“I have a great respect for the Bible as a wonderful book, and a love and regard for Jesus as a great man and teacher. Yet I cannot but believe that the deification of Jesus was the most appalling blunder of all time. I do not wish to offend you, but truly, when I go to church and hear Jesus addressed as God I feel shocked more so than when I see a heathen worshiping a stone image as a god. My reason, my heart, and all my feelings rebel against putting anything in the place of the Infinite God. I am as honest in this as it is possible for a human being to be in anything, and if it is possible for any one to have a witness within himself that he is right, I have that. I go direct to God. He can hear me as easily as He can hear any one else, and I believe and know that He is always ready to listen unto me when I come. I want no mediator, nothing of any kind to stand between me and God. I know that if my father were living and I should send any one to intercede for me he would feel hurt and ask, ‘Am I such a father that my own son cannot come to me instead of sending some one else?’ Why should we make out God to be such an unnatural Father that He will not admit His own children to His presence without being paid for it or through some one else as an intercessor? ‘All’s love yet all’s law, in the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and in the clod.’ “As to original sin and an atonement to satisfy a broken law, these to me are mythological stories begotten from men’s fertile imagination. The best atonement is a repentant heart, a contrite spirit and a pure life. ‘As a father pitieth his children so does the Lord love them that fear Him. Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is great. What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that He shall show, his soul shall dwell at ease. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will show them His covenant. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open unto their cry. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as are of a contrite spirit.’