Still we cannot disguise the fact that had it not been for the presence of the war-ship Decatur, with her complement of guns and fighting men, the town would have been plundered and burned, and its inhabitants would have perished in a…

I believe in that system of religion which produces, in its practical operation, the best man and the best woman, the best husbands and the best wives, the best fathers and the best mothers, the most affectionate and obedient children, and…

I care not what you may call it; by its fruit or practical results it should be judged.

I further believe in the existence of an allwise Creator of all things--the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

I do not believe in him as a Supreme Ruler located at some distant point in an immense Universe, but as an omnipresent God.

I believe in the immortality of man--not of his physical nature, but of that divine emanation breathed into the nostrils of man by his Creater that made him a living soul.

When I take a survey of the Universe and find all things running in the rhythm of order and harmony, I ask myself the question: What is it that produces this universal order and harmony?

No answer can be given other than that it is the result of law.

Now, we can have no more conception of law outside of a lawmaker, than we can have of an agent without a principal or an agency.

Law and lawmaker, as well as agent and principal, are inseparably interlocked.

Therefore since we must admit the existence of law, the existence of a lawmaker is a necessary logical sequence: that lawmaker, is God.

The immortality of the soul is susceptable not of demonstration, but of reasonable proof by reason itself.

It can not be true that a being with the attributes which we ascribe to God, could create man with such a desire, to tantalize him through life, and to disappoint him in death.

Consider the fact that nowhere in nature, from the highest to the lowest, was an instinct, an impulse, a desire implanted, but that ultimately were found the conditions and opportunities for its fullest realization.

Look in this connection to the brevity of life; its incompleteness; its aimless, random, and fragmentary carreers; tragedies; its injustices; its sorrows and separations.

The account of the creation of man as given in the Bible is remarkable for its statement of the distinguishing difference between man and the rest of creation.

By soul is meant the power to think, to reflect, and to judge of the moral quality of actions and thoughts.

Let me take the sceptic's standard of what we should believe, and what we should not believe; that is, we ought not to believe that of which we have no evidence, and for which we can give no satisfactory reason.

Is the power to think and reflect and to judge of the moral quality of thoughts and actions, a property of matter or not?

If it be, clams and oysters as animal organizations think; possess the power to reflect and to judge of the moral quality of thoughts and actions, but we have no evidence that they possess any of these powers, and consequently we ought not…

How does instinct act as contra distinguished from actions based upon the exercise of soul-power?

It is only when men are controlled by soul-power, as against instinct, that they really are men in the higher sense of the term.

We argue that, being an emanation from God, they must of necessity partake of the nature of God, and are therefore indestructible, and eternal.

The body was the instrument through which the soul manifested itself, just as the piano is the instrument through, or by which, a certain class or kind of music is manifested.

The exclusion of the territorial laws since the date of the convention has been open, manifest, and palpable, and I believe rightful.