mulet--a something charmed, that will keep off evil spirits, or bad
luck, stop bullets, and do a thousand handy-things for the preservation
of life.

I heard a story upon that subject. You know that thousands of them are
printed in the Sunday-school books. Here is one they don't print.
There was a poor man who had belonged to the church, but he got cold,
and he rather neglected it, and he had bad luck in his business, and he
went down and down and down until he hadn't a dollar--not a thing to
eat; and his wife said to him, "John, this comes of you having
abandoned the church, this comes of your having done away with family
worship. Now, I beg of you, let's go back." Well, John said it
wouldn't do any harm to try. So he took down the bible, blew the dust
off it, read a little from a chapter, and had family worship. As he
was putting it up he opened it again, and there was a $10 bill between
the leaves. He rushed out to the butcher's and bought meat, to the
grocer's and bought tea and bread, and butter and eggs, and rushed back
home and got them cooked, and the house was filled with the perfume of
food; and he sat down at the table, tears in every eye and a smile on
every face. She said, "What did I tell you?" Just then there was a
knock on the door, and in came a constable, who arrested him for
passing a $10 counterfeit bill.

They tell me that I ought not to attack the bible--that I have
misrepresented it, and among other things that I have said that,
according to the bible, the world was made of nothing. Well, what was
it made of? They say God created everything. Consequently, there must
have been nothing when He commenced. If he didn't make it of nothing,
what did he make it of? Where there was, nothing, He made something.
Yes; out of what? I don't know. This doctor of divinity, and I should
think such a divinity would need a doctor, says that God made the
universe out of His omnipotence. Why not out of His omniscience, or
His omnipresence? Omnipotence is not a raw material. It is the
something to work raw material with. Omnipotence is simply all
powerful, and what good would strength do with nothing? The weakest
man ever born could lift as much nothing as God. And he could do as
much with it after he got it lifted. And yet a doctor of divinity tells
me that this world was made of omnipotence. And right here let me say
I find even in the mind of the clergymen the seeds of infidelity. He
is tryin