nister
used to ask us:

"Boys, do you know that you ought to be in Hell?"

And we answered up as cheerfully as could be expected under the
circumstances.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, boys, do you know that you would go to Hell if you died in your
sins?"

And we said: "Yes, sir."

And then came the great test:

"Boys"--I can't get the tone, you know. And do you know that is how
the preachers get the bronchitis. You never heard of an auctioneer
getting the bronchitis, nor the second mate on a steamboat--never.
What gives it to the minister is talking solemnly when they don't feel
that way, and it has the same influence upon the organs of speech that
it would have upon the cords of the calves of your legs to walk on your
tip-toes, and so I call bronchitis "parsonitis." And if the ministers
would all tell exactly what they think they would all get well, but
keeping back a part of the truth is what gives them bronchitis.

Well the old man--the dear old minister--used to try and show us how
long we would be in Hell if we would only locate there. But to finish
the other. The grand test question was:

"Boys, if it was God's will that you should go to Hell, would you be
willing to go?"

And every little liar said:

"Yes, sir."

Then, in order to tell how long we would stay there, he used to say:

"Suppose once in a billion ages a bird should come from a far distant
clime and carry off in its bill one little grain of sand, the time
would finally come when the last grain of sand would be carried away.
Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Boys, by that time it would not be sun-up in Hell."

Where did that doctrine of Hell come from? I will tell you; from that
fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from
the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from
the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes
with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl of
wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the
depraved chatter of malicious apes. And I despise it with every drop
of my blood and defy it. If there is any God in this universe who will
damn his children for an expression of an honest thought I wish to go
to Hell. I would rather go there than go to heaven and keep the
company of a God that would thus damn his children. Oh it is an
infamous doctrine to teach that to little children, to put a shadow in
the h