that in this world the difference between the good and the bad is
that the bad enjoy themselves, while the good carry the cross of
virtue with bleeding brows bound and pierced with the thorns of
honesty and kindness. All this, in my judgment, is immoral. The
man who does wrong carries a cross. There is no world, no star,
in which the result of wrong is real happiness. There is no world,
no star, in which the result of doing right is unhappiness. Virtue
and vice must be the same everywhere.

Vice must be vice everywhere, because its consequences are evil;
and virtue must be virtue everywhere, because its consequences are
good. There can be no such thing as forgiveness. These facts are
the only restraining influences possible--the innocent man cannot
suffer for the guilty and satisfy the law.

_Question_. How do you answer the argument, or the fact, that the
church is constantly increasing, and that there are now four hundred
millions of Christians?

_Answer_. That is what I call the argument of numbers. If that
argument is good now, it was always good. If Christians were at
any time in the minority, then, according to this argument,
Christianity was wrong. Every religion that has succeeded has
appealed to the argument of numbers. There was a time when Buddhism
was in a majority. Buddha not only had, but has more followers
then Christ. Success is not a demonstration. Mohammed was a
success, and a success from the commencement. Upon a thousand
fields he was victor. Of the scattered tribes of the desert, he
made a nation, and this nation took the fairest part of Europe from
the followers of the cross. In the history of the world, the
success of Mohammed is unparalleled, but this success does not
establish that he was the prophet of God.

Now, it is claimed that there are some four hundred millions of
Christians. To make that total I am counted as a Christian; I am
one of the fifty or sixty millions of Christians in the United
States--excluding Indians, not taxed. By this census report, we
are all going to heaven--we are all orthodox. At the last great
day we can refer with confidence to the ponderous volumes containing
the statistics of the United States. As a matter of fact, how many
Christians are there in the United States--how many believers in
the inspiration of the Scriptures--how many real followers of
Christ? I will not pretend to give the number, but I will venture
to say that there ar