Poor man! He has no idea of what he has lost. He has been living on miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound sense.
Poor man!
Probably Mr. Moody has never read one word of Darwin and so he still believes in the Garden of Eden and the talking snake and really thinks that Jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its nostrils, stood it up and called it Adam, and that he then took one of Adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured Eve. Probably he has never read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still believes in the story of the flood. Knowing nothing of astronomy, he still thinks that Joshua stopped the sun.
Poor man! He has neglected Spencer and has no idea of evolution. He thinks that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair having been perfect. He does not believe that man came from lower forms and has gradually journeyed upward.
He really thinks that the Devil outwitted God and vaccinated the human race with the virus of total depravity.
Poor man!
He knows nothing of the great scientists—of the great thinkers, of the emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of Spinoza, of Voltaire, of Draper, Buckle, of Paine or Renan.
Mr. Moody ought to read something besides the Bible—ought to find out what the really intelligent have thought. He ought to get some new ideas—a few facts—and I think that, after he did so, he would be astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. He is a good man. His heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless.
The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he contradicts it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every human being must bear the natural consequences of his acts. Actions are good or bad according to their consequences. That is my doctrine.
There is no forgiveness in nature. But Mr. Moody tells us that a man may sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath, repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven—in other words, that this man will not reap what he sowed, but what Christ sowed, that this man's thistles will be changed to figs.