Christianity teaches that the man who does right carries a cross. The exact opposite of this is true. The cross is carried by the man who does wrong. I believe in the restraining influences of intelligence. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If you wish to make men moral and prosperous develop the brain. Men must be taught to rely on themselves. To supplicate the supernatural is a waste of time. The only evils that have been caused by the decline of Christianity, as pointed out by the Governor, are that in some villages they hear no solemn bells, that the dead are buried without Christian ceremony, that marriages are contracted before Justices of the Peace, and that children go unchristened. These evils are hardly serious enough to cause moral, mental and financial decay. The average church bell is not very musical--not calculated to develop the mind or quicken the conscience. The absence of the ordinary funeral sermon does not add to the horror of death, and the failure to hear a minister say, as he stands by the grave, "One star differs in glory from another star. There is a difference between the flesh of fowl and fish. Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners," does not necessarily increase the grief of the mourners. So far as children are concerned, if they are vaccinated, it does not make much difference whether they are christened or not. Marriage is a civil contract, and God is not one of the contracting parties. It is a contract with which the church has no business to interfere. Marriage with us is regulated by law. The real marriage--the uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each--is the work of Nature, and it is the best work that nature does. The ceremony of marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken place. Ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees. Certainly marriages by Justices of the Peace cannot cause the mental, moral and financial decay of a State. The things pointed out by the Governor were undoubtedly produced by the decline of Christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot possibly injure the people morally, mentally or financially. The Governor calls on the people to think, work and pray. With two-thirds of this I agree. If the people of New Hampshire will think and work without praying they will grow morally, mentally and financially. If they pray without working and thinking, they will decay. Prayer is beggary--an effort to get something for nothing. Labor is the honest prayer.