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I reject it on account of its infinite heartlessness. I cannot tell people too often, that during our last war – the American Civil War – Christians, who knew that if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly willing that these men should go to hell provided they could stay at home. You see they are not honest in it, or they do not believe it, or as the people say, “they don’t sense it.” They have not imagination enough to conceive what it is they believe, and what a terrific falsehood they assert. And I beg of every one who hears me tonight, I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a church in which the lie of eternal damnation is preached. Never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, they say the heathen will go to heaven anyway, if you let them alone. So what is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he will not believe it, is monstrous. Do not tell him here, and as quick as he gets to the other world and finds it is necessary to believe, he can say “Yes.” Give him a chance.

– RGI