That's true! I have heard them preach when I sat in the pew, and my feet didn't come within eighteen inches of the floor, about that hell. And they said, "Suppose that once in a million years a bird would come from some far distant planet, and carry in its bill a grain of sand, the time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away;" and the old preacher said, in order to impress upon the boys the length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't be sun-up in hell yet." Think of that to preach to children! I tell you, my friends, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still--no day! And yet, at that time, the minds of children were polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment; and I denounce it today as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of language to express. Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for the children of men come from? It came from that wretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals, and the doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when they hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was a doctrine born of the howling and barking and growling of wild beasts; it was born in the grin of the hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the serene heaven that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! There have been more men who died in their sins, according to your orthodox religion, than there are leaves on all the forests of this world ten thousand times over. Tell me they are in hell! Tell me they are to be punished for ever and ever! I denounce it as an infamous lie! And when the great ship containing the hope and aspiration of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death and disaster, I will go down with the ship. I don't want to paddle off in any orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship; and if there is a God who will damn his children forever I had rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous Deity. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine, and I'll tell you why. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the heart of children. It has been a pain and terror to every man that ever believed it. It has filled the good with horror and fear, but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. I tell you it is a bad doctrine. I read in the papers today what Henry Ward Beecher, whom I regard as the most intellectual preacher in the pulpit of the United States--I will read from the paper what he said yesterday, and you will see an abstract of it in the New York Times of today. He has had the courage, and he has had the magnificent manhood, to say: