boldness in the day of judgment. How strange that Christian writers
should be so ignorant of the Bible, or so regardless of its teachings.
Some of them seem to think they are saying very fine things when they
are talking their anti-Christian nonsense. Help me, O God, to speak and
act in accordance with Thy word.

Fine writing may be a fine thing, but true writing is a finer.

I suppose it is as hard for theologians to give up their anti-Christian
words and notions as it is for drunkards to give up their drink. But it
would be well for them to consider, that self-denial may be as necessary
to _their_ salvation, as it is to the salvation of infidels and
profligates.

I would sacrifice a little poetry to truth. I would not be very
particular, but do let us have substantial truth. Do not let us encumber
and disfigure religion by absurdities, impossibilities, and antinomian
abominations.

Some one has said, "The world is very jealous of those who assail its
religious ignorance. Its old mistakes are great idols. No man has ever
carried a people one march nearer the promised land without being in
danger of being stoned. No man has ever purified the life of an age,
without substantially laying down his own."

I am anxious only for truth and righteousness. Truth and righteousness I
respect in all sects, from the Quakers to the Catholics; and I hate
nonsense, and lies, and sin, in professing Christians, as much as in
Turks and pagans.

So end the extracts from my Diary.

I have just been reading an article in the _Christian Advocate_, and I
can't resist the temptation to give a short extract or two.

"Not only is there an emasculated theology, but there is not a little
emasculated preaching.

"Nothing is emptier or feebler than cant--ringing the changes on what
may be called the stock phrases of one's sect. John Wesley once said,
'Let but a pert, self-sufficient animal, that has neither sense nor
grace, bawl out something about 'Christ,' or 'His blood,' or
'justification by faith,' and there are not wanting those who will cry
out, 'What a fine Gospel sermon!' For myself, I prefer a sermon on
either good tempers or good works to such 'Gospel sermons.'

"Take away from certain preachers their 'heavenly tone,' as the old lady
called it--their sing-song cadences, and their favorite pulpit
phrases--and you take away the principal part of their stock in trade.
Out upon such 'words without knowledge'--sound without sense!