seven
kinds of cold victuals out of him, God gives him a pointer on a silver
mine, and the infidel rakes in a cool million, and laughs in his sleeve,
while thousands of poor workers in the vineyard are depending for a
livelihood on collections that pan out more gun wads and brass pants
buttons to the ton of ore than they do silver. This may be all right,
and we hope it is, and we don't want to give any advice on anybody
else's business, but it would please Christians a good deal better to
see that bold man taken by the slack of the pants and lifted into a poor
house, while the silver he has had fall to him was distributed among the
charitable societies, mission schools and churches, so a minister could
get his salary and buy a new pair of trousers to replace those that he
has worn the knees out of kneeling down on the rough floor to pray.

It is mighty poor consolation to the ladies of a church society, to give
sociables, ice creameries, strawberry festivals and all kinds of things
to raise money to buy a carpet for a church or lecture room, and wash
their own dishes, and then hear that some infidel who is around the
country calling God a pirate and a horse thief, at a dollar a head, to
full houses, has miraculously struck a million dollar silver mine.

To the toiling minister who prays without ceasing, and eats codfish and
buys clothes at a second hand store, it looks pretty rough to see Bob
Inger-soll steered onto a million dollar silver mine. But it may be all
right, and we presume it is. Maybe God has got the hook in Bob's mouth,
and is letting him play around the way a fisherman does a black bass,
and when he thinks he is running the whole business, and flops around
and scares the other fish, it is possible Bob may be reeled in, and he
will find himself on the bottom of the boat with a finger and thumb
in his gills and a big boot on his paunch, and he will be compelled to
disgorge the hook and the bait and all, and he will lay there and try
to flop out of the boat, and wonder what kind of a game this is that is
being played on him.

Everything turns out right some time, and from what we have heard of
God, off and on, we don't believe He is going to let no ordinary man,
bald headed and apoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his
fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the
tail of his coat.

Bob Ingersoll has got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws
more water than a