happiness of human beings. They may be supposed to have taught and acted according to their light. Jesus and his followers made known what they supposed would meet man's actual wants. They taught and acted according to their knowledge of man's relations and duties. Their teachings and acts are before us. Man is also before us. They attempted to teach the world what are the nature, relations, and duties, of inan. We know more about the science of man than they knew, and are better able to judge correctly as to what is healthful and what hurtful to his body and soul. The race has not stood still three thousand, one thousand, or even one hundred years. We know what is salubrious, and what insalubrious, to the bodies and souls of men, better than did Jesus and the apostles, and are better able to prescribe and obtain a natural and efficient preventive and cure for our physical, social, and spiritual maladies. Their prescriptions were as perfect as was their knowledge, and no more so.

Love was their cure for all the social and moral evils of the human family. A more efficient one could not have been prescribed. Whatever be the perfection which the soul may attain in its eternal progression, it can never discover an aliment so congenial or so vitalizing as love. This healing power was understood long before the days of Jesus; but it had not been applied so extensively as it was by him. Jesus and his followers applied it to prevent and cure wrongs, to which their predecessors never thought of applying it. We see its application to individual and social evils of which Jesus never dreamed. Our business is to be faithful in applying it according to our knowledge. If we see that love is the only power by which man can be governed, by which wrong can be prevented and right established; if we see that love,—not the rod, the sword, the dungeon, the gibbet, nor hell-fire, is the only power that can harmonize the contending elements of

society, secure to all their rights, lead man to respect all of human kind, and introduce the reign of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, then we must resolutely apply it according to our light. Future ages will apply this power to cure evils of which we do not dream, as we apply it to prevent and cure evils of which Jesus and the apostles never dreamed. They deemed many maxims and practices consistent with love and justice which we consider opposed to these attributes.

are

The Bible presents certain ideas of God and of man; they all true? Christendom says "YES!" and demands that the race must receive them all as true, or be outcasts from divine favor. I believe many of those ideas are erroneous. most dishonorable to a God of justice and love, and most ruinous to the purity and integrity of the hearts and lives of men. I will specify several items in which, it seems to me, the Bible

errs.

ITEM I.

THE BIBLE ERRS IN REGARD TO THE MODE OF DIVINE REVELATION.

MAN exists - GOD exists. A consciousness of these two facts is an essential attribute of human nature. However our intellects may become confused, every human soul will be true to itself in regard to these two facts: it will recognize its own existence, and that of a superior power or agent, which it will receive and honor as God. In this belief, of the existence of man and of God, I harmonize with every human being.

In another point I also live in harmony with them. I believe that God has given to man rules, by which if he lives he will be, in all respects, just what he was designed to be, perfect and happy. Where is that Revelation to be found? Here I am separated from most of mankind. Christians say it is found in the Bible; Mohammedans, in the Koran; Hindoos, in the Shaster; Persians, in the Zenda-Vesta; and Chinese, in the writings of Confucius. All profess to find it in books, said to have been communicated directly from God to those who wrote them. All tribes of men have their sacred oracles, which, as they believe, came from God- MIRACULOUS REVELATION. In this, Christians, Mohammedans, and Pagans, agree. They all believe in the doctrine of ARBITRARY REVELATION. Each religious sect believes that a reception of their sacred oracle is necessary to ensure to man eternal life. They regard a direct revelation as a natural want of the human soul.

I believe that Nature is God's only infallible revelation

to man, by which he can safely live in this or in any other state of existence. Man can know nothing of the great creative power, except through the facts and laws of Nature. God works out his designs solely by fixed laws, never by positive enactments. This is true throughout the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Each tree, plant, and flower, is brought into being and is perfected by the operation of fixed laws. Many of these laws are known. The farmer acts upon his knowledge of and confidence in them, in his efforts to raise grain, fruits and flowers. So, as to the human body; it is known to be under fixed laws of food, drink, sleep, air, light, and heat. God has engraven on every human body, as well as on every tree, the rules or laws by which he designed that body to be governed. Is this true? If so, then we must go to the body itself to learn these laws; and, in studying the facts touching its origin, growth, and development, and its conditions of life and health, we consult God in the only practical sense in which we can do it. All that we need to know of the human body is revealed to us in it, and any book that should say the human body can live without food, sleep, air, . light or heat, must be untrue, for it is opposed to known facts. Thus, human bodies are brought into being and developed by fixed laws, and never otherwise.

This fact is admitted, so far as the material universe is concerned. Why should we suppose that the creative mind departs from this plan in reference to the human soul? That the soul is produced and perfected by the agency of fixed laws is as certain as that the body is. The divine plan is uniform. We know there are certain laws of the soul written on it, as elements of its existence. Would we learn how to preserve the soul in health and happiness? We must go to it; study its manifestations; observe what is pleasant and what unpleasant; what purifies and exalts, and what corrupts and debases;

in a word, we must observe the conditions on which its health and happiness depend. We must learn its wants, and seek the natural supply. The Bible is true and useful (so is any book) just so far as its teachings are in harmony with human nature, and so far as it contains a transcript of the laws engraven on the body and soul. First go to man and learn of him; become familiar with the facts and laws under which he exists; then consult the book, to see how its teachings accord with facts. But the common custom is first to study the Bible, and become familiar with its teachings, and then examine the body and soul of man, to make them harmonize with the book.

If

Here, then, is my hope, here is my faith, in a fixed Revelation; a fixed law of life, engraven on the body and soul; a Revelation that never changes, that is ever present and ever operative, and which, if obeyed, will make us just what we were designed to be; but which, if disobeyed, will surely bring misery. This law is all-sufficient to guide and protect. perfectly obeyed, it would lead to perfection. The statements of any book deserve confidence so far as it agrees with Nature, no further. But the Bible and all other sacred books found their claim to our confidence on the doctrine of ARBITRARY REVELATION. We are called upon to receive it, not because its teachings accord with the facts of our nature; not because its supplies are adapted to human wants; but because its writers are said to have received their communications direct from God, through some miraculous influence of the divine spirit on their own. Thus, it is said, the Bible teaches what Nature cannot teach; that we can obtain a more perfect knowledge of man's relations, duties, and destiny, from the Bible, than by an observation of the facts relating to his natural wants.

If so, the Bible teaches a ruinous error; the supposed arbitrary revelation being often opposed to that which is fixed and true. Men, in all ages and nations, have perpetrated outrages