ity to tell
me why there were four gospels, when one correct gospel would have been
enough. Why should there have been four original multiplication
tables? One is enough, and if anybody has got any use for it he can
copy that one. The very fact that we have got four gospels shows that
it is not an inspired book.

The next point is that, according to the new testament, the salvation
of the world depended upon the atonement. Only one of the books in the
new testament says anything about that, and that is John. The church
followed John, and they ought to follow John, because the church wrote
that book called John. According to that, the whole world was to be
damned on account of the sins of one man; and that absurdity was the
father and mother of another absurdity--that the whole world could be
saved on account of the virtue of another man. I deny both
propositions. No man can sin for me; no man can be virtuous for me; I
must reap what I sow. But they say the law must be satisfied. What
kind of a law is it that would demand punishment of the innocent? Just
think of it. Here is a man about to be hanged, and another comes up
and says: "That man has got a family, and I have not; that man is in
good health and I am not well, and I will be hung in his place." And
the governor says: "All right; a murder has been committed, and we
have got to have a hanging--we don't care who." Under the Mosaic
dispensation there was no remission of sins without the shedding of
blood. If a man committed a murder he brought a pair of doves or a
sheep to the priest, and the priest laid his hands on the animal, and
the sins of the man were transferred to the animal. You see how that
could be done easy enough. Then they killed the animal, and sprinkled
its blood on the altar. That let the man off. And why did God demand
the sacrifice of a sheep? I will tell you; because priests love mutton.

To make the innocent suffer is the greatest crime. I don't wish to go
to heaven on the virtues of somebody else. If I can't settle by the
books and go, I don't wish to go. I don't want to feel as if I was
there on sufferance--that I was in the poorhouse of the universe,
supported by the town.

They tell us Judas betrayed Christ. Well, if Christ had not been
betrayed, no atonement would have been made, and then every human soul
would have been damned, and heaven would have been for rent.

Supposing that Judas knew the Christian system, t