Christianity has nothing to fear in the great struggle that is being carried on for the truth’s sake. But it has lost much for want of investigation. Our free school and Sunday-school systems are making the rising generation better acquainted with both science and the Bible, and a thorough acquaintance with both is the one thing most needed in order to a better future in religion, as well as in every other human interest. The time is come when men will no longer be content to listen to grave errors and keep silence. Every truth is being put to the test of logic, as well as fact. It is natural to abhor a contradiction, and it is right. All truth is harmonious. I am glad that harmony is demanded in religious teaching; I often think of pulpit teaching away back thirty and forty years ago. It used to be very popular in some parts to tell people that they could do nothing to better their condition in a future state, and, at the same time, exhort them to do better. I heard of three brothers, George, William and James. George and William were “Hard-shell Baptist” preachers; James made no profession. His wife was a member of George’s congregation. She was a great “scold.” One day James failed to do just as she wished him, and, as a matter of course, he received quite a lecture; finally the woman told him that it was a great pity that he could not be a good man, like his brother George or brother William, and fell to exhorting him to do better. He finally became impatient and said, “Yes! George and William were too lazy to work, and I called them to preach. They both stood it until the third call, and then put on their hats and went. You belong to George’s church, and I go there with you to hear him preach. He tells me that I can do nothing, and you tell me that I can do nothing; and, now, what in the h—l do you want me to do?” Such inconsistent teaching was always repugnant to common sense and natural reason. There are many persons yet teaching the old falsehood that man is passive in his conversion, notwithstanding the fact that men are imperatively commanded to convert—turn, that their sins may be blotted out. Men are yet found in some Protestant pulpits who spend a great deal of their time praying the Lord to convert sinners. It is often the case, in their own estimation, that the Lord gives no heed to their prayers; but this has happened so frequently that it does not seem to trouble them. It has been a very short time since I heard a minister advocating what he was pleased to call “miraculous conversion.” I thought, if you are right in that matter, why did the Heavenly Father command his love, commended in the Savior’s death, preached to every creature, and still refuse to convert every creature? What difference does it make to me whether the Lord passed me by before He made Adam, or passed me by on yesterday? And if He refuses to send His spirit and convert me until the last, and I die