title, sir, almost tells the whole story; and so far as you and I are
concerned, it is almost a waste of time for us to open the book--and a
crime against themselves for ignorant men to do so."

"The author must be one of your 'holy terrors' that I hear mentioned," I
said. "A Western 'bad man' no doubt. Sad! sad! is it not?"

"Oh, no, no; the author is not a cowboy--he's a perfect gentleman--as
polished as I am; and there's nothing very sad in the book. It contains
several lectures in the line of agnostic agitation, which were from time
to time delivered by a very talented, but, as I think, mistaken man.
When I say mistaken, I do not mean mistaken in the sense that our church
people might apply the term to him; for our church people seem to
misunderstand him, almost as greatly as he misapprehends the purposes of
nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon Christian workers. But mark my words,
sir, you will soon, in England, hear of this young 'infidel' lecturer;
for with his keen brain, his invincible logic, his concise and beautiful
rhetoric, he will soon be recognized as the most popular living
agnostic. His home is not far distant from Bellevue, and I have
frequently heard him lecture. I think him the best platform orator I
have ever listened to, though I have twice been charmed by the eloquence
of Phillips, and a dozen times by that of Beecher. I shall not outrage
your own and my own manhood by alluding to anything which the more
partisan church people say of this brilliant agnostic; and I say what I
do, only because in your distant home you may some day wonder just what
is behind an agnostic demonstration such as he is leading up to, and
which is certain to centralize the dissatisfied spirit of the country
into an anti-church propaganda of no mean proportions. I am opposed to
such a movement; but I believe in truth as the only durable weapon, and
I love truth for truth's sake--I should refuse to enter the gateway of