I have the same opinion about putting oil on stones, as about putting water on heads. For my part, I see no good in the rite of baptism. Still, it 97 may do no harm, unless people are immersed during cold weather. Neither have I the slightest objection to the baptism of anybody; but if people tell me that I must be baptized or suffer eternal agony, then I deny it. If they say that baptism does any earthly good, I deny it. No one objects to any harmless ceremony; but the moment it is insisted that a ceremony is neces- sary, the reason of which no man can see, then the practice of the ceremony becomes hurtful, for the reason that it is maintained only at the expense of intelligence and manhood. It is hurtful for people to imagine that they can please God by any ceremony whatever. If there is any God, there is only one way to please him, and that is, by a conscientious discharge of your obliga- tions to your fellow-men. Millions of people imagine that they can please God by wearing certain kinds of cloth. Think of a God who can be pleased with a coat of a certain cut! Others, to earn a smile of heaven, shave their heads, or trim their beards, or perforate their ears or lips or noses. Others maim and mutilate their bodies. Others think to please God by simply shutting their eyes, by swinging censers, by lighting candles, by repeating poor Latin, by making a sign of the cross with holy water, by 98 ringing bells, by going without meat, by eating fish, by getting hungry, by counting beads, by making themselves miserable Sundays, by looking solemn, by refusing to marry, by hearing sermons; and others imagine that they can please God by calumni- ating unbelievers. There is an old story of an Irishman who, when dying, sent for a priest. The reputation of the dying man was so perfectly miserable, that the priest refused to administer the rite of extreme unction. The priest therefore asked him if he could recollect any decent action that he had ever done. The dying man said that he could not. "Very well," said the priest, "then you will have to be damned." In a moment, the pinched and pale face brightened, and he said to the priest: "I have thought of one good "action." "What is it?" asked the priest. And the dying man said, "Once I killed a gauger." I suppose that in the next world some ministers, driven to extremes, may reply: "Once I told a lie "about an infidel." _Question_. You see that Mr. Talmage still sticks to the whale and Jonah story. What do you think of his argument, or of his explanation, rather, of that miracle? 99