To this defendant it seemed improbable that God was ever born of woman, was ever held in the lap of a mother; and because he cannot believe this, he is charged with blasphemy. Could you pour contempt on Shakespeare by saying that his mother was a woman,--by saying that he was once a poor, crying, little, helpless child? Of course he was; and he afterwards became the greatest human being that ever touched the earth,--the only man whose intellectual wings have reached from sky to sky; and he was once a crying babe. What of it? Does that cast any scorn or contempt upon him? Does this take any of the music from "Midsummer Night's Dream"?--any of the passionate wealth from "Antony and Cleopatra," any philosophy from "Macbeth," any intellectual grandeur from "King Lear"? On the contrary, these great productions of the brain show the growth of the dimpled babe, give every mother a splendid dream and hope for her child, and cover every cradle with a sublime possibility. The defendant is also charged with having said that: "_God cried and screamed_." Why not? If he was absolutely a child, he was like other children,--like yours, like mine. I have seen the time, when absent from home, that I would have given more to have heard my children cry, than to have heard the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into flower. What if God did cry? It simply shows that his humanity was real and not assumed, that it was a tragedy, real, and not a poor pretence. And the defendant also says that if the orthodox religion be true, that the "_God of the Universe kicked, and flung about his little arms, and made aimless dashes into space with his little fists_." Is there anything in this that is blasphemous? One of the best pictures I ever saw of the Virgin and Child was painted by the Spaniard, Murillo. Christ appears to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. Such a picture takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or the glory of the incarnation. I think it is the best thing about the Catholic Church that it lifts up for adoration and admiration, a mother,--that it pays what it calls "Divine honors" to a woman. There is certainly goodness in that, and where a church has so few practices that are good, I am willing to point this one out. It is the one redeeming feature about Catholicism, that it teaches the worship of a woman. The defendant says more about the childhood of Christ. He goes so far as to say, that: "_He was found staring foolishly at his own little toes._" And why not? The Bible says, that "he increased in wisdom and stature." The defendant might have referred to something far more improbable. In the same verse in which St. Luke says that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, will be found the assertion that he increased in favor with God and man. The defendant might have asked how it was that the love of God for God increased.