strong, and hearty, and you go about the country kicking the crutch of Christianity from under the arms of poor crippled sinners who have no other support, and then leave them wallowing in the mud and mire of unbelief and despair. You are all pull down and no build up."

The colonel was stunned by the parallel, for he was a lecturer against Christianity and the Bible. He made no response, but walked back into the office, where it is said he sat for an hour or more, seeming to be in a brown study.

It was Rousseau who said of the infidel philosophers of his day, though himself deep in the same unholy business: "They would fain palm upon us, for the true causes of things, the unintelligible systems they have erected in their own heads, whilst they overturn, destroy, and trample under foot all that mankind reveres; snatch from the afflicted the only comfort left them in their misery, from the rich and great the only curb that can restrain their passions; tear from the heart all remorse for vice, all hopes of virtue; and yet boast themselves the benefactors of the human race!"

THE SKEPTIC AND THE CLERGYMAN.

"I DON'T believe in a personal God," remarked a skeptic to a minister who was a fellow-traveller.

"Why not?" asked the minister.

"Because I can't see Him. His existence is not demonstrable or capable of proof, like facts of science."

The minister asked, "Don't you believe that you

are alive and that I am alive?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Why do you believe it?"

"Because I can see you move."

"Well," said the minister, "the locomotive that is drawing this train also moves: is it alive?"

"No," he answered, “but the engineer who runs it is alive."

"Please tell me," said the minister, "whether the engineer is a part of the machinery or a living person ?"

"He is a living person, of course," replied the skeptic.

"Now, sir," retorted the minister, "consistency is a jewel: please tell me why you attribute the movement of the locomotive to a living person, but deny that God, who sets the universe in motion, is a living Person?"

The man had no answer. But, silenced on this argument, he branched off into another objection.

"What I hate," he said, "in orthodoxy is this endless talk about creed, creed, creed, thrust upon us everywhere and at all times."

"What do you mean by a man's creed ?" asked the minister.

"I understand by a creed that which a man believes."

"Well, sir," rejoined the minister, "you have just as much creed as I have. I believe there is a personal God; you believe the opposite. I believe in

the incarnation of the Son of God for our redemption; you believe the contrary. I believe in the ruined estate of man, rendering a Redeemer necessary; you believe the opposite. What difference is there in the bulk of these two creeds, only that I believe one side of the question, and you believe the other side? When we sift that point, you have just as much creed on your side as I have on mine; but you want the right to advocate your sentiments, while you wish to deny me the same right on my side." The objector was silenced again.

"But," said he, "Christianity is not capable of scientific demonstration. When we take the sciences, all truths are capable of demonstration by experiments which prove them. You can put them to the test. I take particular pleasure in the study of chemistry. Its propositions are plain, and can be proven by facts and experiments which appeal to the senses."

"Then you have studied chemistry, I suppose ?" "Yes, sir."

"Well," resumed the minister, "as you are a student of chemistry, you are acquainted with the fact that charcoal, coal, and the diamond are the same in their molecules-namely, carbon. Now, can you take a molecule out of the charcoal and put it into a diamond, and get a perfect thing of it?"

The man acknowledged that he could not.

"Where, then," said the minister, "is your demonstration in chemistry? But, so far as Christianity is concerned, your objection is not valid, for it is

capable of demonstration in its own way. You can try it spiritually, and find it all that God has represented it to be. God says to all, 'Oh, taste and see.' Try it, and experience will attest its truth. Millions have put it to the test of their experience, and have found it 'the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.''

In a somewhat more conciliatory spirit the skeptic spoke of his father and mother as believing Christian people.

"Were they good people?" inquired the minister. "Yes, excellent," was the answer. "My father was an excellent, good man."

"Well," asked the minister," what practical benefit do you get by changing from the religion of your parents to skepticism? Does it make you a better man? Are you a better husband to your wife, a better father to your children, a better citizen in the community in which you live? Does your unbelief make you any happier?"

The man was not willing to say that he was. "Have you a watch ?" said the minister.

"Yes, an excellent time-piece,” said the man, tak

ing out and displaying a fine gold watch.

"It keeps good time, does it?”

"Yes, very reliable."

"Well, how would you trade it off? Would you not demand for it a better timepiece of more value, rather than part with it for an inferior one?" The man said, "Yes, certainly."

"And here, again, you show how inconsistent

with reason you are acting in changing the creed of your parents for one which you admit does not benefit you a particle beyond what their religion did for them."

The skeptic had no reply to make.

THE TESTIMONY OF AN OLD DISCIPLE.

A GLIB and jocose infidel lecturer advertised in one of the manufacturing towns of England to deliver a discourse, charging threepence admission, in which he proposed to tell his hearers of something better than Jesus Christ; and at the appointed time greatly entertained the most of his audience with his jests and merrymaking over the alleged blunders and absurdities of the Bible. When he concluded he gave the usual challenge, that if there was any one in the house with anything to say against his argument, the way was now open to hear it.

A poor old woman in homely dress and antique bonnet, with a basket on her arm and a faded umbrella in her hand, arose and walked to the stand amid titters of laughter from the gallant young men. around her. Fixing her steady eye upon the applauded lecturer, she said,

"I come here to hear about what is better nor Christ, but I haven't heard it yet. I want to tell you now what He's done for me, and then I want you to tell me what is better, or else give in that you have cheated a poor old woman out of threepence.

"I've been a widow thirty years. I was left with ten children, and nothing to get bread, clothes, or