Mr. Talmage--lightning-bugs, phosphorescent beetles, and fox-fire. I should think that it would be humili- ating, in this age, for an orthodox preacher to insist that vegetation could exist upon this planet without the light of the sun--that trees could grow, blossom and bear fruit, having no light but the flames of volcanoes, or that emitted by liquid granite, or thrown off by the crystallization of rocks. There is another thing, also, that should not be for- gotten, and that is, that there is an even balance for- ever kept between the totals of animal and vegetable life--that certain forms of animal life go with certain forms of vegetable life. Mr. Haeckel has shown that "in the first epoch, algæ and skull-less vertebrates were found together; in the second, ferns and fishes; in the third, pines and reptiles; in the fourth, foliaceous forests and mammals." Vegetable and animal life sustain a necessary relation; they exist together; they act and interact, and each depends upon the other. The real point of difference between Mr. Talmage and myself is this: He says that God made the universe out of his "omnipotence," and I say that, although I know nothing whatever upon the subject, my opinion is, that the universe has existed from eternity--that it continually changes in form, but that it never was 28 created or called into being by any power. I think that all that is, is all the God there is. _Question_. Mr. Talmage charges you with having misrepresented the Bible story of the deluge. Has he correctly stated your position? _Answer_. Mr. Talmage takes the ground that the flood was only partial, and was, after all, not much of a flood. The Bible tells us that God said he would "destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from "under heaven, and that everything that is in the "earth shall die;" that God also said: "I will destroy "man, whom I have created, from the face of the "earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing "and the fowls of the air, and every living substance "that I have made will I destroy from off the face of "the earth." I did not suppose that there was any miracle in the Bible larger than the credulity of Mr. Talmage. The flood story, however, seems to be a little more than he can bear. He is like the witness who stated that he had read _Gullivers Travels_, the _Stories of Mun- chausen_, and the _Flying Wife_, including _Robinson Crusoe_, and believed them all; but that Wirt's _Life of Patrick Henry_ was a litde more than he could stand. 29