Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved this world that He made up His mind to damn the most of us. I have read this book, and what shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so? They say that if you do you will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it--they don't tell their honest convictions about the bible. There are two great arguments of the church--the great man argument and the death-bed. They say the religion of your fathers is good enough. Why should your father object to your inventing a better plow than he had. They say to one, do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do. Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequence like a man. And so I object to paying for the support of another man's belief. I am in favor of the taxation of all church property. If that property belongs to God, He is able to pay the tax. If we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan. [A voice here interrupted the speaker. Col. Ingersoll--What did the gentleman say? A voice--O, he's drunk. Col. Ingersoll--I didn't think any Christian ought to get drunk and come here to disturb us. The speaker resumed:] The church has today $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of property in this country. It must cost $2,000,000 a week, that is to say $500 a minute, to run these churches. You give me this money and if I don't do more good with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let them make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. They will have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. The time will come when the preacher will become a teacher. Admitting that the bible is the book of God, is that His only good job? Will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the bible? Will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as for denying the scheme of salvation? When the bible was first written it was not believed. Had they known as much about science as we know now that bible would not have been written.