them both to be a
Presbyterian. The disciples of Christ, according to this doctrine,
disgraced their parents. The founder of every new religion, according
to this doctrine, was a disgrace to his father and mother. Now there
must have been a time when a Talmage was not a Presbyterian, and the
one that left something else to join that church disgraced his father
and mother. Why, if this doctrine be true why do you send missionaries
to other lands and ask those people to disgrace their parents? If this
doctrine be true nobody has religious liberty except foundlings, and it
should be written over every Foundling Hospital: "Home for Religious
Liberty." It won't do.

What is the next thing I have said? I have taken the ground, and I
take it again today, that the bible has only words of humiliation for
woman. The bible treats woman as the slave, the serf of man, and
wherever that book is believed in thoroughly woman is a slave. It is
the infidelity in the church that gives her what liberty she has today.
Oh! but, says the gentleman, think of the heroines in the bible. How
could a book be opposed to woman which has pictured such heroines?
Well, that is a good argument. Let's answer it. Who are the heroines?
He tells us. The first is Esther. Who was she? Esther is a very
peculiar book, and the story is about this: Ahasaerus was a king. His
wife's name was Vashti. She didn't please him. He divorced her, and
advertised for another. A gentleman by the name of Mordecai had a good
looking niece, and he took her to market. Her name was Esther. I
don't feel like reading the whole of the second chapter. It is
sufficient to say she was selected. After a time there was a gentleman
by the name of Haman who, I should think, was in the cabinet, according
to the story. And this man Mordecai began to put on considerable style
because his niece was the king's wife, and he would not bow, or he
would not rise, or he would not meet this gentleman with marks of
distinguished consideration, so he made up his mind to have him hung.
Then they got out an order to kill the Jews, and this Esther went to
see the king. In those days they believed in the Bismarkian style of
government--all power came from the king, not from the people; if
anybody went to see this king without an invitation, and he failed to
hold out his sceptre to him, the person was killed just to preserve the
dignity of the monarch. When Esther arrived he held out the