"That our first parents, by disobedience, fell under the condemnation of God, and that all men are so alienated from God that there is no salvation from the guilt and power of sin except through God's redeeming power." Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If there is, strike here (tapping his forehead) and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent. Does any human being now believe that God made man of dust and a woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the middle of it? Wasn't there room outside of the garden to put His tree, if He didn't want people to eat His apple? If I didn't want a man to eat my fruit I would not put him in my orchard. Does anybody now believe in the snake story? I pity any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. Why did they disobey? Why, they were tempted. Who by? The devil. Who made the devil? What did He make him for? Why didn't He tell Adam and Eve about this fellow? Why didn't he watch the devil instead of watching Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why didn't He keep him from getting in? Why didn't He have His flood first and drown the devil, before He made man and woman? And yet people who call themselves intelligent--professors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions--teach children, and young men who ought to be children, that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute, historical fact! Well, I guess it will not be long until that will fade from the imagination of men. I defy any man to think of a more childish thing. This God waiting around there, knowing all the while what would happen, made them on purpose so it would happen; and then what does he do? Holds all of us responsible; and we were not there. Here is a representative before the constituency had been born. Before I am bound by a representative, I want a chance to vote for or against him; and if I had been there, and known all the circumstances, I should have voted against him. And yet, I am held responsible. What did Adam do? I cannot see that it amounted to much anyway. A god that can create something out of nothing ought not to have complained of the loss of an apple. I can hardly have the patience to speak upon such a subject. Now, that absurdity gave birth to another--that, while we could be rightfully charged with the rascality of somebody else, we could also be credited with the virtues of somebody else; and the atonement is the absurdity which offsets the other absurdity of the fall of man. Let us leave them both out; it reads a great deal better with both of them out; it makes better sense.