THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

Swearing. —Let the reader turn to his Bible concordance, and
observe the hundreds of cases in which God and his people are
represented as swearing. He can then understand why pro-
fanity is now more prevalent in Christian than in heathen coun-
tries. God himself is several times represented as swearing in
his wrath (Ps. xcv. 11). It should therefore be expected to be
prevalent amongst Christian Bible believers.

As a Christian missionaiy was recently returning from India
on board a British vessel, observing a Christian professor fre-
quently swearing, he stepped to him, and observed, u Here, sir,
is my son, twenty-one years old, born and raised in a heathen
land, and to-da}T is the first time he ever heard a profane oath.”
Rather a withering lesson for a Christian professor. There are
obviously two causes for the great prevalency of profane & rear-
ing in all Christian countries. One is its frequent indor ement
in the Bible, and the other is the common custom of the priest-
hood apparently indulging in the practice in the pulpit. In
their godly zeal to convert sinners, they exclaim, “God will
damn you." The bo}Ts in the congregation catch the refrain,
run into the street, and repeat the oath (dropping one word),
“ God damn you.” Before we can expect this foolish and
demoralizing practice to be abandoned, we must have a different
Bible and different religious teachers; and also before we can
prevent the heathen who read our Bible from imitating our
example in swearing, or using profane language.

Cursing. — The numerous cases of cursing recorded in the
Bible from Jehovah to Elisha, who cursed the sportive, £auey
boys, and then destined them with bears, are calculated to en-
gender and foster the worst and most malignant passions of
the human mind. The veiy name of the Jews’ God, Jehovah
(Elohim), is derived from a root which signifies “ to curse and
to swear.” And the immoral practice of cursing is continued
from the Old Testament through the New.

Murder.—AYe have spoken of murders perpetrated by the
Jews under the authority of a theocratic government. AAre will
now cite some cases of a more private character: Cain, the
first man born into the world, was a murderer; and, instead
of being punished for it, he appears to have been honored. He
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283

went into the land of Nod, and built a great cit}^ “ The man
after God's own heart" (David) indirectly killed Uriah; Ju-
dith cut off the head of Holofernes while in bed with him, — a
most shocking case; Jehoiada, the priest, murdered his queen
at the high gate in cold blood; Jael, the wife of Heber, mur-
dered the flying fugitive Sisera by driving a nail though his
head; Ehud murdered the King of Eglon under the guise of
friendship ; Absalom murdered Ammon; Joab murdered Absa-
lom ; Solomon murdered his brother Adonijah; Baasha mur-
dered Nadab ; Zimri murdered Elah; Omri murdered Zimri;
Ahab murdered Naboth; Jehu murdered Ahab and Joram;
Shallum murdered Zachariah ; Hoshea murdered Pekah. Nu-
i merous other cases might be cited. * Some of these murderers
were leading men among the Jews, —men whose life and char-
i acter exercised great influence ; and consequently such examples
were very pernicious, and the moral lesson they impart to Bible
i readers must be corrupting to their moral feelings, if not their
111 moral conduct.

j Flogging. —The practice of flogging is regarded as a relic of
barbarism by all modern writers on moral ethics. We find it was
prescribed by law under the Hebrew monarchy. Forty lashes,
in some cases, while the victim was tied or held down, was
the penalty for certain crimes. (See Deut. xxv.) If they were
i schooled in the councils of infinite wisdom as they claimed to
be, their God should have taught them a less severe and more
enlightened method of treating offenders.

J Witchcraft. — “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exod.
,] xxii. 18) has been the watchword and the authority for the
* slaughter of great numbers of human beings. Figures can not
j compute the tortures, the shocking cruelties, and the heart-
! crushing sufferings which have been endured as the legitimate
fruit of this superstitious, barbarous law of “God’s holy
people." It was continued in force to a late period, and has
been more extensively practiced by Christians than by Jews.
H The number of victims in Christian England alone amounts to
| hundreds of thousands. A large portion of them were tied hand
! and foot, and thrown into the water. If they sank; that termin-
al ated the case, guilty or not guilty ; if they swam or floated, that
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

was regarded as an evidence of guilt, and they were taken out,
and burned or hanged. During its reign in England, thirty
thousand harmless women were burned as witches, mostly poor
women who had no means of self-defense.

Even the learned Sir Matthew Hale, one of England’s most
enlightened Christian jurists, sentenced a number of poor women
to be hanged in 1664 as witches; and the reason he assigned
for it was, that u the Bible leaves no doubt as to the reality of
witchcraft, and the duty of putting its subjects to death.”
Thus we have an illustration of the enormous evils which have
grown out of Bible superstitions, perpetuated by those who were
so ignorant as to accept the book as authority. Witchcraft,
which was believed by Bible writers and Bible Christians to be
the work of the Devil or of evil spirits, is now well understood
in the light of modern science as to its causes, of which Bible
revelation was ignorant.

As the want of space will permit no further exposition or
enumeration of Bible crimes, we will sum up the whole thus:
Murder, theft, robbery, war, slavery, intemperance, polygamy,
concubinage, fornication, rape, piracy, tying, assassination,
treachery, tyranny, revenge, persecution for religious opinions,
vagabondism, degradation and enslavement of women, hypoc-
risy, breach of faith, suicide, vulgarity or obscenity, witchcraft,
flogging, cursing, swearing, &c.

We have cited texts and examples in proof of the statement
that all these crimes, and others not here enumerated, are sanc-
tioned by God’s “ hoty word,” and were perpetrated by God’s
ct hoty people,” as the}' arc called. And yet a Christian writer
declares, u The Lord kept his people pure, hoty, and upright
through every period of their history.” A statement could
hardly be made that would be farther from the truth. It is
another evidence of the blinding effect of a false religion.

Again we ask, should a book, lending its sanction to the long
catalogue of crimes herein enumerated, and which represents
them as being in accordance with the will of a hoty and a right-
eous God, be placed in the hands of the illiterate and credulous
heathen as a guide for their moral conduct ? Most certainty it
must have a deleterious cllcct upon their morals ; and yet him-
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285

dreds of thousands are distributed amongst them every year by
the Christian churches and missionary societies. And then
think of making such a book “ the fountain of our laws, and
the supreme rule of our conduct/ ’ as urged by the Evangelical
Alliance and the orthodox churches. We almost tremble at the
thought of such a step toward barbarism and demoralization.

CHAPTER XLYIII.

IMMORAL INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE.

With the characteristic moral teaching of the Christian Bible,
presented in the preceding chapter and throughout "this work,
we see not how to escape the conviction that the Bible has
inflicted, and must necessarily inflict, a demoralizing influence
on society wherever it is read and believed. It is morally im-
possible for any person to read and believe a book sanction-
ing, or appearing to sanction, so many species of crime and
immorality without sustaining more or less moral and mental
injury by it. For whatever views he may entertain with respect
to the numerous crimes therein reported as having been com-
mitted with the approval, and often at the command, of a just
God, it must naturally and inevitably have the tendency to
weaken his detestation of those crimes, and also weaken his
zeal and effort to extinguish them and other similar crimes now
existing in society. It must also lower his conception of the
moral attributes of Deity. However honest, and however natu-
rally opposed to such immoralities at the outset, it is impossible
for him to entertain the belief that they were once approved, or
even connived at, by a morally7 perfect being, without becoming
unconsciously weakened in his feelings of opposition to, and his
hatred of, such deeds. It may be alleged that these practices
are at war with those precepts which enjoin us to do unto others
as we would have them do unto us; and that of loving our
neighbors as ourselves, &c. This is true ; but reason and expe-
rience both teach us, as an important lesson in moral and mental
philosophy, that, when a book which is accepted as a guide for
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

the conduct and moral actions of men contains contradictory
precepts, the people will seize on and reduce to practice those
most consonant with their natures, and most congenial to their
natural feelings and inclinations. Hence it can easily be seen,
that as the animal feelings and propensities which lead to the
commission of crime, when unduty exercised, have always been
stronger with the masses or the populace than the moral feel-
ings, they have consequently always been more disposed to yield
a compliance with those precepts which sanction, or appear to
sanction, the commission of crime, than those which are con-
demnatory of crime. All persons in whose minds the animal
propensities are the strongest will seize with eagerness the
least authority, or appearance of authority, for committing those
crimes which they are naturally inclined to commit, and for
which they are glad to find a license or encouragement to com-
mit. Under such circumstances the}' will ignore the virtuous
precepts, and yield a compliance with those of an opposite char-
acter. Therefore Christian professors who expect the Bible to
exert a moral influence in reforming the world and freeing it
from crime, because it contains some beautiful and sound moral
precepts, will be disappointed; for those precepts will be neu-
tralized, and their effects destroyed, by those of an opposite char-
acter. A majority of the people in all countries have always
possessed a strong inclination for committing those crimes
which, we have shown, the Christian Bible appears to sanction.
Hence the Bible, with all its counteracting precepts, will only
add fuel to the fire, for the reason already pointed out. Those
who do not know this must be ignorant of the most important
principles of moral science, and the elements of human nature
Bight here is where Christians commit a serious mistake. They
scatter their Bibles among the heathen by the thousand, assum-
ing that it will have the effect to moralize and civilize them,
while they can find a warrant in it (as shown in the preceding
chapter) for every species of crime they have been in the habit
of committing. This is a solemn error they have been commit-
ting for ages, lienee their missionary labors, instead of reform-
ing the heathen, have only tended to demoralize them, where
they have not been counteracted by the more rational religion
 THE BIBLE AT WAR WITH SCIENCES.

287

of science and nature, as they have been in many cases. Many
facts could be adduced to prove this statement, some of which
may be found in Chapter 50. (“Bible a Moral Necessity ”).
Wherever the Bible has been introduced, without the arts and
sciences to counteract its influence (as in Abyssinia and the
Samoan Islands), crime has increased. History proves that
wherever the Bible has been circulated without any counter-
acting influences, both in Christian and heathen nations, it has
had the effect to weaken the moral strength of the people, lower
their natural appreciation of virtue and a true moral life, and
has had a tendency to popularize crime by making it more
respectable. It is therefore an unsuitable book to circulate as
a guide for the moral conduct of man in any country.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE BIBLE AT WAR WITH EIGHTEEN SCIENCES.

The word “ science” is from the Latin scire (“to know”).
Hence ever}' statement incompatible with the teachings and
principles of science is simply ignorance arrayed against knowl-
edge. It may surprise some who have been taught that the
Bible contains “a perfect embodiment of truth,” or who be-
lieve, with the redoubtable Dr. Cheever, that “the Bible does
not contain the shadow of a shade of error from Genesis to
Revelations,” —it will doubtless surprise all such persons to be
told, that, so far from Dr. Cheever’s statement being correct,
“ the Holy Book,” by a fair estimate, is found to contain more
than nine thousand scientific errors alone; i.e., more than
nine thousand statements and assumptions which conflict with
the\established principles of modern science^besides errors in
morals, history, &c. It is believed there is not one chapter in
the book wThich does not contain several errors of this charac-
ter. This, perhaps, should not be a matter of surprise to any
person after viewing the character and condition of philosophy
and the wide-spread scientific ignorance which reigned over the
world at that period. Let it be borne in mind that science was
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TIIE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

but just budding into life, and philosophy had attained but a
feeble growth amongst that portion of the earth’s inhabitants
who constituted the representatives of the Jewish and Christian
religion. Not only does their history and their writings show
that they were, for the most part, ignorant of what little sci-
ence there was in the world, —which was small compared with
the present period,—but they opposed it whenever they came
in contact with it. Every thing was ascribed to supernatural
power. The word “ science ” only occurs twice in the Bible, —
once in the Old Testament, and once in the New; and, in the
latter case, it was used for the purpose of condemning it. Paul
advises Timothy to “beware of the babblings of science” (1
Tim. vi. 20). The word “ philosoph}" ” is used but once in
the Bible, and then not to recommend it; but Paul uses it
to condemn it, as he does science, or at least to discourage it:
“ Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and
vain conceit” (Col. ii. . It will be observed, then, that
there is apparently a veto placed upon the study of science
and philosophy in the only two instances in which reference
is made to them in the Bible. We can not wonder, there-
fore, that its devout disciples have in all ages, until a very
recent period, set themselves squarety against the propagation
of science and philosophy. It was but carrying out the spirit
of their Bible. The earl}' Christians, almost to a man, dis-
couraged the study of science, and condemned and persecuted
those who attempted to propagate its principles, and even put
some of them to death. Copernicus was persecuted for setting
forth principles of astronomy which conflicted with the teach-
ings of the Bible; Galileo was sentenced to death because ho
taught the rotundity and revolution of the earth in opposition
to the Bible, which declares, “The earth lias foundations, and
can not be removed” (Ps. civ. 5) ; and Bruno suffered the
penalty of death for teaching substantially the same doctrine.
And every discoverer in science was condemned and persecuted.
Much was written by the early fathers in acknowledgment of
the incompatibility of science with religion and the teachings
of the Bible, and to warn the pious disciple of the danger
of occcupying his mind in the investigation and study of sei-
 THE BIBLE AT WAB WITH SCIENCE.

289

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

And this is a part of the religion of the Christian’s u Holy
Bible,” claimed as the product of divine inspiration. Now,
who can not see that such a religion as this is calculated to en-
gender bad feelings, bad ideas, and bad morals, and to repress
the lofty moral emotions of the human mind ?

II.   The Bible sanctions Theft or Robbery.

Robbery, practiced under the false pretense of borrowing, is
another crime claiming the sanction of God’s “ Holy Word” and
that “ Holy Being ” whose morality we are taught to imitate by
the injunction, “ Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is
perfect.” We are told (in Exod. xii.) that the Jews, or He-
brews, when leaving Egypt, robbed or stole from the inhabitants
to such an extent, that “ they spoiled the Egyptians,” which
leads to the conclusion that the robbery must have been very
extensive: and for this merciless, wholesale robbery, they
claimed the sanction of a just and righteous God ; for we are
told he sanctioned or commanded the act. And this is a part
of the code of morals u the Evangelical Christian Union”
would have us incorporate into the Constitution of the United
States ; but it is evident, from the facts already presented, that
such an act would be a step towards barbarism.

III.   The Bible sanctions War.

Another immoral feature of the Christian Bible, and one
which proves it to be a relic or record of barbarism, and a very
unsuitable book to “constitute the fountain of our laws, and
the supreme rule of our conduct” (as recommended and urged
by the Evangelical Christian Union), is found in its frequent
sanction of human butchery; and a just and righteous God is
represented as leaving his throne “ in the heavens” to come
down to take a part in their savage and bloody battles with
different nations about their religious creeds. He is represented
as standing in the front ranks during every battle fought by his
“holy people.” And, by long experience on the field of human
butchery, he came to receive the military title of “ God of War,”
“ A Man of War,” “ The Lord of Hosts,” &c. ; and his success
in destroying human beings won for him the reputation of a great
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271

and skillful general, and placed him above other Gods in valor
in his own estimation. He is represented as becoming so
excited with anger, so blood-thirsty and revengeful in spirit,
that he commanded his holy people to strike down every living
creature with the sword, whether men or animals. The word
of command was 4 4 to spare nothing; ” 44 save nothing alive
that breathes.” He is even represented as commanding the
slaughter of innocent babes. The order was, so says Samuel
(1 Sam. xv. 3), 44 Spare them not, but slay both men and
women, infants and sucklings.” Now, of all the blood-dyed
mandates that ever issued from human lips, or was heard on the
plains of human butchery, none ever excelled it in cruelty and
malignant barbarity, claimed as coming from the mouth of a
s God of infinite justice and infinite benevolence. Think of the
J murder, in cold blood, of thousands of little innocent, prattling
i babies, who never lisped an evil word, or conceived an evil
thought, in their lives! and this by command of the loving
1 Father of the human family! Who believes it? Who can
believe it? Ay, who dare believe it, if he would escape the
ij charge of blasphemy? Neither Nero nor Caligula was ever
} guilty of any thing so ruthless, so fiendish, so cruel, and so
* vindictive. And this is the God the Evangelical Union tell us
the Constitution of the United States should recognize as the
| Supreme Ruler of nations. This is the Bible which they tell us
i should become 44 the fountain of our laws, and the suprerhe
{ rule of our conduct.” This is the religion which they are
trying to revive and fasten upon us in this enlightened nine-
'll teenth century. This is the religion we are required to believe

Icame from a God of infinite justice, infinite mercy, and loving
kindness, or be denounced as infidels, and be eternally damned.
But could a person be more damned than to believe in such a
religion? Now, those who have studied the philosophy and
impressibility of the human mind know that no extortion or
contortion of the language of the text, no symbolical or spirit-
ual construction that can be forced upon it, can prevent the
reading and believing a book from producing pernicious effects,

! which represents such barbarous deeds as having the divine
s sanction. Nothing can prevent it from exercising a demoral-
 272

TUE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

izing influence upon a Christian community. The sooner, there-
fore, it can cease to be placed in the hands of the heathen and
the young people of Christian lands, and cease to constitute the
basis of our religion, the better for the progress of true morality,
and a virtuous system of religion.

IV.   The Bible sanctions the Evil of Intemperance.

There arc a number of texts in the Bible, which, if human
language can mean any thing, most unquestionabty furnish a
warrant for drunkenness, whatever might have been the intention
of the writer; and that they have had the effect to sustain
and promote this evil, the practical history of Christian coun-
tries furnish proof that can not be gainsaid. That teacher
of Bible morality — that wise man who is said to have received
his wisdom direct^ from God, and must consequent^ be con-
sidered good authority—is represented as saying, u Give to him
that is athirst, and wine to those of heavy heart. Let him drink,
and forget his poverty, and remember his misciy no morc.,,
Here we are virtually recommended to drown our sorrows, and
benumb the pangs of poverty, by becoming dead drunk ; for it
is only after the inebriate has quaffed the contents of the intox-
icating bowl, or swung the bottle to his lips till he becomes
stupefied and insensible (i.e., u dead drunk’’), that he can
“forget his poverty, and remember his misciy no more.”
Wt* dare not deny, then, that Solomon recommended a state
of beastly intoxication as a means of drowning our troubles;
for no other meaning can be forced upon the text than that
which we have assigned it, without assuming an unwarrantable
use of language. Awa}', then, with such a book as “the
source of moral and religious instruction for the heathen,” or
as a reading-book for youth and children ! The question is not
what the Bible can be made to teach ; but what is it naturally
understood to teach, and what are the moral consequences of so
understanding it?

And we find in Exodus a still more explicit license, not only
for drinking, but for buying and selling, intoxicating drinks.
It is proclaimed, upon the authorit}’of Jehovah, “Thou shalt
spend thy monejr for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for
 TUB BIBLE SANCTIONS INTEMPEBANCE.

273

strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after” (Deut.
xiv. 2G). We are sometimes told, but without reliable authority,
that the wine here referred to did not possess very intoxicating
properties. But it will be observed that the text did not stop at
wine, but 44 strong drink ; ” thus leaving no doubt upon the mind
of the reader but that they used strong liquors, even if we were
warranted in assuming the wine was not of this character,
which, however, we are not, and which we know is not true:
for, although like the wine of the grape in other countries, it
would not intoxicate while new, yet in that warm climate, as
travelers affirm, it will ferment in a few hours. It is evident,
then, that wine was one of their intoxicating beverages in
addition to 44 strong drinks.” And here we find a license for
buying and selling and using both in a book which the ortho-
dox churches would have us adopt as 4 4 the fountain of our
laws, and the supreme rule of our conduct,” ostensibly for the
improvement of the morals of the people ; when it is known to
unbiased investigators of the subject that these and similar
texts have been a stumbling-block in the progress of the tem-
perance reform among that class of people who take the Bible
as it reads without studying the art of extracting the old mean-
ing with the clerical force-pump, and coining a new meaning
of their own especially adapted to the occasion, — an art
studied and practiced by the spiritually blinded devotees of
all 44 the Holy Bibles” which God is assumed to have inspired
for the salvation of the human race. I will cite one case in
proof of the statement that a Bible containing such texts as I
have cited is calculated to do much mischief in the way of
retarding the temperance reform by furnishing the plainest
authority for drinking and trafficking in intoxicating liquors. A
friend, upon whom I can rely, related to me the following case:
A man addicted to intemperate habits was converted to religion,
and induced to sign the temperance pledge, parity by the influ-
ence of a speaker who quoted from 44 the word of God” such
texts as these: 44 Woe unto him who holds the bottle to his
neighbor’s mouth” (Ilab. ii. 15) ; 44 Wine is a mocker, and
strong drink is raging” (Prov. xx. 1). But a few days after
his conversion, as he was turning the leaves of the Bible, his
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

eye accidentally caught sight of one of the texts I have quoted, —
“ Thou shalt spend thy money for strong drink,” &c. Here
he discovered that his Bible and his God both declared that
buying and drinking intoxicating beverages was all right. It
was enough. His resolution gave wajr; his firmness was un-
manned, his moral manhood prostrated, his pledge overruled;
and, in less than two hours, he was again lying in the ditch
“dead drunk.” Here is a proof of the mischief that can be
wrought by one single text upon those who have accepted the
Bible as “ the supreme rule of their conduct.” You may pro-
claim the evil of intemperance with the tongue of a Cicero, or
paint it with the pencil of a Raphael, and muster all the texts
you can find in the book condemning the practice, yet one such
text as I have quoted will poison the moral force of it all while
the Bible is read and adored as “the rule of their conduct.”
As one drop of belladonna or prussic acid will poison a whole
pint of water, in like manner will one immoral text, when found
in a book accepted by the people as their highest authority in
practical morals, have the effect to neutralize the moral force of
every sound precept that may be found in the book. It is use-
less, and labor comparatively lost, for a book or a moral teacher
to inculcate good precepts, while it is known thejT are morallj’
capable of teaching or preaching bad ones. One spark of fire
is sufficient to explode a powder-magazine. Bad precepts and
bad examples are both veiy contagious in a moralty undeveloped
and unenlightened age; and their pernicious effects can not be
wholly counteracted or prevented by any number of precepts of
an opposite character.

But we are told the precepts above quoted are in the Old
Testament, and not the New, which is now accepted as higher
authority. But then it should be borne in mind, that the Old
Testament is still being printed and bound with the New as
a part of “ the Holy Bible,” and “ God’s perfect revelation to
man” for “the guidance of his moral conduct.” It is still
circulated both in Christian and heathen countries by the mil-
lion with the New, and as of equal authority with the New Tes-
tament. It takes both to make “ the Holy Bible.” It will be
in vain, then, to plead any extenuation or apology for the immo-
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275

ralities of the Old Testament on this ground. They will both
stand or fall together. The “new dispensation” could not
stand a day without the Old Testament as a basis. And then,
when we push our investigations a step further, we find the
New Testament lending its sanction to most of the evils and
crimes wliicli are supported by the Old Testament; and among
this number is that under review, —the vice or sin of intemper-
ance. Paul, one of the principal founders and expounders of
the religion of the New Testament, and one of the leading
examples and teachers of its morals, in his letter of exhortation
to Timothy, advises him to u drink no longer water, but take a
, little wine for the stomach’s sake ” (1 Tim. v. 23). As for the
plea or purpose for which the intoxicating beverage was to be
used on this occasion “ for the stomach’s sake,” it is the same
that dram-drinkers and drunkards have always had recourse to
to justify the use of strong drink. It is always drunk for “ the
stomach’s sake.” And, when we find Christ himself converting
a large quantity of water into wine (see John ii.), we must con-
clude that the New Testament does not teach a system of
morals calculated to arrest the sin of intemperance. Those,
then, who wish still to continue floundering in the cesspool of
drunkenness, can find in the New Testament, as well as the Old,
a justification for this sin.

the march of science has exploded all their old theological dog-
mas. Phrenology has banished the Devil; physiology explains
the modus operandi of repentance ; psychology, the process of
u getting religion ;” philosophy analyzes their Bible miracles ;
geology has expanded their six da}^s of creation into six thousand
years; astronomy has displaced Moses’ theory of creation,
and demolished St. John’s little eight-by-ten heaven. (See
Rev. chap. 21.) And yet the orthodox clergy refuse to shorten
their creeds by leaving out these old, exploded dogmas. Like
moles, they continue rooting and digging away among their
must}T creeds, dogmas, and catechisms, seemingly unconscious
that the sun of science is now shining with dazzling brilliancy in
the moral heavens. Some of them manifest a tenacity in hold-
ing on to musty and antiquated dogmas equal to that of the but-
cher’s dog in the army which seized a slaughtered ox by the
caudal appendange, with the intention of monopolizing the meat,
and held on with a u manly grip ” till limb after limb had been
torn off, and piece after piece had been cut away from the body
by the hungry soldiers, and nothing was left but the tail and
the backbone ; and then his canine majesty growled at passers-
by, as much as to say, u I am master of the situation.” The
fossilized clergy are “ masters of the situation,” while the old
orthodox carcass is now minus every part but the tail and naked
backbone, to which they cling with a deathly grasp worthy of a
better cause. They remind us of the hotel-keeper in Vermont,
who, in answer to the interrogatories of some travelers, stated
that he did not keep any kind of food for either men or horses.
“TThat in the name of God, then, do you keep?” inquired
one of the hungry guests. He replied, “I keep Union Hotel.”
The stand-still clergy still keep the old theological hotel minus
any' spiritual food, or supplied only with old salt junk handed
down from the camp of Moses or Father Abraham.

A word more with respect to the origin of evil: Is it not
strange that Christians should den}T their God to be the author
of evil, when it is expressly so declared in their Bible? UI
make peace, and I create evil. I Jehovah do all these things.”

Here is the positive declaration that God is the author of evil;
and, if it were not thus unequivocally taught, we could prove
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

that the Bible teaches this doctrine indirectly by various texts.
If u God made every thing that was made,” then he either
made evil or the author of evil, whether that was a devil or a
serpent or a fallen angel; and this is substantially the same
thing as originating evil, —to originate the author of evil. We
challenge refutation of the proposition. But a philosophical
analysis of the question will show there is no such thing as evil
in either the abstract or absolute sense. Good and evil are but
relative terms, like heat and cold, light and darkness, &c.
There is no distinct line of demarkation between any of these
correlative terms. It is impossible to tell where one ends, and
the other begins. And then there is no act but that may
become either right or wrong under different circumstances.
The Bible says, “ Thou shalt not kill.” But the man who
should see an assassin pointing a pistol to the head of his wife,
or a dagger to her breast, and refrain from killing him as the
only means of saving her life, would be virtually* himself a mur-
derer. u Thou shalt not steal ” (Exod. xx.) ; and yet stealing
would become a moral right, as well as a physical necessity, to
avoid starvation. And so of all other acts called crime and
sin : they may become absolute virtues. How foolish, there-
fore, to erect inflexible standards for human action or conduct!
And then it should be noted that what is regarded as sin in one
age or country ma}T be imposed as a moral or religious duty in
another. It is a sin to disbelieve the Koran in Arabia, and a
sin to believe it in America. It is a sinful act to disbelieve the
Christian Bible in this country, and a moral and religious duty
in Japan. It is blasphenty and atheism to disbelieve in Jehovah
and Jesus Christ in this countiy, but a still greater blasphemy
and sin to believe in them in Arabia. And thus all human
actions are modified bjr the circumstances under which, and the
locality in which, they are committed.
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261

CHAPTER XLVI.

TEUE SALVATION, OE THE EATIONAL VIEW OE SIN.

We will now attempt to show what reason, science, and
God’s eternal Bible teach as the nature of sin and its conse-
quences. The orthodox world represents sin to be a personal
affront against a personal God. But we take a broader, and,
we think, a more rational view of the matter. We believe that
no act of ours, whether good or bad, can possibly affect an infi-
nite, omnipresent, and impersonal Deity in any way whatever.
Nothing we can do can either offend or gratify such a being.
He is infinitely too far removed from our little narrow sphere
of action. But every thing we do can and does affect ourselves,
and generally our friends and all connected with us. Every
wrong act we perform inflicts an injury upon our moral con-
sciousness, and a wound upon our sense of right, and inflicts a
lasting injury upon our moral dignity, if it does not create
a painful sense of wrong. And, when once committed, no re-
pentance, no forgiveness, no prayer, no atonement, no. pardon,
can do any thing toward arresting the baneful effects, or toward
healing the wound it has inflicted upon our moral consciousness,
or the injury it has inflicted upon others. Hence we never ask
for forgiveness, nor rely upon any atonement by men, animals,
or Gods to cancel the effects, or mitigate the wrong, or alleviate
the injury in the case. When you put your finger into fire, and
burn it, you violate one of God’s laws written upon your own
constitution,—the law of self-preservation; and it inflicts a
wound which the longest and loudest prayer ever uttered can
do nothing towards healing. The effect will remain until healed
by the working of nature’s inherent laws. A similar effect is
produced by every wrong act you inflict upon yourself'or your
fellow-beings. It inflicts a wound which is beyond the reach of
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

prayer, pardon, repentance, or forgiveness. It must work its
natural cure, as in the case of ply’sical injury. All bodily |
suffering comes through the mind, and hence affects the mind
as well as the bod}T; and every moral wrong we commit in-
flicts punishment or suffering upon the moral feelings. Hence
it will be seen that sin does not have to wait for God to point
out the penalty or punishment, but contains its own punish- |
ment, which no power in heaven or earth can arrest, avert,
or set aside. This is evidently the only true doctrine respecting
the punishment for sin; and it is the only doctrine that can
stop the commission of crime, and the only doctrine that
can ever reform the world; for, while the people are taught
that sin can be atoned for by anjr power in heaven or earth, they
will the more easily yield to the temptations to commit sin. <
They will feel that this doctrine is a kind of license for sin: at
least it weakens the motive for abstaining from sin. For if a j
man may lead a life of crime, sin, wickedness, and debauchee, i
destitute of all moral principle, for ninety-nine }’ears, as ortho- '
doxy teaches, and then have the effect entirety canceled, and I
the sin entirety erased from his soul, by one short hour of prayer
and repentance and forgiveness, and by acknowledging his faith
in the atoning blood of Christ, and then stand before God
without a moral blot upon his soul, all purified and read}’ to
join the pure in heart — the white-robed angels who lived a life
of self-denial and purity—in shouting gloiy to God, where 1
is the motive for leading a virtuous life? It is entirety too weak 1
to restrain from the commission of crime while the temptation
is as strong as we usualty find it in all countries, especially as
there is apparentty a large premium offered to sinners. Christ
says, “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent-
eth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no re-
pentance” (Luke xv. 7). No wonder that sin abounds in all
Christian countries; and it alwaj’s will abound while people are
taught such pernicious doctrines. Therefore we hold the doc-
trines of repentance, atonement, forgiveness, &c., to be all
wrong. They are subversive of the first principles of moral
justice, and pernicious in their effects upon society. Let the
wrong-doer, instead of being taught these pernicious doctrines,
 TBTJE SALVATION.

263

be instructed in the true system of salvation, which will teach
him there is no possibility of evading or escaping the punitive
effects of wrong-doing; that every wrong act he commits will
inevitably drive the iron into his soul, — the two-edged sword
of moral conviction ; and that the blood of no goats or no Gods
can do any thing toward washing away the sin, or mitigating the
punishment. And let him be rescued also from the pernicious
error of the churches, that u sin is a sweet morsel to be rolled
under the tongue,” or that 66 there is a pleasure in the commis-
sion of sin.” We hold no such views ; we believe in no such
doctrines. We do not believe there is any real pleasure in the
commission of a moral wrong of any kind. We believe that only
a life of virtue is productive of real happiness. Let the wrong-
doer be taught this moral lesson ; and let him be also taught that
every humane and virtuous act of this life will expand his soul,
and elevate him to a higher plane of happiness, and bring him
one step nearer the door of the heavenly kingdom. Let the
world of mankind all be taught these beautiful and soul-elevating
doctrines, which many mow know by experience to be golden
truths; and we will soon witness a great moral revolution and
renovation in society by the propagation of these doctrines. We
shall soon see the proof that our system of faith, embracing these
beautiful, philosophical, and elevating doctrines, is much better
calculated to moralize and reform the world than the morally
weak and unjust doctrines of repentance, atonement, and par-
don now daily preached from the Christian pulpits. Many cases
could be cited to show that they do have a pernicious influence.
I will adduce one example : When that Christian emperor, Con-
stantine, had murdered his wife, son, nephew, and several other
relatives, he raised his hands toward heaven, and exclaimed,
u The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.” Here is an ex-
ample of the pernicious and demoralizing effect of the Christian
doctrines of atonement and forgiveness. We repeat, then, that
such doctrines are demoralizing, as they must operate to retard
the progress of truth and true religion, and the moral reforma-
tion of the world. People should be taught that it is as impossi-
ble to escape the penalty for sin or wrong-doing as it is to escape
the darts of death; and that any act of forgiveness or atonement
 2G4

TTIE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

by some other being is only calculated to aggravate the wrong,
and augment the sin, and open the door for a future commission
of the act. All should understand that there is no one to par-
don sins, and no savior but themselves. u The new religion,”
as it is sometimes called, — though it is the oldest religion in the
world, being founded in the moral and religious nature of man,
and an outgrowth of lii3 moral, religious, and spiritual ele-
ments,— this religion, which is the religion of all the truly
enlightened and scientific minds of the age, teaches that every
person must be his own savior; that every man and woman
must work out their own salvation, not with fear and trembling,
however, but with joy and rejoicing. Hence we ask no bleed-
ing saviors, no atonements, no acquittals by pardon or forgive-
ness. We offer no such bribery for crime or sin,—no such
allurements and inducements for leading a life of vice; for
many can testif}', from their own experience, that they were more
casity tempted from the path of virtue when they believed in these
old heathenish, morally deformed, and morally dwarfing doc-
trines. On the other hand, they have felt much more strongly
wedded to a life of virtue, and more powerfully restrained from
wrong-doing since they abandoned these pernicious doctrines,
and embraced the healthful, beautiful, and elevating doctrines
of the u Ilarmonial Philosophy.” This system teaches we have
to suffer the penalty in full for every wrong act we commit; that
we can not escape in any case by either repentance, atonement,
or pardon ; that we can not swim off to heaven through the
blood of a murdered or crucified God, and leave our sins behind
unpunished, or pack them on the back of a savior as the Jews
did theirs on the back of a goat. It teaches us that the penalty
is as certain as the commission of the crime ; because one is the
cause, and the other the effect. Hence we could as easily replace
a lost arm, torn off in the field of battle, by prayer, or stop the
descending lightning from splintering yonder tree into a
thousand fragments, as to avert or set aside the penalty for
crime by 4c supplicating the throne of grace.” We hold that
every wrong act we commit, if it does not destroy our happiness
at the time, and operate as a barbed arrow sticking in the soul,
will at least weaken our capacity for happiness in the future,
 TRUE SALVATION.

205

weaken onr moral strength and resolution to abstain from
crime, weaken our natural detestation of crime, and weaken our
moral ability to resist the temptation to commit the same and
other crimes in the future, and finally destroy our moral manhood
and true dignity. Now, here is a series of powerful motives for
eschewing evil, and leading a life of virtue, which will operate
to arrest that river of crime and iniquity now flowing through
all Christian countries as soon as the people are taught these
rational and beautiful doctrines in lieu of those weak and foolish
incentives to virtue which arc taught them from the Christian
pulpit. They possess a much greater moral force than the fear
of angry Gods and horned Devils. Header ponder these maxims.

The True Theory of Reform.—It requires but a few words
to show what kind of moral teaching is required to reform the
world. As happiness is the predominant desire and inalienable
right of every human being, all aim to pursue that course best
I calculated to attain it; but, as men arc now organized and cir-
| cumstanced, they often pursue a course of life which infringes
| upon and destroys the happiness of others: and some of them
^ commit acts known as crimes, which are simply trespasses upon
] the rights, peace, and happiness of their neighbors. If, in thus
pursuing happiness, they must destroy the happiness of others,
1 then it follows that the happiness of others is incompatible with
their own. If so, then God has made a serious blunder in
j making one man’s happiness depend upon destrojlng the hap-
4 pincss of others; and, as their happiness would depend equally
upon destroying his, the happiness of all would thus be de-
ll stroj’ed. Hence the theor}" won’t work. It follows, then, that
men lead a life of crime calculated to destroy the happiness

10. The Jewish and Chaldean law of atonement required the
offender to place his hand on the head of the beast while being
consumed in sacrifice; and this was accepted as an atonement
for his transgressions. Such a conception is both senseless and
demoralizing, lie was thereby taught that he would escape the
legitimate consequences of his crime. And the Christian atone-
ment is no better. The sin-atoning offering of Christ furnishes
 ATONEMENT, AN IMMORAL DOCTRINE.

245

an open door through which the sinner escapes the just punish-
ment of law. It is at least a partial liquidation of his sins.
When one being is punished for another, this is, to the latter,
an immunity from punishment; and the ends of justice are thus
completely thwarted, and the moral law broken and trampled
under foot. If a culprit were sentenced to the penalty of death
for murder, and the punishment of another man were accepted
in his stead, every court in the civilized world would decide that
two wrongs were committed, — the punishment of the innocent,
and the pardon of the guilty. Such doctrines are repugnant to
all ideas of justice, and are most certainly demoralizing.

20.   The wrong-doer should be taught that he is just as guilty,
and just as certain of punishment for his crime, as if all the
Gods in heaven were put to death to atone for his sin; the
penalty being inseparable from the act.

21.   What would be thought of the government that should
punish the law-maker instead of the law-breaker? This is
exactly what the atonement amounts to ; so that the law-maker
falls a victim to the penalty of his own laws. It is God the
law-maker dying for man the law-breaker. Such ideas and
such doctrines are monstrous, and completely overthrow every
principle of civil jurisprudence.

22.   A God who could resort to such desperate expedients to
appease his anger, and satisfy the demands of justice, is not a
God, but merely an imaginary being which was conjured up in
an age of ignorance and superstition. The belief in such a
God is, nevertheless, demoralizing.

We will here relate an anecdote, showing that such ideas of
the Supreme Being are repulsive even to the unenlightened
heathen:   In Smith’s “ Gulf of Guinea” it is stated, that, as

a Christian missionary was presenting the doctrine of the Chris-
tian religion to Pepples, King of Bonny, and told him that God
gave his only-begotten son to die for us,—to be put to death
for our sins, —the king stopped him by saying, “ Do you think
me a fool to believe such palaver as that, —that God would kill
his own son to please himself; get mad at man, and then kill
his own son, instead of killing him? Never! never can I be-
lieve such fool palaver as that. It is big fool lie.” “ I tried,”
 246

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

says the missionary, 44 to impress upon his mind that nothing
would satisfy divine justice but such a sacrifice; but he cut me
short by exclaiming, 4 That will do; that will do: I have got
enough of such fool palaver.’ ” Quite a sensible 44 heathen ”
was King Pepples.

CHAPTER XLII.

SPECIAL PROVIDENCE, AN ERRONEOUS DOCTRINE.

All the holy books, and nearly all holy men who have figured 1
in the world, have cherished a belief in what is termed u special
providences,” —a doctrine which teaches that God individually
and personally superintends the affairs, not only of all nations,
but of each individual human being, now amounting in number
to about fourteen hundred millions. It seems strange that the   j

striking absurdity of such an assumption has not struck every   1

mind possessing the power to reflect or investigate. The
thought of his looking after the affairs and happiness of fourteen
hundred millions of human beings at a time, besides running
several thousand millions of worlds, far excels any of the 1
astounding feats of the evil genii of Gulliver. In the sublimity
of its absurdity and impossibility, it stands without a rival.

It expands beyond the utmost stretch of human credulity.
Like all the other doctrines of the popular creed, it sprang up
in an age of the world when the human mind accepted every
thing presented to it without investigation, —when nothing was
rejected on the ground of its being too absurd to be believed.
And an absurdity, when once established, no matter how mon-
strous or how stultifying to the intellectual or reasoning facul- .
tics, can bid defiance to the efforts of the few men‘of the world
whose minds arc too much expanded and enlightened to accept
such gross absurdities. There are several objections to the
doctrine of 44 special providences,” both of a logical or scien-
tific character, and also upon moral grounds, which shows that
it should have no place in an age of scientific intelligence.

One of these objections is the one just brought to notice, —?
 SPECIAL PBOVIDENCE.

247

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Jn

!i

II

i

,1

i

ii

that of its extreme absurdity and practical impossibilty. It
does not require a great mind, but only a reflecting one, to see
that no rational conception of the Supreme Being could render
it practicable for one mind, however boundless in knowledge
and infinite in power, to be so divided as to look after the
interest of each individual of a countless number, scattered
over a world of more than a hundred and seventy-five thou-
sand millions of miles in extent. A scientific investigation
of the operations of nature has settled the conviction in every
scientific mind that the life, actions, and destiny of every
human being are under the control of fixed and immutable
laws, which need only to be studied and observed to guard him
effectually from personal accidents, and those physical disasters
to which he often falls a victim through ignorance of the proper
means of avoiding them. It is now patent to all critical ob-
servers that the serious disasters and numerous causes of phys-
ical suffering to which the larger portion of the human family
were so frequently subjected in past ages, have largely dimin-
ished, and are constantly decreasing as the march of science
dispels the ignorance of the people, — such as the sinking of
ships, attributable to imperfect mechanical construction ; pesti-
lential diseases, caused by the general ignorance of the causes
of and means of preventing; the explosion of steam-boilers on
rivers, railroads, &c. And, from the present rates of improve-
ment in these respects, we may reasonably calculate that the
time is not far in the future when such disasters will be un-
known. Then we will have no need of 44 special providence” to
save the people from the fatal consequences of their ignorance.
The conviction seems now to be generally established in the
public mind, that when a boat is wrecked, or a locomotive
strap’s from the track, and a few persons escape with their lives
from the general wreck and ruin, it is to be ascribed to the
interposition of the hand of Providence. But common sense
would suggest, that, if Providence had any thing to do with it,
he should have commenced a little sooner, and put some more
brains or common sense into the heads of the managers of these
cargoes of human-beings, or kept the whiskey out of their
stomachs till they reached their point of destination. In the
 248

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

thousands of cases annually reported of Providence interposing
his aid to save some reckless mariners, or some heedless pas-
sengers on a pleasure-boat, from a watery grave, or rescuing a
few persons from the wreck of a railroad bridge, or some similar
calamity, the disasters might all have been avoided b}T Provi-
dence simpty acting upon the wisdom of the proverb, “An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It would be
considered an act of criminal neglect on the part of a father
who could stand by and see his children, from ignorance of the
danger of such a situation, fall from a precipice, and get crip-
pled : for which his diligence in taking care of them, and trying
to heal their bruises, would by no means excuse him, as he
should have commenced sooner, and prevented the accident
from taking place. And nearly all the cases of providential
interposition are liable to the same objection: the assistance is
too long delayed. A collision of two ships recently occurred
on the Atlantic, b}r which both vessels were reduced almost to
wrecks ; but4 4 providentially but few lives were lost,9 9 though most
of the passengers were injured. Now the question naturally
arises, Why did not God, when he perceived the vessels were
approaching each other, interpose his providential care, and
prevent the disaster? He either could not, or would not; and,
in either case, he is not infinite in all his attributes, according
to the general ideas of the matter. If he could not, he is cither
not omnipresent or not infinite in power; and, if he could and
would not, he is not infinite in kindness and benevolence, or he
would have put forth his hand, and saved his children from such
a terrible fate. It is time mankind would learn that God
governs the universe by general laws, fixed and unalterable,
and ever harmonious, and that lie never interferes immediately
or personally in the affairs of men.

That finite human spirits do, in many cases, aid in human
affairs by warning of danger, &c., is fully believed by many
persons. If this be true, their interposition would be liable to
be mistaken for that of the Infinite Spirit. But that any being
can perform millions of finite acts at once, or that God should
suspend the operation of his laws, which control the universe, for
the purpose of attending personally to the wants and prayers of
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCE.

249

each and every individual the world over, —many of the petitions
running counter to, or in direct conflict with, each other, —
is an idea too absurd to find lodgment in any truly enlightened
mind. But we entertain the pleasing thought that men are
beginning to learn that God governs by general laws, and not
b}T personal or special agency. These laws are so perfect in
their operations that no special laws or personal interference is
necessary in any case. A critical investigation of any case of
special providences would satisfy any scientific investigator that
it was governed entirely by natural causes ; but such scrutiniz-
ing investigations are seldom made.

The great mass of pious people in all past ages have been so
ignorant, and so little accustomed to reasoning or observation,

I that they have never observed, that, although many cases are
*J reported of Providence interfering to save the life of a child
who fell from the window of a basement-story, none are re-
(   corded of his saving a child that fell from the fifth story. Why

|   is this ? Does not this fact suggest a scientific lesson ? But

\   the heads of the great mass of the people have been so filled

J with creeds and catechisms that they have no room for science.

' |   It will be time enough to talk about special providences after a

i   case is known of a man escaping with his life after a cannon-

ball has passed through his head, or a bullet through his heart.
The belief in special providences is calculated to paralyze hu-
man effort in times of danger, and thus suffer the consequences
to be more frequently fatal. Let a man believe, while a ship
I is being wrecked in a storm, dashing against rocks and billows,
and her deck overflowed with water, that there is a Providence
in the case, and he will naturally labor with less zeal and effort
I   to save the vessel. If the case is in the hands of God, and it

\   is his good pleasure that they should be lost, it is of but little

use to work the pumps ; and, if it is his will that they should be
saved, they will be saved without much effort on their part.
There can be no doubt but that millions of pious people have
l!   been restrained on various occasions from putting forth their

i |   strongest efforts to arrest a threatening disaster, from the con-

j   viction that the hand of God was in it, and that no human

'   efforts could change the fate he had decreed for them. And
 250

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

thus the doctrine, in its practical consequences, has been per-
nicious. But, in this age of reason and scientific illumination,
men are beginning to learn, that, in cases of threatening dan-
ger and destruction, muscle is more necessary than “Provi-
dence ; ” that, when a ship is sinking in mid-ocean, pumps are
more efficacious than prayers ; and, when a building is on fire,
they can better do without the assistance of Providence than
without water, firemen, and engines.

CHAPTER XLIII.

FAITH AND BELIEF, BIBLE ERRORS RESPECTING.

“ Faith ” and “belief” seem to be among the most important
words in the Christian New Testament. No words are much
more frequently used. They occur in nearly every chapter, and
are used more than two hundred times. The following is a
specimen of the manner in which these words are used : —

c ‘ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he
that believeth not shall be damned.’’ This text, and the senti-
ment it contains, have caused more misery, cruelty, and more
butchery than all the edicts of an}’ king that ever sat on the
throne of England. Never did a more delusive and fatal error
find lodgment in the human mind than the idea couched in this
text. Terrible have been the denunciations, punishments, and
cruelties poured upon the unbelievers in the popular creed,
though that creed has been one thing one day, and something
else the next. No matter how honest, how upright, how benev-
olent, or how righteous a man proved himself in his practical
life, he was doomed to the dungeon, the fagot, and the halter,
if his creed was not conformable to the orthodox faith then in
power. Men and women have been condemned and punished
for assuming the right to doubt the truth of any doctrine of the
popular creed, — an egregious mistake, showing a profound igno-
rance of the nature of the human mind. All persons versed in
the science of mental philosophy now know that a man has no
more control over his doubts and beliefs than he has over the
 BIBLE ERRORS RESPECTING FAITH AND BELIEF. 251

blood that courses through his veins: for, without evidence, he
can not believe; and, with it, he can not disbelieve, as every
one will find who will examine this matter critically. Conse-
quently it is as unreasonable to condemn a man for his belief
or disbelief, as to condemn him for the color of his hair.
Doubt, so far from being restrained, should be cultivated, as
being the first step toward the attainment of knowledge and
progress ; for a man never makes any advancement or im-
provement in his views on any subject till he begins to doubt
the correctness of his present views, or, at least, doubts their
being perfect, or being incapable of improvement.

Who, then, can not see that to threaten a man for disbelief
is tyranny and injustice, inasmuch as it has a tendency to make
him a slave, and to repress the growth of his mind? Con-
demning a man for disbelief is virtually offering a premium
for hypocrisy, as it has the effect to make thousands profess to
believe doctrines which they do not, and which their consciences
really condemn, in order to avoid the frowns and ill-will of their
neighbors. And, as hypocrisy is a greater evil in its practical
effects upon society than unbelief, it can be seen that the prac-
tice of erecting a standard for belief and disbelief is wrong,
and mischievous in its effects.

The Bible declares that u faith is the gift of God.” It is
evident, that, if this be true, no responsibility can attach to faith
or religious belief; but all responsibility rests with the being
who gives it.

Two great blunders have been committed by faith-dealers:
First, in assuming that belief is of the nature of a coat, which
can be put on and off at pleasure, —i.e., that a man can believe
what he pleases or wishes to believe. The second is, that
knowledge and belief are synonymous terms, which is very far
from being true. Knowledge begins where faith and belief end.
Belief is that uncertain state of the mind which is experienced
in the absence of knowledge; and, when that knowledge is
obtained, the belief may prove to have been entirely erroneous.
Belief implies uncertainty; knowledge implies certainty. There
is this wide difference between them. We believe a thing when
we do not know whether it is so or not; consequently the
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

would be born, or whether he would be born at all or not.
Douglas Jerrold significantly remarks that, u if I had foreknown
that a portion of mankind would be born to be damned, I’ll be

d-----d if I would have been born at all.” This expression,

although profane, contains a good moral. Certainly nothing
could be more preposterous or unreasonable than to hold one
being accountable to another when the former had no agency in
creating his mind or originating his inclinations, out of which
all his actions grow. True accountability can only appertain
to beings who created their own natural inclinations, or con-
sented to receive those they are in possession of. This is clear
and unanswerable logic. If man was made by God, or Infinite
Wisdom, as Christians affirm, then common sense would teach
that God alone is accountable for his actions. The man would
be a fool who should blame a watch for not running right,
knowing that the maker conferred upon it all the properties
and powers it possessed. The maker of the watch alone is held
responsible for all its perfections and imperfections. And, if
man has a maker, it is a very clear case that that maker is
equally responsible for his running wrong. There is no resist-
ing this conclusion. The true assumption in the case is, that
man has no creator in the orthodox sense, and is only responsi-
ble to himself, and to society so far as he is a voluntary mem-
ber of it. But orthodoxy makes his salvation depend not only
upon his resisting the natural inclinations implanted in his
system, but also upon the position of his birth. As an argu-
ment in favor of sending the Bible to the heathen, they declare
that millions perish every year because they have not the oppor-
tunity of reading that “Holy Book,” and learning the name
of Jesus. This makes their salvation depend upon the locality
of their birth ; as some sections furnish the opportunity, and
others do not, of becoming acquainted with their Bible, and the
name of their Savior.

We must imagine, therefore, in u the da}" of judgment ” every
human being will have a geographical question to answer.
After being interrogated as to their conduct and practical lives,
the next question will be, “ Where were you born?” If the
answer is, “ In Arabia,” the reply of the judge will be, “ Oh,
 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE ERRONEOUS.   231

yes! you are a Maliomedan. Our religion only saves those
born in Christian countries. I must therefore set you aside
among the goats.’’ If the applicant is from India, he will be
rejected from the kingdom, and consigned to perdition, because
he is a “ heathen.” And thus Christianity is shown to be a
geographical system of salvation, and makes a man’s eternal
destiny depend upon whether he is born in this country or that
countiy, which strips it of all claim to either justice, impar-
tiality, or good sense. The doctrine of free agency and moral
accountability is one in a long list of theological absurdities,
which originated in an age of scientific ignorance, when noth-
ing was known of the natural powers, or the philosophy of the
human mind, or the laws which control its action.

Moral Accountability.—What is it? and where is it? It is
certainly one of the greatest moral puzzles ever submitted to a
philosopher, as to how a being, forced into existence by an
omnipotent creative power, without his consultation or consent,
j can be responsible to that creative power for his conduct, when
| he had no agency and no volition in his own creation, and no
^ power of resisting it, or in shaping its conditions. If God pos-
t sesses omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, and is a creator,
he could and should have made man to act just as he wished
him to act; and, if he did not do so, common sense would sug-
gest that it was his own fault. It will be seen from the force
of this logic, that Christians must either give up the doctrine
« of a voluntary personal creator, or that of moral accountability.
i The two doctrines can not be made to harmonize together.

j   CHAPTER XXXVIII.

I| REPENTANCE,— THE DOCTRINE ERRONEOUS.

Having treated this subject somewhat lengthily and critically
i in u The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors,” we shall devote but
| a brief space to its elucidation here. Nearly all religious na-
tions have attached great importance to the act of repentance ;
j but such an act does not repair the injury or wrong repented of.
il
 232

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

The repentance of a murderer does not restore his murdered
victim to life; nor does the repentance and tears of the incen-
diary rebuild the dwelling he has destroyed by fire. What,
then, is its practical value?

We would ask, also, what moral value or merit can attach
to an act of repentance when it is not claimed to be an act of
the sinner, but “ the power of God upon the soul ’’ ? (Luther.)
It appears then, according to orthodox logic,—1. That God
won’t save the sinner unless he repents. 2. That he can’t re-
pent only as God moves him to do so. This places him in a
bad predicament. Hence, when he does repent, it is an act of
God. 3. And then God saves him because he makes him re-
pent. Here is a jumble of logical incongruities and moral con-
tradictions that can find no lodgment in a scientific mind. A
few brief questions will set the doctrine of repentance in its true
light.

4.   Repentance consists in merety a revival of early impres-
sions, that may be either right or wrong, true or false, and
almost as likely to be one as the other.

5.   Who ever knew a person to embrace more rational doc-
trines, or become more intelligent, or have a stronger taste for
scientific pursuits, b}r repentance?

6.   Is it not a fact that repentance usualty causes a person to
cling more tenaciously to the errors and superstitions in which
he was educated ?

7.   Who ever knew a person by repenting, either in health or
sickness, to condemn one wrong act which he had erroneously
been taught to believe was right? If not, does it not prove
that repentance always conforms to education, whether that
education is right or wrong, and hence does nothing toward
enlightening the convert or aiybodjr else ?

8.   On the contraiy, when a man repents with his mind full
of religious errors, is it not evident that the act of repentance
will have the effect to rivet these errors more strong^ upon his
mind, and thus effect a moral injury instead of a moral benefit?

0. If a man ma}' abandon some of his immoral habits, which
he has been taught to believe are wrong, by an act of repent-
ance, are not the good effects to some extent counterbalanced
by his clinging more strongly to his religious errors ?
 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE ERRONEOUS.   233

10.   Who ever knew a person to abandon a false religion by
repentance? Does a Hindoo or Mahomedan ever embrace
Christianity by repenting ?

11.   Who ever knew a Roman Catholic to become a Protes-
tant, or a Protestant a Catholic, by repentance? And yet ortho-
dox Christians will cite the belief and testimony of a dying
man as an evidence of the truth of their doctrines.

12.   How can an act of repentance do any thing toward prov-
ing what is right and what is wrong in any case, when one
person repents for doing what another repents for not doing ?
We have such cases recorded in history.

We have known a Campbellite to leave his dying testimon}rin
favor of water baptism, and a Quaker to leave his dying testi-
? mony against it. Does one case prove it to be wrong, and the
j other right? If not, why do Christians cite such cases? What
do they prove ?

1 For a further illustration of this subject, see “ The World’s
I Sixteen Crucified Saviors.”

i

Death-Bed Repentance.

If there is any class of people who need to repent for mis-
spent time, and for leading false and foolish lives, it is the
colporteurs who travel over the country distributing pious tracts,
containing doleful accounts of death-bed repentance, which,
j whether right or wrong, prove nothing.

I Such cases of repentance as are reported do not appertain to
the moral conduct, but to the religious belief, of the sinner. It
is the abandonment and condemnation of his past creeds, and
not of his past conduct, which makes the tract so valuable,
j Such a case contains no moral instruction whatever.
y If his early education was Mahomedan, his repentance will
establish that religion again in his mind; but, if Mormonism
was the religion of his childhood, he would again have full faith
in that religion. What nonsense !

J Who ever knew repentance to divorce or emancipate a man
j from all or any of the religious errors of his past life, and plant
< in his soul a better and more rational religion, or lead him to
i advocate any religion only that in which he had been educated ?
 234

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

Such repentance is worth nothing, and absolutely foolish. Let
us assume that the numerous cases of death-bed repentance
published in religious tracts are all true; and what would it
prove ? Why, simply this : that the converts had all been edu-
cated to believe in Christianity, and had gone back to that
religion. Had Budhism or Mahomedanism been their early
religion, they would have returned to that. It is merely old
errors and old truths revived and re-established in the mind.

But many facts afterwards gathered by honest investigation,
appertaining to some of these cases, show that they have either
been manufactured or greatly exaggerated. As for example,
the case of Thomas Paine is proved to be without foundation.
His close was calm and peaceful. Many times has it been de-
clared, in the pulpit and elsewhere, that44 Tom Paine repented,
and died a miserable death.” And yet we have the testimony
of those Christian professors who were present with him almost
constantly during his last illness, that he never manifested the
least compunction of conscience, or the least disposition to
condemn any thing he had said or written in opposition to
Christianity or the Bible. Take, for example, the testimony of
Willet Ilicks, a reliable Quaker preacher. On being interro-
gated by a neighbor of the author of this work as to the truth
of the statement that he repented, he replied, 4b I was with
Paine every day during the latter part of his sickness, and can
affirm that he did not express any regret for having wTitten
4 The Age of Reason,’ as has been reported, nor for any thing
he had said or written in opposition to the Bible, nor ask for-
giveness of God. He died as easy as an}r one I ever saw die ;
and I have seen a great many die.” And yet this Mr. Ilicks
was in hopes he would repent. Other similar testimon}’ might
be adduced ; but this is sufficient. The story of Ethan Allen’s
daughter calling upon her father during her last illness, and
asking him if lie would recommend her to die in his religious
belief, and his feeling so conscience-smitten b}T the question,
that he exclaimed, 44 No: die in the belief of your mother! ”
(who was a Christian) has gone the rounds of the Christian
pulpits. And yet we have the statement of his nephew, Col.
Hitchcock, that he had no daughter to die during his lifetime.
 THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE ERRONEOUS. 235

There is not one word of truth in the report. These two cases
furnish samples of the manner in which a djdng cause will grasp
at straws.

We will subjoin here the testimony of a clergyman, in proof
that infidels are not more likely to die in a state of mental dis-
tress than Christians: The Rev. Theodore Clap, in his autobi-
ography, sa3^s, u In all my experience I never saw an unbeliever
die in fear. I have seen them expire without ai^ hope or ex-
pectation of the future, but never in agitation from dread or
misgiving as to what might befall them hereafter. We know
that the idea is prevalent that this final event passes with some
dreadful terror or agony of soul. It is imagined, that, in the
infidel’s case, the pangs of dissolution are greatly augmented
by the upbraidings of a guilty conscience, and by the reluctance
of the spirit to be torn from its mortal tenement, and hurried
into the presence of an avenging Judge; but this is all a su-
perstitious fancy. It is a superstitious fear, from a false educa-
I tion, that causes any one to die in fear.”

j The Rev. W. H. Spenser, of the First Parish Church (Massa-
* chusetts), says, u Some of the men most bitterly stigmatized as
| infidels have been among the most brilliant and useful minds the
| world has ever known, and, when dying and suffering from cal-
umn}T and scorn, have only to wait for time to do them justice,
and place them in history with the world’s benefactors or sa-
viors. There is not to be found on record one purety infidel
1 man, in the sense now referred to, whose death-bed was at-
tended by recantations and remorse.” Thus testifies a clergy-
man.

We will now show from reliable authority that the most ardent
faith in Christ and the Bible, and the most rigid and conscien-
tious observance of their doctrines and precepts, do not guaran-
tee permanent acquiescence or satisfaction, or protect the mind
from the most violent mental perturbation in the hour of death.
John Calvin stood in the first ranks of the Church militant in
\\ Ms time, and was considered by many the leading clergyman
in Christendom. Hear what Martin Luther, his co-laborer, says
with respect to his mortal exit: u He died forlorn and forsaken
J of God, blaspheming to the very end. ... He died of scarlet-
 236

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

fever, overrun and eaten up by ulcerous abscesses, the stench of
which drove every person away. He gave up the ghost, despair-
ing of salvation, and evoking devils from the abyss, and uttering
oaths most horrible, and blasphemies most frightful.’’ Then
tell us no more about infidels recanting and dying unhappy,
after reading this case. Yet all the cases and evidences cited
above only tend to show that no forms of religious belief have
any thing specially to do with the condition of mind in the
hour of mortal dissolution, except so far as that belief has been
invested with groundless, superstitious fears. Hence persons
who distribute death-bed tracts are in rather small business.
We like the answer of a liberal-minded man, who, when in his
dying moments he was asked by a priest if he had made his
peace with his God, replied, “ We have*never had any unfriend-
ly words.” We don’t believe there can be a case found in all
Christendom of an infidel repenting whose parents were unbe-
lievers, so that he was not educated and biased in favor of any
form of religious faith or belief.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

FORGIVENESS FOR SIN, AN IMMORAL DOCTRINE.

The doctrine of divine forgiveness for sin is another illogical
and immoral doctrine of the orthodox school, as well as that
of heathen nations, which a logical anatysis and the practical
experience of nearly all religious countries show has been per-
nicious in its effects upon the morals of society. A little reflec-
tion must convince any unbiased mind that* while men and
women are taught to believe that the consequences of sin or
crime can be arrested or mitigated by an act of forgiveness by
the divine Law-maker, they will feel the less restrained from
the commission of crime and wickedness. They naturally look
upon it as a sort of license for the indulgence of their passions
and propensities. They are taught that none of the evil conse-
quences of wrong-doing can follow them to another world if
they repent in time, and ask forgiveness. This they accept as a
 FORGIVENESS FOR SIN, AN IMMORAL DOCTRINE. 237

broad license to take their swing in vice and villainy. And thus
they are partially demoralized by the doctrine. Much more ra-
tional is the doctrine of the Swedenborgians and Harmonialists,
that every sin or wrong act we commit makes its impress upon
the soul, or immortal spirit, which will be carried with it to the
life eternal, and will there long operate to impair the happiness,
and retard the spiritual growth, of every person who in this life
indulges in crime or immoral conduct. They teach us that the
character w~e form for ourselves on this plane of existence will
be carried with us to the spirit-world ; that our character under-
goes no radical change by merely passing through the gates of
death. Hence, whatever defective moral qualities we permit to
be incorporated into our characters here will operate to sink us
to a lower plane of happiness in the after-death world. This is a
plausible and rational doctrine, to say the least, and can have no
effect to demoralize the community, as the sentiments breathed
forth by some of the orthodox hymns have evidently done.

“ There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”

Could any doctrine be more demoralizing than that here set
forth, — that the deep-dyed stains of a life of crime, debauch-
ery, and wickedness can all be wiped out by the simple act of
plunging into a pool of blood, or rather by believing that the
atoning blood of Christ will cleanse from all sin ? The same
idea is incorporated into Watts’s well-known hymn, —

“ While the lamp holds out to bum,

The vilest sinner may return.”

The idea here set forth is shocking to the moralist, as well as
demoralizing in its effects on the community. u The vilest sin-
ner ” must feel very little concern about “ returning ” to the path
of virtue, or abandoning his wicked deeds, while the conviction
is established in his mind that he is losing nothing by leading
such a life, and will have nothing to do at the end of a long life
of the most shocking crimes, villainies, and vices, to escape
entirely their legitimate punitive consequences, but to take a dip
 233

VII.   No Divine Revelation without a Series of Miracles.

A divine revelation must be miraculously inspired ; and then
it must be miraculously preserved from the slightest alteration
by the translator or the transcriber, and from any error on
the part of the printer. And, finally, the reader’s mind and
understanding and judgment must be miraculously guarded
from any mistake or misunderstanding or wrong conclusions
relative to every text in the book. Otherwise there is no abso-
lute certainty that the revelation is a true one, or superior to a
mere human production.
 NEW-TESTAMENT ERRORS.

215

VIII.   Our Moral and Religious Duties can not be learned
from any Bible or Revelation.

A critical investigation of the matter will show that our moral
and religious duties are not half of them enumerated in the
Bible; and to suppose that God would reveal only a portion
of them, and leave us in the dark with respect to others, and
compel us to find them out by chance and conjecture, is to trifle
with Omniscience, and assume that he is short-sighted and im-
perfect.

IX.   No Moral Duty clearly defined by the Bible.

As the circumstances of each case of moral duty differ from
every other case, so our courses of action must be different.
Hence revelation, to be of any practical use, should have fore-
seen those circumstances, pointed them out, and instructed us
how to act in the case. But this is not done in any case. We
will illustrate : We are enjoined by the Bible to u bring up a child
in the way he should go; ” but that way is not pointed out or
defined. We are not told which one of the thousand churches he
should join; we are not told, when a man’s leg is broken, how
it should be mended ; we are not told what means we should use
to restore the sick to health, nor instructed as to the best means
to be used for the preservation of health and life. And, as
these are among the first and most important duties, we should
have been instructed as to the best means to be used for that
purpose ; but these things are omitted, and left to the province
of reason. There is no case in which we are not compelled to
make reason our supreme judge to decide how we shall practice
the duties of revelation ; and thus revelation is made a servant
or subsidiary agent.

Christians sometimes tell us, u Give us something better in the
place of our religion before you take it from us.” But the Bible
tells them, “ Cease to do evil [before you] learn to do well.”
Doom error to destruction, and truth will spring out of the
ashes. What would you think of a man who should say to a
physician, “Stop, sir! before you administer that medicine to
my child, I want to know what you are going to let it have in
 216

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

place of its pains and aches” ? We do not propose or desire to
destro}' any religion as a whole, but only the deleterious weeds
which are choking and poisoning the healthy plants. We do
not wish to put down or arrest the progress of any truth.

The clergy sometimes assert that 44 we could not distinguish
right from wrong, but for the Bible.” And was nothing known
to the world about right and wrong, or the means of distin-
guishing between them, during the two thousand years which
elapsed before the Bible was written? Christians place Moses,
its first writer, about fourteen hundred years before Christ,
while the Bible dates back 4004 B.C. And then what about
those millions of the inhabitants of the globe who never had
our Bible ? And millions of them never had a Bible of any kind.
Are they destitute of moral perception ? On the contrary, reliable
authority, and even Christian writers, assure us that the morals
of man}T of those nations will put to shame the morals of any
nation professing the religion of Christ. Take, for example,
the Kalaos tribe of Africa, who appear to have no formal re-
ligion whatever ; and }ret, as Dr. Livingstone informs us,
they maintain strict honesty in all their dealings with each
other, and have made considerable progress in the arts and
manufactures. They have never had a Bible or revelation of
any kind. Look also at the inhabitants of the Arru Islands.
44 These people,” saj^s Dr. Livingstone, 44 appear to have no
religion whatever; and yet they live in brotherly peace, and
respect each other’s rights,” —the rights of property in the fullest
sense. The Rev. W. H. Clark, speaking of the Yoruba nation
in Central Africa, says, 44 Their moral and even their civil rights
in some respects would put to shame any Christian nation in the
world.” We might present a hundred more cases of this kind ;
but these three cases are sufficient to show that nations with no
Bible, no revelation, and even no religion, transcend any Chris-
tian nation with respect to strict honesty and a practical sense
of right and wrong. How absurd, therefore, is the idea shown
to be, that a knowledge of the Christian Bible is essential to
the knowledge and practice of good morals ! (See chap. 30.)
 NEW-TESTAMENT ERBORS.

217

X.   Our Duties are All recorded in the Bible of Nature.

There is not a moral or religious dut}r that is not inscribed on
the tablet of man’s soul or consciousness which he would not soon
learn if his attention were not constantly directed to, and his mind
occupied with, the erroneous theories of the dark, illiterate ages.
The God of nature has endowed every human being with two
sensations,— one of pleasure, and the other of pain,—which
serve as guides in all his actions, both ph}rsical and moral.
They stand as sentinels at the door of his soul to warn him
of the approach of evil of every kind. The moment their king-
dom is invaded, they raise an alarm, which he soon learns he
must heed or suffer a penalty. If he drinks intoxicating drinks,
or improper^ indulges his appetites and propensities in any
way, he learns, by suffering, that is the penalty affixed to the
violation of the law of health, and that he can not escape it, and
that no one can suffer for him, or make any “ atonement for
his sins.” If he attempts to handle fire, he is soon apprized that
he is meddling with something that will injure him ; if he com-
mits a moral wrong against a neighbor, it re-acts upon himself in
various wa}^s, as explained in Chap. 46. It thus acts as a
two-edged sword, which cuts both ways, punishes both the vic-
tim and the perpetrator. Man learns by experience that crime
will not only injure him, but, in many cases, will destroy him.
On the other hand, when he practices virtue, she greets him with
her smiles, and fills his soul with pleasure. Let me illustrate :
The bells in some city toll the alarm of fire at midnight. In a
few minutes thousands of men and bo3Ts are congregated on the
spot, many of them half-dressed, and without hats or shoes,
in order to aid a fellow-being in rescuing his dwelling from the
all-devouring element. What prompts them to this act? It is
not an injunction of their Bible. No: it was the well-spring
of philanthropy leaping up through their souls that prompted to
the deed, and not a written Bible. Again*: why is a mother’s
loving, watchful care ever exercised for the protection and wel-
fare of her child? She will endure almost any hardship or
privation which its welfare requires. Why does she do this?
Her Bible is silent on the subject. It is the impulse of nature
 218

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

welling up from the fountain of maternal affection which prompts
to these acts of loving care, — to this moral duty. And this is
true of all the other moral duties of life. They are all imbibed at
her fountain, —at the fountain of Nature. A man with a good
moral development needs no revelation to teach him what is
right, no Bible to prompt him to the performance of his duties.
We rejoice “with jo}^ unspeakable” that the world is fast
learning this moral axiom. The Bible truly teaches us that our
moral duties are revealed in the book of nature (Chap. 14).
And Christian writers also admit this. Tertullian says, “ Why
pain yourselves in searching for a divine law while you have that
which is common to mankind, and engraven upon the tablet
of nature ? ’ ’ This is a wonderful admission for a Christian writer
to make, as it virtually concedes there is no moral or religious
necessity for a written Bible or revelation.

XI.   A Divine Revelation adverse to Human Progress.

One argument against the belief in a divine revelation is
found in the fact that it would tend to paralyze human effort,
and thus make man a mental sloth. If a man could find all his
moral and religious duties “ cut and dried,” and laid out before
him, he would be thus robbed of the motive to study and learn
his duties by the exercise of his mental powers. And having
no incentives to healthy, energetic action, he would become a
drone and mental sloth. We can not believe God ever made
such a blunder as this.

XII.   A Divine Revelation would imply Imperfection on
the Part of Deity.

It is admitted that no revelation was ever given to man for
more than two thousand years after creation. This would imply
that it was forgotten by Infinite Wisdom, or else the moral ne-
cessity for it overlooked. Either assumption would make God
an imperfect and short-sighted being. It would appear like an
after-thought. After man had lived so mail}’ years upon the
earth, it just occurred to God that he had not given him a
written revelation instructing him what to do and believe. The
assumption of a divine revelation presupposes such a blunder
 PRIMEVAL INNOCENCY OF MAN NOT TRUE.   219

as this on the part of Omniscience, and is therefore derogatory
to his character.

Now, we ask seriously, Do not the foregoing facts and argu-
ments show that there is no moral or religious necessit}^ for a
divine revelation to man ? Let the believers in the necessit}’ of
the Bible, or a divine revelation, show their fallac}^, or for ever
abandon the old Mythological assumption that it is necessary.

Another conclusive argument: A mind that could comprehend
a truth divinely revealed could originate that truth. We will
give an illustrative proof: A teacher works out a mathematical
problem on the blackboard for the benefit of his school. Now,
every teacher and every logical mind will admit that every
pupil, possessing the mental capacity to understand the mathe-
matical truth thus revealed, could, by his own unaided powers,
have developed it himself sooner or later. In like manner, the
mind that could comprehend a truth revealed from God, could
originate it without the aid of revelation. Hence revelation
would be worse than useless, as it would furnish a pretext for
mental or intellectual sloth, and thus have a tendency to stop
human progress by doing for us what we could and should do
ourselves. A logical investigation of the case will show that
we possess the mental capacity to discover every truth toe need,
whether it be scientific, moral, or religious; and such exercise
furnishes the only means to keep the mind in a healthy con-
dition. And thus the problem is proved again.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PEIMEVAL INNOCENCY OF MAN NOT TEUE.

The tradition so universally prevalent among the disciples of
all the Oriental S}Tstems of religious faith, as well as those of a
more modern origin, and which is still a conspicuous element
of the Christian system, —that man commenced his career in a
|l state of moral perfection,—is so obviously at war with every
j principle of anthropology, and every page of human history
'A tending to demonstrate the moral character of the primitive
 220

THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

inhabitants of the earth, that I shall employ but little time and
space in exposing its absurdity and falsity.

1.   All the organic remains of the earliest types of the human
species that have been found demonstrate conclusively that
man started on the animal plane with animal feelings, propen-
sities, and habits, almost totally devoid of moral feelings, and
consequently a victim to his passions, propensities, and lusts.
Where, then, were his moral purity and angelic holiness? The
idea is a mere chimera.

2.   It is now a settled problem in mental science that the
character of ever}r species of animate being corresponds with
its organization ; that the organic structure of the being, whether
dead or alive, always indicates its true character. If it pos-
sesses the form and type of the tiger, it will alwa}Ts be found
with the disposition and habits of the tiger; or, if it is a sheep
in form, it will be a sheep in character. There is no deviation
from this rule. Hence, when we find the bones of the early types
of the human species resembling those of the lower order of
animals, there is no escaping the conclusion that they possessed
an analogous character.

3.   Look, then, at the fact that the skulls and facial bones of
human beings, found embedded in the rocks of Gibraltar, be-
longing to a race which naturalists have decided existed upon
the earth sixty-five thousand }’ears ago, closely approximate
those of an animal. They possessed retreating foreheads, prog-
nathous jaws, extrcmety coarse features, and skulls nearty an
inch in thickness; hands resembling those of a monkey, feet
resembling those of a bear, and cranial receptacle showing a
very small amount of moral brain. Now, it is evident that this
early race, with such a gross, brutal organization, could not
have possessed fine moral sensibilities and lofty virtue, purity,
and perfection.

4.   And we find that nations whose organizations indicate a
higher moral character are of more modern origin, as shown b}T
th'‘ir organic remains being found in more recently formed
strata, — the tertiary formation. It is thus scientifically demon-
strated that man’s tendenc}T toward moral perfection is inversely
to the remoteness of time,—that, the nearer we retrace his
 PRIMEVAL INNOCENCT OF MAN NOT TRUE. 221

history to his origin, the lower position he occupies in the scale
of morals.

5.   We will cite one more historical fact to establish this
theory. The existence of a tribe of negroes has been traced
(as stated in Chap. 16.) to near the date of Noah’s flood,
whose organization indicates a very near approach to the animal;
thus showing, that, if they are descendants of Adam, he himself
must have possessed an inferior or defective moral organization
and character.

6.   Let the reader, after noting these facts, read the history
of the practical lives of the earliest races or nations whose
deeds have been recorded, and he will find they sustain the
same proportion; that their defective moral character corre-
sponds (ceteris paribus) to the remoteness of the era in which
they lived. The history of the Jews themselves illustrates and
corroborates the proposition, as the character of the modern
Jews is far superior to those of the era of Abraham and
Moses.

7.   Once more: The fact that the moral character of nearly
all nations is constantly improving, proves beyond question that
man once occupied a much lower plane, and that, instead of
falling from a state of moral purity, he is constantly ascending
toward that condition.

8.   The current belief of man’s primitive moral perfection is
easily traced to its origin. Nearly all the Oriental nations had
a tradition of a u golden age,” when the most sublime and
unalloyed bliss was the lot and enj^maent of the genus homo.
But the serpent that beguiled Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit
in Eden, the serpent who stole the recipe of immortal life in As-
s}Tia, the entering of Typhon into the golden paradise of Osirus
in Egypt, the opening of Pandora’s box in Greece, the piercing
of the evil egg b}7 Ahrimanes in Chaldea, the machinations of
the snake in India, of the lizard in Persia, and the demon in
Mexico, seem to have all had an agency in defeating the omni-
scient designs of Deity, and placing the reins of government in

| the hands of the world’s omnipresent, omnipotent, and omni-
i scient evil genius, thus prostrating for ever the great and glorious
j plans of Infinite Wisdom.

I

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tion. And can it be right and laudable to thus represent or
image the works of the Creator, and wrong to image the Creator
himself? Not according to the above command. Or can one
be pleasing to him, and the other offensive? There is neither
sense nor science, logic nor lore, in such conclusions. Christian
reader, do you not know that your little innocent daughter vio-
lates the command every day of her happy life by nursing,
dressing, and caressing her wax doll, her image miniature man?
For if it be true — and the Bible teaches it — that c ‘ man was
created in the image of God,” then these artificial human like-
nesses, these images of the infant man, are also images of God ;
and your little girl daily commits “the awful sin of idolatry,”
and you, too, for countenancing her in the act. It may be no-
ticed here that the pious Christian confers upon himself an
honor which he denies to the Creator when he has his photo-
graph struck off for the accommodation of a friend, while he
denounces as idolatry all attempts to construct an imaginary
likeness of God. But consistency is a jewel rarely found.

Image - Worship. —We may be met here with the answer that
“it is not the making of images, but the worship of images,
in lieu of the worship of God, that constitutes idolatiy.” To
this we reply, we have no proof that any nation or people
reported in history were ever obnoxious to the charge. True,
the people of man}r countries have been in the habit of pros-
trating themselves before idols in their daily worship. Yet in
no case which we have examined do. we find that those idols
were worshiped with the thought of their being the true and
living God, or of their being endowed with divine attributes,
but only as types or representations of God. It is possible that
some of the lower stratum of society—some of the debased and
ignorant — ma}^ have been deluded into the idea that God had
taken up his abode in those lifeless images. In fact we are
assured that the priest, in some cases, labored to instill this
belief into their minds. Some of them may have been ignorant
and pliable enough to be misled by his artful misrepresentation.
But, by a large proportion of the idol-worshipers of every nation,
we have the highest authority for asserting that these artificial
images were not regarded as any thing more than the mere

i

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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

representation, or outward type, of the Deity, and were venerated
with the same religious conviction which Christians experience
in partaking of the body^ and blood of Christ with the images of
bread and wine, and without the suspicion of incurring the charge
of idolatry. The two acts are precisely the same in spirit and
essence. But the untutored denizens of the Pacific isles do not
conceive that the dumb and lifeless sylvan figure before which
the3T prostrate themselves in worship is the omnipotent, self-
existent God, the Creator of heaven and earth, more truty than
the Christians believe they are realty eating and drinking 44 the
body and blood of Christ” when partaking of the sacrament.
They are both mere symbols, or representations, of something
higher. It is irrational to suppose that beings endowed with
minds believe that inanimate figures of gold, silver, iron, &c.,
possess omnipotent thought, power, and feeling. That able,
pious Mahomedan writer, Abel Fezzel, declares (in his 44 Aren
Akberry ”) that 44 the opinion that the Hindoos (who make many
idols) are idolaters has no foundation in fact; but they are
worshipers of God, and only one God.” 44 This,” says the
modern traveler, Mr. Ditson of New York, 44 I know to be true ;
for I had it from the lips of the Hindoos themselves.” And
this will apply wfith undiminished force to other nations liabitu-
ualty styled idolaters. 44 Even the most savage nations,” says
Mr. Parker, “regard their idols only as types of God.” And
we might quote whole pages from heathen writers to that effect.
The ancient Grecian poet.Ovid says, 44 It is Jove we adore in
the image of God.” 44 The Gods inhabit our minds and bod-
ies,” says Statius, a Latin writer, 44 and not the images made
to represent them.” Ilencc it is evident they had a perception
of their true character. And the missionary, Rev. D. 0. Allen,
tells us that even those who have been represented as worship-
ing the sun, moon, and stars, only contemplate these planets
as symbols of the Deity, and that 44 their worship is realty aimed
to the invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent God.” It appears,
then, that whatever external objects the most ignorant and
savage tribes have addressed, or have been supposed to worship,
have been used merely as types and symbols to enhance their
devotion in the worship of the true God. Though, as Cicero
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203

remarks (in kis philosophical works), 44 A few may have
been so feeble in their perceptions as to confound and iden-
tify the statues and Gods together.” But another writer
avers, 44 There is not in all antiquity the least trace of a prayer
addressed to a statue.” He also sa3rs, 44 All paganism does not
offer a single fact which can lead to the conclusion that they
ever adored idols; nor was there ever a law compelling them
to do so.” When Paul declared to the Athenians, 44 Whom ye
ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you,” he confessed most
explicitly that they worshiped the true God through their idols.
Where, then, is the sin of idolatry?

In one of the Hindoo Bibles (the Baghavat Gita) God is
made to say, 44 They who serve other Gods with a firm belief
of being right do realty involuntarily serve me, and shall be
rewarded.” How admirable, how noble, how magnanimous
and merciful is this sentiment compared with the damning, death-
dealing denunciations against idolatry by^ the Jewish Jehovah !
And the Mahomedan Bible (the Koran) contains a similar
sentiment to the above. Thus, we observe, both the Hindoo
and Mahomedan Bibles evince in this respect a higher degree
of moral sense than that of the Christian Bible, whose violent
interdictions against idolatry have caused many nations to be
butchered, and their lands deluged with blood. 44 There is noth-
ing in the Christian Bible,” says Mr. Higgins,44 of one-twentieth
part of the value of this text of the Hindoo Bible in the way
of preventing a foolish persecution and bloodshed.” It may be
remembered here that Christians inherited their extreme hatred
of idolatry from the Jews, which is fostered by the Jewish
Bible, and that the Jews derived their feelings of opposition to
it from the two nations under which they were long enslaved, —
the Persians and Egyptians,—both of which, according to
Herodotus, forbid the making of idols, the former interdicting
it by law ; as did also the Roman.emperor, Numa Pompilius, 600
B.C. The Parsees of India to this day oppose idolatry ; and the
learned among the Chinese have always discountenanced it.
Strabo and other Grecian philosophers wrote against it. 44 And
many sects arose among the ancient heathen,” says the 44 Hiero-
phant,” 44 who rejected all external symbols of the Deity.” On
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

the other hand, neither Jews nor Christians have been entirely
free from this 44 sin’’ so called. As for 44 the Lord’s holy
people,” there probably never was a nation who manifested h
stronger or more invincible proclivity to idolatry than they, or
wTho indulged more eagerly in the practice of it whenever oppor-
tunity presented; and frequently did they break over all re-
straint to plunge into this seemingly enticing luxury, not even
withholding their ear-rings when a molten image or golden calf
was to be constructed. And even their lawgiver Moses con-
sented to the construction of a number of imitations or substi-
tutes for the carved images of the pagans. Their brazen
serpent displayed upon a pole ; their carved cherubims with the
body of a man, the head of an animal, and the wings of a bird ;
and the ark of the covenant, which was borne about in the
same manner the heathen carried their idols, —were all compro-
mises with and concessions to idolatry, and were all venerated
with the same spirit and in the same fashion the heathen adored
their carved or molten images. As for the holy ark, the Jews
as solemnly believed that God Almighty was shut up in that
little box of shittim-wood as truly as ever the pagans believed
that he sometimes condescended to a transient abode in their
idols ; while it was death to touch it with 44 unholy hands,” and
sixty thousand were butchered because one man (the pious Uzza),
on a certain occasion, instinctively and devoutly clapped his
hand on it to keep it from falling. In fact, the golden image
which it contained was an idol to all intents and purposes;
nor were the brazen serpent and cherubim of the altar much
less so. Hence the vindictive condemnation of other nations
for making and adoring images came with an ill grace from
the Jews. Nor are the skirts of the disciples of Christ any
freer from the stain of idolatry. In fact, it constitutes the veiy
substratum of their religion. In the first place, they quote
approvingly such texts as the following: 44 The Lord is my
rock” (Ps. xviii. 2) ; 44 Who is a rock save our God?” (Ps.
xviii. 31) ; 44 The shepherd the stone of Israel ” (Gen. xlix. 24).
Peter calls him 44 a living stone ” (1 Pet. ii. 4). And there are
a number of other similar texts, all of which disclose real fetich-
ism, or the first form of idolatry. The ancient Laplanders,
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205

Arabians, Phoenicians, and several tribes of Asia Minor used
rocks and stones as representative images of Deity. And here
we find the same association of ideas in the Christian Bible.
Do you reply, u They must be considered figurative”? Very
well: prove that the ancient heathen tribes did not also consider
them figurative.

But we have a much more serious and conclusive proof than
this that nearly the entire retinue of Christian professors are
practical idolaters, and that their “ holy religion,” in all its
essential characteristics, comprises, in its very nature, the high-
est species of idolatry. Some Christian professors tell us that
those who worship idols must have a limited conception of the
character and attributes of the Deity; thus conceding that idol-
atry consists in ascribing to God a false character. Well, now,
this is the very objection which we would urge as one of the
first, and one of the most serious charges against the Christian
system. It presents us with a cramped, dwarfish, and childish
conception of Deity. In the first place, the disciples of Chris-
tianity still cling to the old tradition, which they inherited from
the heathen, of investing God with the form and characteristics
of a man. For if the Deity possesses the human form, as they
and their Bible teach, then he must possess the human character-
istics,— a logical sequence, which science defies all Christendom
to overturn, as it is the infallible testimony of the natural his-
torj of all time that nothing can possess the form of one being
and the characteristics of another. As is form, so is and must
be the character, is an axiom supported by numberless proofs
of daily and hourly observation. Hence, Jesus Christ possess-
ing, according to the scriptures, the form of a man, — “ the form
of a servant,” —must inevitably have possessed the character of
a man. Hence we are not surprised to find, that, in spite of the
combined efforts of his evangelical biographers to make him a
God (if they are really to be understood as designing to ele-
vate him to the Godhead), his finite human qualities are dis-
played in his history in every chapter. Every saying and every
credible incident of his life prove him to have been a man, not-
withstanding some of them are apparently set forth as prima-
facie evidence of his being a God. Therefore the conclusion
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THE BIBLE OF BIBLES.

that, as Jesus Christ Had the form of a man, he could not have
been a God ; and to worship him as such was and is idolatry in
the highest and fullest sense. And, besides the form, there are
other evidences of his having been a man. He walked, talked,
ate, slept, wept, shed tears, &c., and finally died just as other
men do. And, furthermore, he believed and taught some of the
traditions and superstitions of finite, ignorant men, — such as a
vengeful God, an endless hell, disease produced by demons, a
personal devil, the speed}7* conflagration of the world, &c. Thus
we have a threefold proof of his manhood, and disproof of his
Godhead, and a proof that those who worship him are idolaters.
And as the primitive or primordial Bible God Jehovah is rep-
resented as possessing, as we have alread}" shown, a compre-
hensible body, e}^es, nose, mouth, hands, arms, legs, feet,
bowels, &c., and as being a jealous, angry, revengeful, fighting
God (the God of battles), and inferior in several respects to
some of the men who worshiped him, such worship is conse-
quently idolatry. We observe, then, that the Jews worshiped one
idol (Jehovah) ; and the Christians, three (“ Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost ”), —the two former possessing the form of man,
and the latter the form of a bird (a dove). There is exactly
the same objection, and it is to exactly the same extent idol-
atry, to worship Jesus Christ as to worship Chrishna, Confu-
cius, Mahomet, or any of the wooden Gods or graven images
of the idolatrous pagans. In each case it is assuming that God,
instead of being eternally infinite in all his attributes, has
been invested with the finite, limited, and comprehensible form
of man, to say nothing of the corresponding finite qualities
which his worshipers have assigned him. And this narrow,
childish assumption, with its attendant conceptions, keeps the
mind of the worshiper in an intellectually cramped and dwarf-
ish condition, besides perpetuating their dishonorable and dis-
paraging views of Deity. And herein lies the great objection
to idolatry. If any of these venerated beings could possess
divine attributes, there would be less moral objection to wor-
shiping them as Gods. The error is not in ascribing divine
attributes to the wrong being, but in the conception of wrong
qualities and attributes as comprehensible in a divine being.
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207