Mr. Talmage also insists that I am breaking up the "life-boats." Why should a ship built by infinite wisdom, by an infinite shipbuilder, carry life-boats? The reason we have life-boats now is, that we are not entirely sure of the ship. We know that man has not yet found out how to make a ship that can certainly brave all the dangers of the deep. For this reason we carry life-boats. But infinite wisdom must surely build ships that do not need life-boats. Is there to be a wreck at last? Is God's ship to go down in storm and darkness? Will it be necessary at last to forsake his ship and depend upon life-boats? For my part, I do not wish to be rescued by a life- 169 boat. When the ship, bearing the whole world, goes down, I am willing to go down with it--with my wife, with my children, and with those I have loved. I will not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with somebody else's folks,--I will stay with my own. What a picture is presented by the church! A few in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved, when they reach shore, are to look back with joy upon the great ship going down to the eternal depths! This is what I call the unutterable meanness of or- thodox Christianity. Mr. Talmage speaks of the "meanness of in- "fidelity." The meanness of orthodox Christianity permits the husband to be saved, and to be ineffably happy, while the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell. The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the boy that he can go to heaven and have an eternity of bliss, and that this bliss will not even be clouded by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes in eternal pain. The meanness of orthodox Christianity allows a soul to be so captivated with the companionship of angels as to forget all the old loves and friend- ships of this world. 170 The meanness of orthodox Christianity, its un- speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time to care nothing for the damnation of all the rest. The orthodox Christian says that if he can only save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's gate, if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite bank of Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it matters not to him what becomes of brother or sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is willing that they should burn if he can sing. Oh, the unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris- tianity, the infinite heartlessness of the orthodox angels, who with tearless eyes will forever gaze upon the agonies of those who were once blood of their blood and flesh of their flesh!