but we shall be hanged." The old lady said, "Father, I don't
think it reads that way." He says, "Who is reading this?" "Yes, mother,
it says be hanged, and, more than that, I see the sense of it. Pride is
the besetting sin of the human heart, and if there is anything
calculated to take the pride out of a man it is hanging."

I keep going back to this book; I keep going back to the miracles, to
the prophecies, to the fables, and people ask me, if I take away the
bible, what are we going to do? How can we get along without the
revelation that no one understands? What are we going to do if we have
no bible to quarrel about? What are we to do without hell? What are we
going to do with our enemies? What are we going to do with the people we
love but don't like? They tell me that there never would have been any
civilization if it had not been for this bible. Um! The Jews had a
bible; the Romans had not. Which had the greater and the grander
government? Let us be honest. Which of those nations produced the
greatest poets, the greatest soldiers, the greatest orators, the
greatest statesmen, the greatest sculptors? Rome had no bible. God
cared nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men come up by chance.
His time was taken up by the Jewish people. And yet Rome conquered the
world, and even conquered God's chosen people. The people that had the
bible were defeated by the people who had not. How was it possible for
Lucretius to get along without the bible? How did the great and
glorious of that empire? And what shall we say of Greece? No bible.
Compare Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens comes the beauty and
intellectual grace of the world. Compare the mythology of Greece with
the mythology of Judea. One covering the earth with beauty, and the
other filling heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no
bible; they had been forsaken by the creator, and yet they became the
greatest metaphysicians of the world. Egypt had no bible. Compare even
Egypt with Judea. What are we to do without the bible? What became of
the Jews who had no bible; their temple was destroyed and their city was
taken; and, as I said before, they never found real prosperity until
their God deserted them. Do without the bible?

Now I come again to the new testament. There are a few things in there,
I give you my word, I cannot believe. I cannot--I cannot believe in the
miraculous origin of Jesus Christ. I believe He was the son of Joseph
and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly and legally married; that
He was the legitimate offspring of that marriage, and nobody ever
believed the contrary until He had been dead 150 years. Neither
Matthew, Mark nor Luke ever dreamed that He was of divine origin. He
did not say to either Matthew, Mark or Luke, or to any one in their
hearing, that He was the son of God, or that He was miraculously
conceived. He did not say it. The angel Gabriel, who, they say,
brought the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. His mother never
wrote a word upon the subject. His father never wrote a word upon the
subject. We are lacking in the matter of witnesses. I would not
believe it now! I cannot believe it then. I would not believe people I
know, much less would I believe people I don't know. I say that at that
time Matthew, Mark and Luke believed that He was the son of Joseph and
Mary. And why? They say He descended from the blood of David, and in
order to show that He was of the blood of David they gave the genealogy
of Joseph. And if Joseph was not his father, why not give the genealogy
of Pontius Pilate or Herod? Could they, by giving the genealogy of
Joseph, show that He was of the blood of David if Joseph was in no way
related to David; and yet that is the position into which the Christian
world is now driven. It says the son of Joseph, and then interpolated
the words "as was supposed." Why, then, do they give a supposed
genealogy. It will not do. And that is a thing that cannot in any way,
by any human testimony, be established; and if it is important for us
to know that He was the Son of God, I say then that it devolves upon God
to give us evidence. Let Him write it across the face of the heavens,
in every language of mankind. If it is necessary for us to believe it,
let it grow on every leaf next year. No man should be damned for not
believing unless the evidence is overwhelming. And he ought not to be
made to depend upon say-so. He should have it directly for himself. A
man says God told him so and so, and he tells me, and I haven't anyone's
word but that fellow's. He may have been deceived. If God has a
message for me He ought to tell it to me, and not somebody that has been
dead 4,000 or 5,000 years, and in another language; God may have
changed His mind on many things; He has on slavery at least, and
polygamy; and yet His church now wants to go out here and destroy
polygamy in Utah with a sword. Why don't they send missionaries there
with copies of the old testament? By reading the lives of Abraham, and
Isaac, and Lot, and a few other fellows that ought to have been in the
penitentiary, they can soften their hearts.

Now, there is another miracle I do not believe. I want to speak about
it as we would about any ordinary transaction in the world. In the first
place, I do not believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if
there was, you can't prove it. Why? Because it is altogether more
reasonable that the people lied about it than that it happened. And
why? Because, according to human experience, we know that people will
not always tell the truth, and we never saw a miracle, and we have got
to be governed by our experience, and if we go by our experience, it is
in favor that the thing never happened; that the man is mistaken. Now,
I want you to remember it. Here is a man that comes into Jerusalem, and
the first thing he does he cures the blind. He lets the light of day
visit the darkness of blindness. The eyes are opened and the whole
world is again pictured upon the brain. Another man is clothed with
leprosy. He touches him, and the disease falls from him, and he stands
pure, and clean, and whole. Another man is deformed, wrinkled, bent.
He touches him and throws upon him again the garment of youth. A man is
in his grave, and He says, "Come forth!" and he again walks in life,
feeling his heart throb and beat, and his blood going joyously through
his veins. They say that happened. I don't know. There is one
wonderful thing about the dead people that were raised--we don't hear of
them any more. What became of them? Why, if there was a man in this
town that had been raised from the dead, I would go to see him tonight.
I would say, "Where were you when you got the notice to come back? What
kind of country is it? What kind of opening there for a young man? How
did you like it?" But nobody ever paid the slightest attention to them
there. They didn't even excite interest when they died the second time.
Nobody said, "Why, that man isn't afraid. He has been there." Not a
word. They pass away quietly. You see I don't believe it. There is
something wrong somewhere about that business. And then there is
another trouble in my mind. Now, you know I may suffer eternal
punishment for all this.

Here is a man that does all these things, and thereupon they crucify
Him. Now, then, let us be honest. Suppose a man came into Chicago and
he should meet a funeral procession, and he should say, "Who is dead?"
and they should say, "The son of a widow; her only support," and he
should say to the procession, "Halt!" And to the undertaker, "Take out
that coffin, unscrew that lid." "Young man, I say unto thee, arise!"
And the latter should step from the coffin, and in one moment after hold
his mother in his arms. Suppose he should go to your cemetery and
should find some woman holding a little child in each hand, while the
tears fell upon a new-made grave, and he should say to her, "Who lies
buried here?" and she should reply, "My husband," and he should say, "I
say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy dead," and the husband should rise
and in a moment after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little
children with their arms around his neck. Suppose that it is so. Do
you think that the people of Chicago would kill him? Do you think any
one would wish to crucify him? Do you not rather believe that every one
who had a loved one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon
their knees, and beg him and implore him to give back their dead? Do
you believe that any man was ever crucified who was the master of death?
Let me tell you tonight if there shall ever appear on this earth the
master, the monarch of death, all human knees will touch the earth; he
will not be crucified, he will not be touched. All the living who fear
death; all the living who have lost a loved one will stand and cling to
him. And yet we are told that this worker of miracles, this worker of
wonders, this man who could clothe the dead in the throbbing flesh of
life, was crucified by the Jewish people. It was never dreamed that he
did a miracle until 100 years after he was dead.

There is another miracle I do not believe, I cannot believe it, and that
is the resurrection. And why? If it was the fact, if the dead got out
of the grave, why did He not show himself to his enemies? Why did He
not again visit Pontius Pilate? Why did He not call upon Caiaphas, the
high priest? Why did He not make another triumphal entry into
Jerusalem? Why did He not again enter the temple and dispute with the
doctors? Why didn't He say to the multitude: "Here are the wounds in
My feet, and in My hands, and in My side. I am the one you endeavored
to kill, but Death is My slave." Why didn't He? Simply because the
thing never happened. I cannot believe it. But recollect, it makes no
difference with its teachings. They are exactly as good whether He
wrought miracles or not. Twice two are four; that needs no miracle.
Twice two are five--a miracle would not help that. Christ's teachings
are worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no difference about
miracle or about wonder, but you must remember in that day every one
believed in miracles. Nobody had any standing as a teacher, a
philosopher, a governor, or a king, about whom there was not a something
miraculous. The earth was then covered with the sons and daughters of
the gods and goddesses. That was believed in Greece, in Rome, in Egypt,
in Hindustan; everybody, nearly, believed in such things.

Then there is another miracle that I cannot believe in, and that is the
ascension--the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ. Where was He going?
Since the telescope has been pointed at the stars, where was He going?
The New Jerusalem is not there. The abode of the gods is not there.
Where was He going? Which way did He go? That depends upon the time of
day that He left. If He left in the night He went exactly the opposite
way from what He would in the day. Who saw this miracle? They say the
disciples. Let us see what they say about it. Matthew did not think it
was worth mentioning. He doesn't speak of it at all. On the contrary,
he says that the last words of Christ were: "Lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world." That is what he says. Mark, he saw
it. "So, then, after the Lord had spoken unto them He was received up
into heaven and sat on the right hand of God." That is all he has to
say about the most wonderful thing that ever blessed human vision--about
a miracle great enough to have stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet
we have one poor, little meagre verse. So, then, after He had quit
speaking, He was caught up and sat on the right hand of God. How does
he know He was on the right hand? Did he see Him after He had sat down?
Luke says: "And it came to pass while He blessed them He was parted from
them and was carried up into heaven." But John does not mention it. He
gives as His last words this address to Peter: "Follow thou Me." Of
course He did not say that as He ascended. In the Acts we have another
account. A conversation is given not spoken of in any of the others,
and we find there two men clad in white apparel, who said: "Men of
Galilee, why stand ye here gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus that
was taken up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen
Him go up into Heaven." Matthew didn't see that; Mark forgot it; Luke
didn't think it was worth mentioning, and John didn't believe it; and
yet upon that evidence we are led to believe that the most miraculous of
all miracles actually occurred. I cannot believe it.

I may be mistaken; but the church is now trying to parry, and when they
come to the little miracles of the new testament all they say is:
"Christ didn't cast out devils; these men had fits." He cured fits.
Then I read in another place about the fits talking. Christ held a
dialogue with the fits, and the fits told Him his name, and the fits at
that time were in a crazy man. And the fits made a contract that they
would go out of the man provided they would be permitted to go into
swine. How can fits that attack a man take up a residence in swine?
The church must not give up the devil. He is the right bower. No
devil, no hell; no hell, no preacher; no fire, no insurance. I read
another miracle--that this devil took Christ and put him on the pinnacle
of a temple. Was that fits, too? Why is not the theological world
honest? Why do they not come up and admit what they know the book
means? They have not the courage. Now, their next doctrine is the
absolute necessity of belief. That depends upon this: Can a man
believe as he wants to? Can you? Can anybody? Does belief depend at
all upon the evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases. How is
it that when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence--
hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the law,
and upon their oaths, are equally divided, six for the plaintiff and six
for the defendant? It is because evidence does not have the same effect
upon all people. Why? Our brains are not alike--not the same shape;
we have not the same intelligence or the same experience, the same
sense. And yet I am held accountable for my belief. I must believe in
the Trinity--three times one is one, once one is three--and my soul is
to be eternally damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum.
And that is the poison part of Christianity--that salvation depends upon
belief--that is the poison part, and until that dogma is discarded
religion will be nothing but superstition. No man can control his
belief. If I hear certain evidence I will believe a certain thing. If
I fail to hear it I may never believe it. If it is adapted to my mind I
may accept it; if it is not, I reject it. And what am I to go by? My
brain. That is the only light I have from nature, and if there be a
God, it is the only torch that this God has given me by which to find my
way through the darkness and the night called life. I do not depend
upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the word of any other man,
nor get upon my knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I
go and consult the God--that is to say, my reason--and the oracle
speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's
oracle? Shall I take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what
God said to him?

I would not know a god if I should see one. I have said before, and I
say again, the brain thinks in spite of me, and I am not responsible for
my thought. No more can I control the beating of my heart, the
expansion and contraction of my lungs for a moment; no more can I stop
the blood that flows through the rivers of the veins. And yet I am held
responsible for my belief. Then why does not the God give me the
evidence? They say He has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do
not understand it as they do. Must I be false to my understanding?
They say: "When you come to die you will be sorry you did not." Will I
be sorry when I come to die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I be
sorry I did not say I was a Christian when I was not? Will the fact
that I was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death? God cannot
forgive me for that. They say when He was in Jerusalem, He forgave His
murderers. Now He won't forgive an honest man for differing with Him on
the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to me, "Forgive your
enemies." I say, "All right, I do;" but he says, "I will damn mine."
God should be consistent. If He wants me to forgive my enemies, He
should forgive His. I am asked to forgive enemies who can hurt me. God
is only asked to forgive enemies who cannot hurt Him. He certainly
ought to be as generous as He asks us to be. And I want no God to
forgive me unless I do forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is
that this God should live according to His own doctrine. If I am to
forgive my enemies I ask Him to forgive His. That is justice, that is
right. Here are these millions today who say: "We are to be saved by
belief, by faith; but what are we to believe?"

In St. Louis last Sunday I read an interview with a Christian minister--
one who is now holding a revival. They call him the boy preacher--a
name that he has borne for fifty or sixty years. The question was
whether in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls from
eternal torture, they would allow colored people to occupy seats with
white people, and that revivalist, preaching the unsearchable richness
of Christ, said he would not allow the colored people to sit with white
people; they must go to the back of the church. The same people go and
sit right next to them in heaven, swap harps with them, and yet this
man, believing as he says he does, that if he did not believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ he would eternally perish, was not willing that the
colored man should sit by a white man while he heard the gospel of
everlasting peace. He was not willing that the colored man should get
into the lifeboat of Christ, although those white men might be totally
depraved, and if they had justice done them, according to his doctrine.
would be eternally damned--and yet he has the impudence to put on airs,
although he ought to be eternally damned, and go and sit by the colored
man. His doctrine of religion, the color line, has not my respect. I
believe in the religion of humanity, and it is far better to love our
fellow-men than to love God, because we can help them, and we cannot
help Him. You had better do what you can than to be always pretending
to do what you cannot.

Now I come to the last part of the bible--this creed--and that is,
eternal punishment, and I have concluded; and I have said I will never
deliver a lecture that I do not give the full benefit of its name. That
part of the Congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage that
crouches and crawls in the jungles of Africa. The man who now, in the
nineteenth century, preaches the doctrine of eternal punishment, the
doctrine of eternal hell, has lived in vain. Think of that doctrine!
The eternity of punishment! Why, I find in that same creed that Christ
is finally going to triumph in this world and establish His kingdom;
but if their doctrine is true, He will never triumph in the other world.
He will have billions in hell forever. In this world we never will be
perfectly civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the
earth. As long as there is a penitentiary, behind the walls of which a
human being is immured, we are not a civilized people. We will never be
perfectly civilized until we do away with crime and criminals. And yet,
according to this Christian religion, God is to have an eternal
penitentiary; He is to be an everlasting jailor, an everlasting
turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and He is going to keep
prisoners there, not for the purpose of reforming them--because they are
never going to get any better, only getting worse--just for the purpose
of punishing them. And what for? For something they did in this world;
born in ignorance, educated it may be in poverty, and yet responsible
through the countless ages of eternity. No man can think of a greater
horror; no man can think of a greater absurdity. For the growth of
that doctrine, ignorance was soil and fear was rain. That doctrine came
from the fanged mouths of wild beasts, and yet it is the "glad tidings
of great joy."

"God so loved the world" He is going to damn most everybody, and, if this
Christian religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best
who ever lived upon this earth, are suffering its torments tonight. It
don't appear to make much difference, however, with this church. They
go right on enjoying themselves as well as ever. If their doctrine is
true, Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest, and best of men, who did so
much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of God
tonight, while he endeavored to establish freedom among men. If the
churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearts, "Benjamin
Franklin is in hell, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate
Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of
Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been damned these many
years." That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to
say. Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed or change it. I want to
impress it upon your mind, because the thing I wish to do in this world
is to put out the fires of hell I want to keep at it just as long as
there is one little coal red in the bottomless pit. As long as the
ashes are warm, I shall denounce this infamous doctrine.

I want you to know that the men who founded this great and glorious
government are there. The most of the men who fought in the
Revolutionary War and wrested from the clutch of Great Britain this
continent; have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of God. The old
Revolutionary soldiers are in hell by the thousands. Let the preachers
have the courage to say so. The men who fought in 1812, and gave to the
United States the freedom of the seas, nearly all of them have been
damned since 1815--all that were killed. The greatest of heroes, they
are there. The greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who
have made the world beautiful and grand, they are all, I tell you, among
the damned, if this creed is true. Humboldt, who shed light, and who
added to the intellectual wealth of mankind, Goethe, and Schiller, and
Lessing, who almost created the German language--all gone! All
suffering the wrath of God tonight, and every time an angel thinks of
one of those men he gives his harp an extra twang.

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