In the light of the passages that I have read we can clearly see what the writers of the New Testament believed. About this there can be no honest difference. If the gospels teach the existence of God--of Christ--they teach the existence of the Devil. If the Devil does not exist--if little devils do not enter the bodies of men--the New Testament may be inspired, but it is not true. The early Christians proved that Christ was divine because he cast out devils. The evidence they offered was more absurd than the statement they sought to prove. They were like the old man who said that he saw a grindstone floating down the river. Some one said that a grindstone would not float. "Ah," said the old man, "but the one I saw had an iron crank in it." Of course, I do not blame the authors of the gospels. They lived in' a superstitious age, at a time when Rumor was the historian, when Gossip corrected the "proof," and when everything was believed except the facts. The apostles, like their fellows, believed in miracles and magic. Credulity was regarded as a virtue. The Rev. Mr. Parkhurst denounces the apostles as worthless cravens. Certainly I do not agree with him. I think that they were good men. I do not believe that any one of them ever tried to reform Jerusalem on the Parkhurst plan. I admit that they honestly believed in devils--that they were credulous and superstitious. There is one story in the New Testament that illustrates my meaning. In the fifth chapter of John is the following: "Now, there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep market, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue 'Bethesda,' having five porches. "In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk--of blind, halt, withered--waiting for the moving of the water. "For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. "And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. "When Jesus saw him he and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him: 'Wilt thou be made whole??' "The impotent man answered him: 'Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while I am coming another steppeth down before me.' "Jesus saith unto him: 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.' "And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked." Does any sensible human being now believe this story? Was the water of Bethesda troubled by an angel? Where did the angel come from? Where do angels live? Did the angel put medicine in the water--just enough to cure one? Did he put in different medicines for different diseases, or did he have a medicine, like those that are patented now, that cured all diseases just the same? Was the water troubled by an angel? Possibly, what apostles and theologians call an angel a scientist knows as carbonic acid gas.