A witness was being sworn. The judge noticed that he was not holding up his hand. He said to the clerk: "Let the witness hold up his right hand." "His right arm was shot off," replied the clerk. "Let "him hold up his left, then." "That was shot off, too, "your honor." "Well, then, let him raise one foot; "no man can be sworn in this court without holding "something up." My own opinion is, that if every copy of the Bible in the world were destroyed, there would be some way to ascertain the truth in judicial proceedings; and any other book would do just as well to swear witnesses upon, or a block in the shape of a book covered with some kind of calfskin could do equally well, or just the calfskin would do. Nothing is more laughable than the performance of this ceremony, and I have never seen in court one calf kissing the skin of another, that I did not feel humiliated that such things were done in the name of Justice. Mr. Talmage has still another argument in favor of the preservation of the Bible. He wants to know what book could take its place on the centre- table. I admit that there is much force in this. Suppose we all admitted the Bible to be an uninspired book, it could still be kept on the centre-table. It would be just as true then as it is now. Inspiration can not add anything to a fact; neither can inspiration make the immoral moral, the unjust just, or the cruel merci- ful. If it is a fact that God established human slavery, that does not prove slavery to be right; it simply shows that God was wrong. If I have the right to use my reason in determining whether the Bible is 317 inspired or not, and if in accordance with my reason I conclude that it is inspired, I have still the right to use my reason in determining whether the command- ments of God are good or bad. Now, suppose we take from the Bible every word upholding slavery, every passage in favor of polygamy, every verse commanding soldiers to kill women and children, it would be just as fit for the centre-table as now. Sup- pose every impure word was taken from it; suppose that the history of Tamar was left out, the biography of Lot, and all other barbarous accounts of a barbarous people, it would look just as well upon the centre- table as now. Suppose that we should become convinced that the writers of the New Testament were mistaken as to the eternity of punishment, or that all the passages now relied upon to prove the existence of perdition were shown to be interpolations, and were thereupon expunged, would not the book be dearer still to every human being with a heart? I would like to see every good passage in the Bible preserved. I would like to see, with all these passages from the Bible, the loftiest sentiments from all other books that have ever been uttered by men in all ages and of all races, bound in one volume, and to see that 318 volume, filled with the greatest, the purest and the best, become the household book.