I heard his words with great displeasure, for they taught the philosophy of Hell, with Heaven on the face of it. “I must congratulate myself,” commenced he, “on having the privilege of addressing so intelligent a class of people. I only hope that I may be helpful to you in your quest of knowledge. “The central theme of this hall is ‘Jesus Christ’ and I shall now proceed to speak of his so-called ‘Divinity.’ I cannot question that there is a supreme hand in the works of nature, but after careful research I am compelled to doubt the genuineness of the Divinity which is ascribed to Christ. True enough, his childhood was blameless, and he possessed exceptional wisdom so that many of his countrymen believed him to be more than human. In this manner the idea of his Divinity originated, and this fallacy grew as the man grew. “He was shrewd, and possessed a great amount of magnetic force which was trained and used with remarkable skill, all of which made him pose as a god before a credulous and unsuspecting public. The ignorance and gross superstition of that age made a fit soil for the spread of Christ’s doctrine and the idea that he was Divine. “When Jesus discerned that his claims were more readily accepted by the poorer and more ignorant class of people, he lauded them in his teachings, while the learned and more respectable classes were subjected to his abuse and sarcasm. “By his unusual tactics overcame the prejudices of his enemies and, for a long time, escaped punishment. But finally he was arrested and convicted and, notwithstanding his so-called Divine power, he came to an inglorious end by death on a cross. His friends, unable to prevent his cursed death, quickly formed a plot to perpetuate his doctrines. They carried out their plot by stealthily robbing Christ’s body from the grave and secretly burying it elsewhere, and then spreading the news that he, of his own power, came forth from the grave. To complete the fraud they also claimed, a little later, that he had ascended into Heaven. What was the purpose of all this? It was to prove that Christ was Divine and thereby to make his teachings authoritative and eternal. “I wish to inform you that the manuscripts and parchments, in sub- department number six of this hall, all point to the fact that Jesus Christ was born like any other babe and that his father was Joseph. Dishonest, indeed, is any one who would rob Joseph of this honor. ‘Honor to whom honor is due.’ While Christ was a great man, he never had in him the elements of Divinity. Let millions in the world glory in their imaginary theology, yet that is no reason why scholarly research should be put to naught, or why it should be sacrificed. We are living in the morning twilight of a better day when God shall be worshiped and Jesus Christ ignored when all thought of Divinity will center at the true focus and a man will no longer receive the glory that belongs to God.”