t, who was born in a manger, and say that the Holy Ghost passed
the titled ladies of the world and selected the wife of a poor mechanic
for the mother of God. Such is the difference between theory and
practice. The church condemns the men of Jerusalem who held positions
and who held the pretensions of the Savior in contempt. They admit
that He was so little known that they had to bribe a man to point Him
out to the soldiers. They assert that He performed miracles; yet He
remained absolutely unknown, hidden in the depth of obscurity. No one
knew Him, and one of His disciples had to be bribed to point Him out.
Surely He and His disciples could have met the arguments which were
urged against their religion at that time.

So long as the church honored philosophers she kept her great men in
the majority. How is it now? I say tonight that no man of genius in
the world is in the orthodox pulpit, so far as I know. Where are they?
Where are the orthodox great men? I challenge the Christian church to
produce a man like Alexander Humboldt. I challenge the world to
produce a naturalist like Haeckel. I challenge the Christian world to
produce a man like Darwin. Where in the ranks of orthodoxy are
historians like Draper and Buckle? Where are the naturalists like
Tyndall, philosophers like Mills and Spencer, and women like George
Eliot and Harriet Martineau? You may get tired of the great-men
argument; but the names of the great thinkers, and naturalists and
scientists of our time cannot be matched by the supernatural world.

What is the next argument they will bring forward? The father and
mother argument. You must not disgrace your parents. How did Christ
come to leave the religion of His mother? That argument proves too
much. There is one way every man can honor his mother--that is by
finding out more than she knew. There is one way a man can honor his
father--by correcting the old man's errors.

Most people imagine that the creed we have came from the brain and
heart of Christ. They have no idea how it was made. They think it was
all made at one time. They don't understand that it was a slow growth.
They don't understand that theology is a science made up of mistakes,
prejudices and falsehoods. Let me tell you a few facts: The Emperor
Constantine, who lifted the Christian religion into power, murdered his
wife and his eldest son the very year that he convened the Council of
Nice to decide whether Jesus Chris