good and holy. But this Bible also tells what God did, and if God did what the Bible says he did, then I insist that God is not good, and that he is not holy, or forgiving. According to the Bible, this good God believed in religious persecution; this good 201 God believed in extermination, in polygamy, in con- cubinage, in human slavery; this good God com- manded murder and massacre, and this good God could only be mollified by the shedding of blood. This good God wanted a butcher for a priest. This good God wanted husbands to kill their wives-- wanted fathers and mothers to kill their children. This good God persecuted animals on account of the crimes of their owners. This good God killed the common people because the king had displeased him. This good God killed the babe even of the maid behind the mill, in order that he might get even with a king. This good God committed every possible crime. _Second_. The statement that man is a lost sinner is not true. There are thousands and thousands of magnificent Pagans--men ready to die for wife, or child, or even for friend, and the history of Pagan countries is filled with self-denying and heroic acts. If man is a failure, the infinite God, if there be one, is to blame. Is it possible that the God of Mr. Tal- mage could not have made man a success? Accord- ing to the Bible, his God made man knowing that in about fifteen hundred years he would have to drown all his descendants. 202 Why would a good God create a man that he knew would be a sinner all his life, make hundreds of thousands of his fellow-men unhappy, and who at last would be doomed to an eternity of suffering? Can such a God be good? How could a devil have done worse? _Third._ If God is infinitely good, is he not fully as sympathetic as Christ? Do you have to employ Christ to mollify a being of infinite mercy? Is Christ any more willing to take to his heart the whole world than his Father is? Personally, I have not the slightest objection in the world to anybody believing in an infinitely good and kind God--not the slightest objection to any human being worshiping an infi- nitely tender and merciful Christ--not the slightest objection to people preaching about heaven, or about the glories of the future state--not the slightest. _Fourth_. I object to the doctrine of two destinies for the human race. I object to the infamous false- hood of eternal fire. And yet, Mr. Talmage is en- deavoring to poison the imagination of men, women and children with the doctrine of an eternal hell. Here is what he preaches, taken from the "Constitu- "tion of the Presbyterian Church of the United "States:" 203 "By the decrees of God, for the manifestation of "his glory, some men and angels are predestinated "to everlasting life, and others foreordained to ever- "lasting death."