have been written--passages, whether inspired or uninspired, that can by no possibility do any human being any good. I have always admitted that there are good passages in the Bible--many good, wise and just laws--many things calculated to make men better--many things calculated to make men worse. I admit that the Bible is a mixture of good and bad, of truth and falsehood, of history and fiction, of sense and nonsense, of virtue and vice, of aspiration and revenge, of liberty and tyranny. I have never said anything against Solomon's Song. I like it better than I do any book that pre- cedes it, because it touches upon the human. In the desert of murder, wars of extermination, polygamy, concubinage and slavery, it is an oasis where the trees grow, where the birds sing, and where human love blossoms and fills the air with perfume. I do not regard that book as obscene. There are many things in it that are beautiful and tender, and it is calculated to do good rather than harm. Neither have I any objection to the book of Eccle- siastes--except a few interpolations in it. That book was written by a Freethinker, by a philosopher. There is not the slightest mention of God in it, nor of another state of existence. All portions in which 197 God is mentioned are interpolations. With some of this book I agree heartily. I believe in the doctrine of enjoying yourself, if you can, to-day. I think it foolish to spend all your years in heaping up treas- ures, not knowing but he who will spend them is to be an idiot. I believe it is far better to be happy with your wife and child now, than to be miserable here, with angelic expectations in some other world. Mr. Talmage is mistaken when he supposes that all Bible believers have good homes, that all Bible readers are kind in their families. As a matter of fact, nearly all the wife-whippers of the United States are orthodox. Nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries are believers. Scotland is one of the most orthodox countries in the world, and one of the most intem- perate. Hundreds and hundreds of women are arrested every year in Glasgow for drunkenness. Visit the Christian homes in the manufacturing dis- tricts of England. Talk with the beaters of children and whippers of wives, and you will find them be- lievers. Go into what is known as the "Black "Country," and you will have an idea of the Chris- tian civilization of England. Let me tell you something about the "Black "Country." There women work in iron; there women 198 do the work of men. Let me give you an instance: A commission was appointed by Parliament to ex- amine into the condition of the women in the "Black "Country," and a report was made. In that report I read the following: "A superintendent of a brickyard where women "were engaged in carrying bricks from the yard to "the kiln, said to one of the women: "'Eliza, you don't appear to be very uppish this "morning.'"