If all who call themselves Christians were Christlike, then indeed might there be hope for humanity; but what is there to inspire belief that the church will ever win the world from a foolish quest of rainbows? What hope in Talmage, with his nightmare visions and stertorous dreams, his pilgrimings to Palestine and rummaging among the mummified cats and has-been kings of ancient Egypt for "Scriptural evidence?" What hope for a people so mentally emasculate that they can patiently listen to his jejune wind-jamming, can read and relish his irremediable tommyrot? What hope in Sam Jones and other noisy ignorami of that ilk, with their wild war on dancing and the euchre deck, the drama and decollete? Be these the strongholds of Abriman in his ceaseless war on Oromasdes? Does the Prince of Darkness, who once did fill the wondering cosmos with the clangor of celestial steel, now front the hosts of Heaven armed with a euchre-deck? Is Tara Boom-de-aye the battle-hymn and the theater hat the blazing gonfalon of him who strove with Omnipotence for universal empire? Does Lucifer expect to become lord paramount of all the gleaming worlds that hang like jewels pendant in heaven's imperial concave by persuading some miserable son of Adam to work his toes on Sunday, dance with the girls on Monday or play seven-up for the cigars? O Jonesy, Jonesy! would to heaven that thou and all thy brother blabsters and bubblyjocks would go hang yourselves, for you know naught of the war that rages ever like a sulphurous siroc in the human soul. Ye are but insects that infest great Igdrasyl, the ash tree that upholds the universe. One atheistical Stephen Girard playing Good Samaritan in a plague-swept city while the preachers hit the turnpike; one deistical Tom Paine, braving the guillotine for the rights of man; one Father Damien, freely laying down his life for the miserable lepers of Molokai; one sweet-faced sister of charity bravely battling with the reeking slums of a great city, striving to drag souls from that seething maelstrom of sin, were worth legions of those sanctified lollypops who prate of sacrificing all for their Savior, yet never risk life or gold in the service of their God. . . .