"One of the best uses of religion," Dr. Allen said, "is to cast out fear. Medicine won't work when fear is present and there's been many a man scared to death. I was called out once to see a child who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. She died and her father nearly lost his mind. Later he got bit in the night by something--a spider, I think. He was sure it was a rattlesnake. There was no need of the man dying, but he did die--actually _frightened to death_. It's an awful condition for a soul to be in that fears eternal punishment for sin. Religion takes away this fear." "Just what is religion?" asked Abe Lincoln. "From what I've been able to gather, it's preachin' purgatory and damnation till you get up a panic, offerin' the mercy of God as a way of escape, and then takin' up a collection for the good advice you have given--is this religion?" The men laughed. "I may be off," Lincoln continued, "but looks to me like there wouldn't be so much need of gettin' the fear out of folks if the fear of hell wasn't first preached into them." "Don't you believe in hell?" Mentor Graham asked. "Can't say I do." "But you believe in God, I am sure." "Yes--only a fool has said in his heart there is no God." "But the same authority that teaches God teaches hell," Doctor Allen said. "Not to my way of thinking it don't," Lincoln answered. "'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork,' the Book tells me. But I can't see how the heavens declare the glory of hell nor its necessity either." "But how can God punish the unrighteous without a hell? Can't you see that by taking hell out of the Bible you destroy its value as an inspired book, and where else can one learn of God?"