_Answer_. I think better in some respects and worse in others; but on the whole, better. I think that while events, like the pendulum of a clock, go backward and forward, man, like the hands, goes forward. I think there is more reason and less religion, more charity and less creed. I think the church is improving. Ministers are ashamed to preach the old doctrines with the old fervor. There was a time when the pulpit controlled the pews. It is so no longer. The pews know what they want, and if the minister does not furnish it they discharge him and employ another. He is no longer an autocrat; he must bring to the market what his customers are willing to buy. _Question_. What are you going to do to be saved? _Answer_. Well, I think I am safe, anyway. I suppose I have a right to rely on what Matthew says, that if I will forgive others God will forgive me. I suppose if there is another world I shall be treated very much as I treat others. I never expect to find perfect bliss anywhere; maybe I should tire of it if I should. What I have endeavored to do has been to put out the fires of an ignorant and cruel hell; to do what I could to destroy that dogma; to destroy the doctrine that makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin. --_The Denver Republican_, Denver, Colorado, January 17, 1884. THE OATH QUESTION. _Question_. I suppose that your attention has been called to the excitement in England over the oath question, and you have probably wondered that so much should have been made of so little? _Answer_. Yes; I have read a few articles upon the subject, including one by Cardinal Newman. It is wonderful that so many people imagine that there is something miraculous in the oath. They seem to regard it as a kind of verbal fetich, a charm, an "open sesame" to be pronounced at the door of truth, a spell, a kind of moral thumbscrew, by means of which falsehood itself is compelled to turn informer. The oath has outlived its brother, "the wager of battle." Both were born of the idea that God would interfere for the right and for the truth. Trial by fire and by water had the same origin. It was once believed that the man in the wrong could not kill the man in the right; but, experience having shown that he usually did, the belief gradually fell into disrepute. So it was once thought that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread; but, the fear that made the swallowing difficult having passed away, the appeal to the corsned was abolished. It was found that a brazen or a desperate man could eat himself out of the greatest difficulty with perfect ease, satisfying the law and his own hunger at the same time.