To the chief of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, came this instruction from heaven:

At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.*

And he walked the streets, if the bible is to be depended, for three years "naked and barefoot for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia," whatever that may mean. Another prophet, Micah, declares he will not only go about "stripped and naked," but he will also "howl." And are these the men to be compared with the masters of eloquence in ancient and modern history?

Is it necessary, after all this, to call attention to the better and purer eloquence of Demosthenes, thundering against the menace of Macedonia to the liberties of Athens; of Cicero, defending, both with his voice. and sword, the culture of Europe against the barbarians of the north; of Plato's Apologia of Socrates, the finest argument for freedom of thought and speech that has come down to us from the past; of Pericles' eulogy of Athens, city of the light; of the Antigone of Sophocles, or the Prometheus of Eschylus, unexcelled in literature, as the Grecian Pantheon is in architecture!

And have we not forty centuries of forensic eloquence to pit against the explosions and fulminations of the diviners and soothsayers of the bible? There is Mirabeau, Danton, Cavour, Castellar, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Burke, Charles Sumner, Carl Schurz, Abraham

*Isaiah xx, 2. + Micah i, 8.

Lincoln, and a glorious host of others, whose voices trembled with the woes of Ireland, or the victories. of England, or the hopes of United Germany, or the cries of mangled France! Besides, the orators of Europe saved their countries by the new hope and energy they instilled into them; the prophets of the bible drove the nation they represented into ignominious bondage, and left desolation and ruin where there was once a people and a nation. Even the debris which Rome and Greece have left behind them is the envy of all the world to-day, while not even the Jews are willing to go back to their own Jerusalem.

II.

The Bible and Religion

UT if the bible were not meant to teach science or

B history, it were not meant to be a literary mor

terpiece, or a text-book of philosophy and eloquence, was it meant to teach religion? The claim is persistently made that it is essentially as a book of religion that the bible is to be judged, and that, as such, it is unsurpassed by any work of man. It is true that religion is the principal theme of the bible, but has it made any original contributions to it? Does the bible throw any more light on what are called the mysteries of religion than any other book? Before the bible, men speculated about the hereafter; has the bible changed speculation into knowledge? Before the bible, men believed or doubted the gods; has the bible changed faith, or doubt, into certainty? Which

unsolved problem concerning the origin of the universe, or of man, has the bible illuminated? The bible has added to the number of sects and creeds, but has it removed even one theological tenet from the field of controversy and uncertainty? A book concerning the most important deliverances of which Christians themselves do not, and will not agree, can not very well be a revelation.

Nor has the bible added a single new doctrine to the religious creeds that were already current in the world. Was it the doctrine of immortality, or of the incarnation, the immaculate conception, the trinity, the devil, original sin, or atonement by blood which the bible discovered. All these beliefs, together with baptism, circumcision, communion, etc., existed among the peoples of the world long before the advent of the Jews. Alexander von Humboldt says that when the different religions of the world are placed side by side it is difficult to tell them apart. Like mosses or grass, they spring up the same in every soil, and only by a very powerful microscope could be detected the slight variations, due to climate, time and environment.

I know the final plea for the bible is that it announced for the first time the one God idea. But we had occasion to ask in former comments on this subject, what was the value of such a contribution? Why is one God better than three or three hundred? Would the world have been better off with only one man in it, or the heavens with only one God, and no angels, cherubim, seraphim, Christs, or any other celestial being? But it is not true, as the following texts clearly prove, that the bible teaches the one-God theory. It is impossible not to infer from the way

the Jewish writers speak of Jehovah that they believed in the existence of other gods besides their own:

Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? - Exodus XV, II.

Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.Exodus xviii, II.

Our Lord is above all gods.- Psalms cxxxv, 5.

Before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.- Psalms cxxxviii, 1.

Great is our God above all gods.- II Chronicles ii, 5. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.- Exodus xx, 3. Worship him, all ye gods.- Psalms xcvii, 7.

The same idea is conveyed by the declaration of David that among the gods there is none like unto his God, and by the further fact that Moses, when he met God in the bush, asked for his name, to distinguish him from other gods. There is no necessity for nomenclature in heaven if there is only one God. We do not need a name for God, unless more than one God exists in the universe. To name God, then, is a clear proof that it is done to distinguish him from others in the same calling. Why should God have a name? When Moses asked for the name of God, the latter should have replied: A name! for me! I, who am the Infinite, the Eternal! Names are to distinguish one from another. I have no equal, or rival. Has the Universe a name? Has Time a name? Has Truth a name? The mere fact of God having a name shows he is but one of the many idols, labeled and classified, that he may not be confused with others of the same profession.

A further proof of the plurality of gods in the bible is furnished by one of the texts which has been deliberately tampered with. The distinguished scholar,

Dr. Christie David Ginsburg, in his "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible," gives a long list of biblical passages which the Sopherim, or the rabbis, have purposely changed. One of the altered texts is in second Samuel, xxi: "Every man to his gods, O Israel." By transposing the two middle letters of the Hebrew word for gods, the translators converted the "gods," into 'tents," and so the text now reads, Every man to his tents, O Israel."

66

66

In the next chapter will be discussed the claim. that the superiority of the bible lies in the perfect morality which it teaches.

THE

III.

Does the Bible Teach Morality?

HE question which opens this chapter will surprise many of my readers. It has so often and so confidently been claimed that the bible is the text-book of morality, that hardly any one has thought of even investigating the claim. Just as the people have believed the bible to be inspired because they say so, they have come to believe, for the same reason, that the bible is the book of morals. The truth is, however, as I will endeavor to show, that the bible no more teaches morality than it does science, history or philosophy. That was not the purpose for which it was written, and that is an end toward which it makes practically no contribution at all.

Morality may be defined as the assertion of our rights and the defense of the rights of others. There is not a single phase of the question which is not cov