who "warned the Throne against infractions
of the treaties in respect to the freedom of the Chinese to practice
Christianity." This warning probably filled the Throne with even more
and hotter indignation than that which seethed in the Foreign Devils.
Why should Mr. Conger not follow the custom of his own country and
permit every religion to take care of itself? Here is a case in point.
A Mr. Noll applied for a license to preach and it was denied to him by
a Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian brand because he refused to
believe in the personality of Adam. He would not have carried his case
to the President even if he had not died. It has been asserted by a
Minister of another denomination that Noll was murdered, not in the
orthodox way, but simply because he was refused a license to preach.
If the murder theory be not untenable Noll was not of the stuff of
which martyrs are made, and as all Preachers hold that they are made
of this stuff Noll conferred a favor upon the profession by dying of
consumption.

* * * * *

Heaven or Hell

Even before Noll died a number of Presbyterian Preachers had announced
that they considered Adam, Moses, Jonah and other personages of Note
in Bible literature as Myths. With rare exceptions, there is about as
little initiative in Professional Preachers as there is in
Professional Pugilists, and the last sect of which one might have
expected such iconoclastic utterances is that which claims Calvin and
John Knox as its shining lights. I remember, as a small boy, feeling
sorry for a chum because, as a Presbyterian, he did not know and had
no means of finding out whether he had been born to go to Heaven or
Hell, and in those days both of those resorts were spelled with
capitals and pronounced with awe. Had he been able by a most rigorous
observance of all the rules laid down by God and Man to make certain
of living in a future state of beatitude I would have felt sorry for
him still, as he would be compelled, of necessity, to miss many of the
joys of this world; still his future then--though in a hard and
grinding measure--would have lain in his own hands. But whether he
became a Pirate or a Preacher was all one; he had been born to go to
Heaven or Hell and nothing that he could do could enable him to change
his final destination. In later life he, evidently, appreciated this,
for he became a Stock-Broker, after, as a Preacher, having broken most
of the