The difference of opinion on the slavery question was largely a matter of geographical location, and 90 per cent, of us belong to the political or religious party to which our parents belonged or to the one to which our associations or environment drew us. Had we been born in the Catholic Church most of us would be good, faithful Catholics, as all history demonstrates, and as our own lives in other directions abundantly prove. In a series of articles entitled "Why I Am What I Am," one of the most noted preachers in this country candidly admits that his church relationship is a mere matter of birth. This truth is not very congenial to our boasted independence of thought and investigation, but it is the truth nevertheless. The power of the above-named fetters to hold us in bondage to error is illustrated in all history, sacred and secular. It took Peter about ten years after Pentecost, with special miraculous manifestations, to see that Gentiles were _creatures_ as well as Jews, and that therefore he was commissioned to preach to them also. Paul, the pious, earnest and conscientious, "verily thought he was doing God service" in persecuting the Saviour who had been pointed out as the Christ by many infallible proofs. The Jews crucified the Lord of glory largely through ignorance, due to their being blinded by their traditions, or inherited religious ideas, and therefore Jesus prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Luther was mighty in throwing off his inherited ideas, and yet he retained so many of them that any church that would to-day practise and teach just as Luther did, would be considered very near to the Roman Catholic Church. Cotton Mather, one of the most enlightened men that ever lived, believed in witches and hung them, and many of the pious and enlightened people of New England shared this belief with him. Good, pious neighbors will give testimony in court, as to what they saw and heard, of the most contradictory character. In nine cases out of ten, we find in the Bible just what we bring to it; and thus the most pious and best educated see the most contradictory doctrines in the same passages of Scripture and fight for them with the greatest tenacity, all in the name of conscience. And the saddest thing about it all is that all these people show by their consecrated lives that they love God and are sincerely trying to serve him. In politics, we see the same pitiable state of affairs. In 1896 about one-half of our good Christian men voted for the free coinage of silver to save their country, and the other half voted for a gold standard for the same reason. It does not require any argument to prove that at least half of these voters were so blinded by ignorance and party bias that they did not see the truth, and possibly all of them were. What a great pity that the good Christian people should be thus divided through party bias and prejudice and go to slaughtering each