out came the watch, you would say I was a lunatic of the
first order. Wouldn't you? And yet they say that this old world was
made by chance! "It threw itself together!"

I met a man in Scotland, and he took the ground that there was no God.
I asked him,

"How do you account for creation, for all these rocks?" (They have a
great many rocks in Scotland.)

"Why!" he said, "any school boy could account for that."

"Well, how was the first rock made?"

"Out of sand."

"How was the first sand made?"

"Out of rock."

You see he had it all arranged so nicely. Sand and rock, rock and
sand. I have no doubt but that Noah had these men to contend with.

Then there was a class called agnostics, and there are a good many of
their grandchildren, alive to-day. Then there was another class who
said they believed there was a God; they couldn't make themselves
believe that the world happened by chance; but God was too merciful to
punish sin. He was so full of compassion and love that He couldn't
punish sin. The drunkard, the harlot, the gambler, the murderer, the
thief and the libertine would all share alike with the saints at the
end. Supposing the governor of your state was so tender-hearted that
he could not bear to have a man suffer, could not bear to see a man
put in jail, and he should go and set all the prisoners free. How long
would he be governor? You would have him out of office before the sun
set. These very men that talk about God's mercy, would be the first to
raise a cry against a governor who would not have a man put in prison
when he had done wrong.

Then another class took the ground that God could not destroy the
world anyway. They might have a great flood which would rise up to the
meadowlands and lowlands, but all it would be necessary to do would be
to go up on the hills and mountains. That would be a hundred times
better than Noah's ark. Or if it should come to that, they could build
rafts, which would be a good deal better than that ark. They had never
seen such an ugly looking thing. It was about five hundred feet long,
and about eighty feet wide, and fifty feet high. It had three stories,
and only one small window.

And then, I suppose there was a large class who took the ground that
Noah must be wrong because he was in such a minority. That is a great
argument now, you know. Noah was greatly in the minority. But he went
on working.

If they had saloons then, and I don't doubt but that they had, fo