g to do to be saved?

_Answer_. Well, I think I am safe, anyway. I suppose I have a
right to rely on what Matthew says, that if I will forgive others
God will forgive me. I suppose if there is another world I shall
be treated very much as I treat others. I never expect to find
perfect bliss anywhere; maybe I should tire of it if I should.
What I have endeavored to do has been to put out the fires of an
ignorant and cruel hell; to do what I could to destroy that dogma;
to destroy the doctrine that makes the cradle as terrible as the
coffin.

--_The Denver Republican_, Denver, Colorado, January 17, 1884.

THE OATH QUESTION.

_Question_. I suppose that your attention has been called to the
excitement in England over the oath question, and you have probably
wondered that so much should have been made of so little?

_Answer_. Yes; I have read a few articles upon the subject,
including one by Cardinal Newman. It is wonderful that so many
people imagine that there is something miraculous in the oath.
They seem to regard it as a kind of verbal fetich, a charm, an "open
sesame" to be pronounced at the door of truth, a spell, a kind of
moral thumbscrew, by means of which falsehood itself is compelled
to turn informer.

The oath has outlived its brother, "the wager of battle." Both
were born of the idea that God would interfere for the right and
for the truth. Trial by fire and by water had the same origin.
It was once believed that the man in the wrong could not kill the
man in the right; but, experience having shown that he usually did,
the belief gradually fell into disrepute. So it was once thought
that a perjurer could not swallow a piece of sacramental bread;
but, the fear that made the swallowing difficult having passed
away, the appeal to the corsned was abolished. It was found that
a brazen or a desperate man could eat himself out of the greatest
difficulty with perfect ease, satisfying the law and his own hunger
at the same time.

The oath is a relic of barbarous theology, of the belief that a
personal God interferes in the affairs of men; that some God protects
innocence and guards the right. The experience of the world has
sadly demonstrated the folly of that belief. The testimony of a
witness ought to be believed, not because it is given under the
solemnities of an oath, but because it is reasonable. If unreasonable
it ought to be thrown aside. The question ought not to be, "Has
this been s