I am told that, taking the words of the Bible in a literal sense, the Christian people believe in many absurd things, and teach them. For instance, in a Sunday-school book, there is a question like the following: “Where do the wicked go?” “To hell,” is the answer. All right. “What kind of a place is hell?” “It is dark, and there the worm dieth not, and there is fire unquenchable.” Now our common sense springs up to protest against this unfortunate statement; declaring that where there is fire unquenchable there cannot be dark at all. Such a fire would light hell so splendidly as to enable its inmates to pick up the very sand off its floor,--of course, if there be any. Heaven and hell are within our own breasts. We experience the joys of one and the pangs of the other. When we perform our duties faithfully, and “love our neighbor as ourselves,” we then commune with God and his angels; and that is what constitutes the joy of heaven. On the other hand, when we neglect our duty,--seek after carnal lust,--defy God and man by our thoughts and actions, and thereby bring sorrows, the hatred of the world, and remorse of conscience--we make hell within us. A pure and contrite heart is heaven, and a heart that loves self exclusively, is hell. Thus I have, very poorly but sincerely, attempted to give my reasons for not believing in the Trinity,--the total depravity of human nature, and everlasting torture in hell. To me they are unscriptural and absurd doctrines. I do not trouble myself with mysteries, but receive the simple words of Christ as my all-sufficient law, of which, “love to God, and love to man,” is the essential part.