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boat. When the ship, bearing the whole world, goes
down, I am willing to go down with it--with my
wife, with my children, and with those I have loved.
I will not slip ashore in an orthodox canoe with
somebody else's folks,--I will stay with my own.
What a picture is presented by the church! A few
in life's last storm are to be saved; and the saved,
when they reach shore, are to look back with joy
upon the great ship going down to the eternal depths!
This is what I call the unutterable meanness of or-
thodox Christianity.
Mr. Talmage speaks of the "meanness of in-
"fidelity."
The meanness of orthodox Christianity permits the
husband to be saved, and to be ineffably happy, while
the wife of his bosom is suffering the tortures of hell.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity tells the
boy that he can go to heaven and have an eternity
of bliss, and that this bliss will not even be clouded
by the fact that the mother who bore him writhes in
eternal pain.
The meanness of orthodox Christianity allows
a soul to be so captivated with the companionship
of angels as to forget all the old loves and friend-
ships of this world.
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The meanness of orthodox Christianity, its un-
speakable selfishness, allows a soul in heaven to exult
in the fact of its own salvation, and at the same time
to care nothing for the damnation of all the rest.
The orthodox Christian says that if he can only
save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into
heaven, if he can only get past Saint Peter's gate,
if he can by hook or crook climb up the opposite
bank of Jordan, if he can get a harp in his hand, it
matters not to him what becomes of brother or
sister, father or mother, wife or child. He is willing
that they should burn if he can sing.
Oh, the unutterable meanness of orthodox Chris-
tianity, the infinite heartlessness of the orthodox
angels, who with tearless eyes will forever gaze upon
the agonies of those who were once blood of their
blood and flesh of their flesh!
Mr. Talmage describes a picture of the scourging
of Christ, painted by Rubens, and he tells us that
he was so appalled by this picture--by the sight of
the naked back, swollen and bleeding--that he could
not have lived had he continued to look; yet this
same man, who could not bear to gaze upon a
painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven,
while countiess billions of actual--not painted--men,
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women, and children writhe--not in a pictured flame,
but in the real and quenchless fires of hell.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage also claims that we are
indebted to Christianity for schools, colleges, univer-
sities, hospitals and asylums?
_Answer_. This shows that Mr. Talmage has not
read the history of the world. Long before Chris-
tianity had a place, there were vast libraries. There
were thousands of schools before a Christian existed
on the earth. There were hundreds of hospitals
before a line of the New Testament was written.
Hundreds of years before Christ, there were hospitals
in India,--not only for men, women and children, but
even for beasts. There were hospitals in Egypt long
before Moses was born. They knew enough then
to cure insanity with music. They surrounded the
insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness.
The great libraries at Alexandria were not Chris-
tian. The most intellectual nation of the Middle
Ages was not Christian. While Christians were
imprisoning people for saying that the earth is round,
the Moors in Spain were teaching geography with
globes. They had even calculated the circumference
of the earth by the tides of the Red Sea.