I have been asked, both before and since his death, what were his religious opinions, and while every man's religious opinions are his own, and no one has the right to question them, I will say he was a Deist something after the manner of Thomas Paine, and for the benefit of some of our professors and preachers, who do not know the difference between an Atheist and a Deist, I will say that a Deist is one who believes in one God, and rejects all forms of so-called revealed religion. Mr. Brann loved nature and when he looked upon it, he saw nature's God, that with eternal fingers has written his message on earth and sky, so that savage and civilized, Christian and Infidel alike could read, that has by immutable and unvarying laws, regulated the bloom of the flowers, the course of the winds, and the fall of the leaf, as well as the revolutions of the countless millions of worlds that are ever speeding through the unmeasurable realms of space. He believed that this mighty power, that men call God, could perpetuate man in the hereafter as easily as he had placed him here, and while he, like many others, knew that all his hopes and faith did not furnish one atom of real proof as to what lies beyond the gates of death, still he hoped for the brighter and better life, and when that beautiful smile overspread his face when he died, those who beheld it felt that he had realized his hopes, and in the shadowy realm that bounds the Stygian river had met his little girl Inez, whose untimely death at the age of barely 12 years, had worked such havoc in his heart. Mr. Brann loved nature, not only when the gorgeous god of day threw over earth and sky the flashing strands of his golden hair, but in the night time when all else was wrapped in the arms of sleep, the twin sister of death; and the belated passer-by of his home often saw the gleam of his cigar as he sat or walked upon the lawn, in the small hours of the night: and at such time I know there came through his soul the thoughts, if not the words, of that death-devoted Greek, who to the question from the woman that he loved, "O, Ion, shall we meet again," answered, "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal. Of the clear streams that flow on forever. Of the bright stars amid whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. All, all are dumb." But when I gaze upon thy face, I feel that there is something in the love that mantles through its beauty that cannot wholly perish, we shall meet again, Clemanthe. But it was not the name of Clemanthe that passed his lips, it was ever "Inez, darling Inez, we shall meet again." I here reproduce in his own words an extract appropriate to this subject. It is from the ICONOCLAST of March, 1896, and an article headed "Beecher on the Bible":