-under this law many perfectly innocent girls would be disgraced, and judicially murdered; sexual intercourse during menstruation (Lev. xx. 18); etc.

OBSCENITY. The grossness of the conduct of the BARREN WIFE, Rachel, towards her slave Bilhah (Gen. xxx. 3); and the following, to which references only need be given, for they are too gross for reproduction :—Gen. xxxviii. 7; xix. 1-8; 30-38; Ex. iv. 25; xxxiii. 23; xxii. 19; Lev. xviii. 23; xx. 15–18; xv. 24; xix. 20; xxi. 9; Deut. xxii. 22-29; xxiii. 1; XXV. 11-12; Judges iii. 15-22, etc. If such obscenities were found in any other book than the Bible, the author would be speedily condemned to severe punishment. Yet we are told in that book that such Hebrew grossness is able to make us "wise unto salvation,' and is given by "inspiration of God......profitable for doctrine......and instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. iii. 16).

The writings contained in the N. T., we are told, testify to the divine origin and truth of those of the O. T., and relate what are represented as the fulfilment of certain so-called "prophecies" in the O.T.; but when these are referred to, and read carefully, we find they are no prophecies at all, but portions of the narrative of current events among the Jews; and, in order to strengthen their case, the fabricators of these N. T. Gospels have deliberately misquoted the original texts. And, as regards moral teaching, these writings add worse terrors and atrocities of their own, and introduce to us a theory of eternal torments in Hell (Matt. v. 28; xviii. 8; xxiii. 32; xxv. 41; Mark ix. 43). A minute description of this Hell is given by Jesus to the multitude in "Luke" (xvi. 23), and by John "the Divine," together with the rejoicing of the saints in Heaven over the sufferings and agonies of the tormented ones in the Apocalypse, or Revelation (xiv. 9, 11; xix. 1–4, 20; xx. 1−3, 10; xxi. 8; xxii. 15), and in the Epistle to the Corinthians (vi. 9, 15). How can we reconcile this fiendish delight of the "saints," as dreamed by John, with some of the teachings of Jesus concerning love, pity, sympathy, and the meekness of offering the other cheek to the smiter, etc., etc.? This Christian place of torments is prepared by a beneficent Creator for those of his creatures "who know not God" (2 Thess. i. 7); for those who describe a fool correctly (Matt. v. 22); for unbelievers (as if anyone can help his belief!), and for the

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rich. Any rational mind would be unable to comprehend the justice of consigning to the eternal torments of Hell those whom the accidents of birth or circumstances have prevented from "knowing" God, or who do not happen to be among the number of the "few" chosen to pass the "" narrow way (Matt. vii. 14; xxii. 13; Luke xiii. 23), or "drawn" by "the Father," and whose " eyes" he has not "blinded, so that they cannot believe" (John vi. 44; xii 39).

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Can we, as rational beings, conceive such contradictory, unjust, and fiendish teaching to be of divine origin, and the result of real supernatural inspiration? To believe that a god represented as beneficent would predestine the majority of his own creations, whom he had already pronounced to be "very good," to such an eternity of torture would be to believe what is contrary to our reason and to common sense. No real god could plan such a wicked scheme for man's destruction. We are asked to believe that all innocent babes are born "in sin." "Let those who can," says Spencer, "believe that there is eternal war set between our intellectual faculties and our moral obligations. I, for one, admit no such radical vice in the constitution of things.' We are asked to believe that all women conceive "in sin," because of a trivial fault said to have been committed by two people many centuries before-"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity," the Psalmist is made to say, "and in sin did my mother conceive me" (li. 5); and that ten generations of human beings are to be condemned to bastardy and disgrace because the original parents were not legally united (Deut. xxiii. 2). The bare idea of an innocent child being born "in sin" is an insult to humanity. The only person who could be said to really conceive "in sin" would be the adultress; but the fault there would not be in the act of conception, which is a natural process, but in the defilement of the marriage bed.

Can we, then, accept a book as a divine "revelation " that teaches such a barbarous doctrine as the redemption of the human race from a sin which they did not commit by the blood of a man represented as innocent? And can we accept as the representative of the supreme power of the universe a deity whose wrath and vindictiveness can be appeased by the smell of a "sweet savour"? There is a

smack of humanity, if not of Jewish and priestly epicurism, about the smell of cooking in Gen. (viii. 21), where we are told that the "heart" of the divine author of the O. T. writings "was softened," and that he had decided “not again to curse the ground for man's sake, nor again to smite every living thing," as he had already done. How very kind and considerate! But, as far as we know, the cursing of the ground and man has not made a bit of difference to either up to the present. Repentance and change of mind are not suggestive of either omnipotence or divineness; and the cursing of inanimate objects, such as the ground, is more like the petulance of a little human child deprived of its toy than the act of an almighty creator. These attributes are distinctly human; and not only is the hand of man to be traced upon all, but also that of the Hebrew priest, scribe, and captive from Babylon.

Such errors in science as are manifest all through the Bible could not proceed from an inspired pen. The Jew writer, in his semi-barbarity and ignorance, just released from servitude, believed that the earth was flat and surrounded by water; that under the earth was a Hell, and above it, in the sky, a Heaven, with a gilded throne, upon which sat, surrounded by the "glorious" rays of the sun, Yahuh; and from which throne he descended occasionally in a cloud to his seat between the cherubim over the box. He believed that man was created instantaneously, as if by a conjurer's wand, some five or six centuries B.C., when we find evidences of the existence of ancestors many thousands of years before, and of his gradual evolution from lower animal life.

Had the books of the Bible been written by divinelyinspired men, its science and history would have been unimpeachable, its moral teaching and logical instruction perfect, so that no doubt could possibly have arisen in the mind of the most cultured reader. If all were born tainted with "original sin," and if that sin were removable, means would have been taken to impart this remedy or mode of salvation to the whole world, and not only to a few gipsy tribes; and in such a way that conviction of its truth would follow immediately. But what, on the contrary, do we see? A huge Catholic Church teaching one particular set of doctrines; a Protestant system of opposing sects—for it cannot

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be called a Church-teaching sets of doctrines, at variance with each other on every point except one, and that one being opposition to the Catholic Church. The Protestant sects in England alone number about 180, and the Catholic Church is divided into Roman, Greek, Russian, Armenian, etc., etc. Yet all appeal to the Bible to support them in their struggles and controversies with each other, that book being the fetich of them all. In it are to be found childish errors in science; the American continent known nothing of; the earth (a globe) referred to as having four corners; things spoken of as being above and under it, as if it were a table; and mistakes and contradictions made concerning dates and ancestry inexcusable in writings claiming to be inspired. We search the history of the period when all these extraordinary events were said to be taking place, and everywhere we find absolute silence. It would be impossible that all the writers of the period, separated from each other by long distances, could have combined in a plot to keep such records out of history.

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We hear of miracles; but if such unnatural occurrences could take place, and in such trifling cases as the replenishing of empty wine bottles for wedding guests who had already drunk well," why was there no miraculous intervention to prevent the loss of the divinely-inspired writings of the O. T., and to secure the immediate and undoubted acceptance of those which were divine, and the rejection of those that were not, so that the divine message could be published before all men? Instead of which, when Jesus died, all was vagueness, uncertainty, and chaos, and the divine message, which was supposed to save humanity, was wrapped up in mysteries and allegories, over which priests and people fought and squabbled, and have continued doing so to this day. Nothing is decided as to the conditions of salvation, and there is no one to decide. Writings once regarded with suspicion now find an honoured place in the sacred volume; writings once included in the sacred collections of the early Churches are now cast aside as spurious; and mankind is left in this happy-go-lucky manner to ascertain the conditions of redemption from a sin which they did not commit, but yet have to incur penalty for. The divine message, instead of being published in the sight of all men, has been inscribed on old parchments hidden away in all

sorts of holes and corners, as if the very authors had been ashamed of their productions. These parchments are, in some instances, old skins from which Pagan manuscripts had been partially erased before the "Word of God" was written on them by Christian pens. Is this the way in which a good and just deity would treat mankind? No; it does not commend itself to our reason or to our sense of justice, and it is by these alone that mankind can be called upon to judge of things.