If a single one of these gentlemen is correct, if a believer of any type is right, the essential truth for man, the real drama of life, in comparison with which the secular story of the race, is a puppet-show and the unfolding of the universe is a triviality, is the dialogue of the immortal soul and the eternal God. Yet it seems that there is nothing in the world so hard to discover as this. The theory refutes itself.

If, it was natural to reason, God punishes men with eternal torment, it is surely lawful for men to use doses of it in a good cause.

The making of an Atheist implies a mental stimulation and training which brings into play the primary factors of social progress.

The Rationalist case needs no straining of evidence and always gains by the severest self-criticism.

I took a sheet of paper, divided it into debt and credit columns on the arguments for and against God and immortality. On Christmas Eve I wrote 'bankrupt' at the foot. And it was on Christmas morning 1895, after I had celebrated three Masses, while the bells of the parish church were ringing out the Christmas message of peace, that, with great pain, I found myself far out from the familiar land--homeless, aimlessly drifting. But the bells were right after all; from that hour on I have been wholly free from the nightmare of doubt that had lain on me for ten years.

No pope ever condemned slavery.

Creeds made in Dark Ages are like drawings made in dark rooms