Personally, I care nothing about names. It makes no difference to me what the supposed great men of the past have said, except as what they have said contains an argument; and that argument is worth to me the force it naturally has upon my mind. Chris- tians forget that in the realm of reason there are no serfs and no monarchs. When you submit to an argument, you do not submit to the man who made it. Christianity demands a certain obedience, a certain blind, unreasoning faith, and parades before the eyes of the ignorant, with great pomp and pride, the names of kings, soldiers, and statesmen who have admitted the truth of the Bible. Mr. Talmage introduces as a witness the Rev. Theodore Parker. This same The- odore Parker denounced the Presbyterian creed as the most infamous of all creeds, and said that the worst heathen god, wearing a necklace of live snakes, was a representation of mercy when compared with the God of John Calvin. Now, if this witness is false in any particular, of course he cannot be believed, according to Mr. Talmage, upon any subject, and yet Mr. Talmage introduces him upon the stand as a good witness. 19 Although I care but little for names, still I will sug- gest that, in all probability, Humboldt knew more upon this subject than all the pastors in the world. I cer- tainly would have as much confidence in the opinion of Goethe as in that of William H. Seward; and as between Seward and Lincoln, I should take Lincoln; and when you come to Presidents, for my part, if I were compelled to pin my faith on the sleeve of any- body, I should take Jefferson's coat in preference to Jackson's. I believe that Haeckel is, to say the least, the equal of any theologian we have in this country, and the late John W. Draper certainly knew as much upon these great questions as the average parson. I believe that Darwin has investigated some of these things, that Tyndall and Huxley have turned their minds somewhat in the same direction, that Helmholtz has a few opinions, and that, in fact, thousands of able, intelligent and honest men differ almost entirely with Webster and Jackson. So far as I am concerned, I think more of reasons than of reputations, more of principles than of persons, more of nature than of names, more of facts, than of faiths. It is the same with books as with persons. Proba- bly there is not a book in the world entirely destitute 20