eying--isn't it wonderful, when they had seen
the earth open and their companions swallowed, when they had seen God
Himself write in robes of flames from Sinai's crags, when they had seen
Him talking face to face with Moses--isn't it a little wonderful that
He had no more influence over them? They were there at the time. And
that is the reason they didn't mind it--they were there. And yet, with
all these miracles, this God could not prevent polygamy and slavery.
Was there no room on the two tables of stone to put two more
commandments? Better have written them on the back, then. Better have
left the others all off and put these two on. Man shall not enslave
his brother, (you shall not live on unpaid labor), and the one man
shall have the one wife. If these two had been written and the other
ten left off, it would have been a thousand times better for this world.

But, they say, God works gradually. No hurry about it. He is not
gradual about keeping Sunday, because, if He met a man picking up
sticks, He killed Him; but in other things He is gradual. Suppose we
wanted now to break certain cannibals of eating missionaries--wanted to
stop them from eating them raw? Of course we would not tell them, in
the first place, it was wrong. That would not do. We would induce them
to cook them. That would be the first step toward civilization. We
would have them stew them. We would not say it is wrong to eat
missionary, but it is wrong to eat missionary raw. Then, after they
began stewing them, we would put in a little mutton--not enough to
excite suspicion but just a little, and so, day by day, we would put in
a little more mutton and a little less missionary until, in about what
the bible calls "the fullness of time," we would have clear mutton and
no missionary. That is God's way. The next great charge against me is
that I have disgraced my parents by expressing my honest thoughts. No
man can disgrace his parents that way. I want my children to express
their real opinions, whether they agree with mine or not. I want my
children to find out more than I have found, and I would be gratified
to have them discover the errors I have made. And if my father and
mother were still alive I feel and know that I am pursuing a course of
which they would approve. I am true to my manhood. But think of it!
Suppose the father of Dr. Talmage had been a Methodist and his mother
an infidel. Then what. Would he have to disgrace