entitled to have it so. I say that it is God's duty to
furnish me with the evidence. Here is another good book read in every
Sunday-school--a splendid book--Pollok's "Course of Time." Every copy
in the world of such books as that ought to be burned. Well, the author
pretends to have gone to hell, and I think that he ought to have
stopped there.

[The lecturer read the passage from the work descriptive of the
torments of the damned, and proceeded:] And that book is put into the
hands of children in order that they may love and worship the most
merciful God. In old time they had to find a place for hell and they
found a hundred places for it. One says that it was under Lake Avernus,
but the Christians thought differently. One divine tells us that it
must be below the earth because Christ descended into hell. Another
gives it as his opinion that hell is in the sun, and he tells us that
nobody, without an express revelation from God, can prove that it is
not there. Most likely. Well, he had the idea at all events of
utilizing the damned as fuel to warm the earth. But I will quote from
another poet--if it is lawful to call him a poet. I mean Tupper.

[Colonel Ingersoll quoted from that orthodox author, and continued:]
Another divine preached a sermon no further back than 1876, in which he
said that the damned will grow worse; and the same divine says that the
devil was the first Universalist. Then I am on the side of the devil.

The fact is, that you have got not merely to believe the bible; but you
must also believe in a certain interpretation of it, and, mind you, you
must also believe in the doctrine of the trinity. I want to explain
what that is, so that you may never have an excuse for not knowing it.

I quote from the best theologian that ever wrote. [Then he went on to
give in substance the Athanasian definition of the trinity, winding up
with a long string of adjectives, culminating in the description
"entirely incomprehensible."] If you don't understand it after that, it
is you own fault. Now, you must believe in that doctrine. If you do
not, all the orthodox churches agree in condemning you to everlasting
flames. We have got to burn through all our lives simply with the view
of making them happy. We are taught to love our enemies, to pray for
those that persecute us, to forgive. Should not the merciful God
practice what he preaches? I say that reverently. Why should he say,
"Forgive your enemies," if he will n