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162 which I bet is more than the rest of you can say, and I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount a dozen times. It ’s darn good sense, but what good does it do ? The world will never practise Christ’s phi¬ losophy. The Bible says, ‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,* and, believe me, that *s damn true. If people would be pure and good, then Christ’s philosophy would work, but they aren’t pure and good; they aren’t made pure and good, they ’re made selfish and bad: they ’re made, mind you, made full of evil and lust. I tell you it’s all wrong. I’ve been reading and reading, and the more I read the more I’m convinced that we ’re all rotten and .that if there is a god he made us rotten.”

“You ’re wrong!” They all turned toward Win* sor, who was still standing by the fireplace; even Ferguson rolled over and looked at the excited boy. “You’re wrong,” he repeated, “all wrong, I admit all that’s been said about parents. They do cheat us just as Don said. I never tell my folks anything that really matters, and I don’t know any' other fellows that do, either. I suppose there are some, but I don’t know them. And I admit that there is sin and vice, but I don’t admit that Christ’s! philosophy is useless. I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount, too. That’s about all of the Bible that I have read, but I’ve read that; and I tell you you’re all wrong. There is enough good in man