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man, eighteen hundred years ago, can avert from us the natural and necessary consequences of our transgression, and the system of religion built upon that doctrine, with all its array of pomp and ceremony, are but phantoms. Man's only Redeemer is in him; his only Conciliator that, when by evil-doing he gets at war with the true and the good, can bring him into harmony is in his own soul. To know the conditions of health and happiness, and to be true to them, is the first duty of men. HURT NOT THYSELF, O man! body nor soul; or, if thou hast, do so no more, and God and heaven are thine.

It may seem presumption to say it, yet a divinity within me, that may not be gainsaid, impels me to affirm, that in regard to man as an offender, and as to what he must do for recovery, a new kingdom is at hand, whose basis will be Anthropology, or the Science of Man. In this new dispensation, to know the constitution and laws of our being, and to obey them, to comprehend our relations to food, water, light, air, sleep, and heat, to the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, and, above all, our relations to our fellow-beings; and to educate children to fidelity to their own natures, will be the single aim of all the true and wise. Its foundation will lie deep in the nature of man; its energies will be directed to investigate and elucidate the conditions of health and life, and to perfect the organization and development of the bodies and souls of men and women.

In this coming age human beings will not waste their industry in framing governments, in enacting constitutions and laws, and executing them; but the aim of individuals and social combinations will be, to discover the more just and immutable laws already enacted by a Lawgiver wiser and more potent than they, and to secure to these perfect obedience. To understand that fixed government which is engraven on the human body and soul, and to carry it out in the details of individual, domestic and social life, will be the glory and happiness of all. To the

question, What shall we do to inherit eternal life and peace? the coming kingdom will answer, KNOW THYSELF, AND BE TRUE TO THYSELF! Has any one wounded his body and soul by transgression? It will say to him, "Do so no more! Put far from thee everything in the shape of injurious food, drink, raiment, or amusement, or of hurtful indulgence to thy appetites and passions; injure not any more thy physical or mental constitution by excess; defile not any more thy social and spiritual nature by anger, envy, hatred, revenge, avarice, or ambition, and thou shalt find rest and peace."

In this coming kingdom God will be worshipped, solely, by the compliance of human beings with the laws of their nature. Those who most truly comply with the conditions of life and health will be accepted as the most sincere and earnest worshippers. To worship God will be identical with purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, love to enemies; with truth, candor, sincerity, generosity, and courage to do right; with the exercise of kindness, justice, and honesty; with total abstinence, with antislavery, with non-resistance, with land reform, with respect and reverence for the rights of all. To love man will be to love God; to do good to man will be to honor and glorify God; while to outrage any human being will be to outrage God. Such will be the worship of the coming Dispensation. God of love! may this thy kingdom quickly come!

The system of praising and worshipping God by singing and praying, by keeping holy times and places, and the performance of rites and ceremonies, will pass away, for such worship is but a dramatic exhibition of God and man, of time and eternity. The drama will give place to the true and living reality. Men will no more look to Christ and Calvary, or to any exterior being or thing, for restoration to life and health. The energies of men will no longer be devoted to devising and sustaining forms of God-worship and hero-worship, nor to framing and executing

governments or religions of arbitrary and unequal laws and penalties. This circumstantial Dispensation must pass away. It is founded on fiction, and not on fact; on the phantom, that human beings can be saved from their spiritual maladies by some power exterior to themselves. Of all that mighty fabric erected by the energy of eighteen hundred years, upon the foundation of Vicarious Sacrifice, and the doctrine that a just God can save the guilty at the expense of the innocent, not one stone will be left upon another. The foundation will be swept away, and the whole temple, so far as it rests on that doctrine, must fall. In religion, as in government, romance must yield to reality. The Kingdom of Theology, whose arbitrary laws and penalties were engraven on stone or written in a book, must go down before the Kingdom of Anthropology, whose fixed laws and penalties are engraven on the more enduring substance of the human soul. God, as he is revealed in the Bible, must yield to God as he is manifested in Nature, so far as they conflict with each other. Thus old things will pass away, in regard to the means of man's restoration to himself and to God, and all things will become new. The old heavens and earth, which were peopled by theological monsters, will give place to new heavens and a new earth, to be inhabited by true. men and women, encompassed by all loving and glorified spirits, each having in his or her soul and body an infallible rule of faith and practice, and a Saviour all-sufficient and ever willing to save. Man wants a Saviour; the Bible furnishes one supply to this want; Nature points to another, that is nearer to us, and far more natural and efficient to save. Just so far as the principles and spirit of the Bible, and of the Dispensation based upon it, correspond with the instincts and laws of Human Nature, they will enter into the new Dispensation as a part of it. But the authority of books, and of supposed special revelations and miracles, will cease; there will be no supposed mysterious efficacy in the blood of

beasts or of men, not even in the blood of Jesus, to heal the sinstricken soul, and reconcile it to God. Human nature will no longer be viewed through the arbitrary edicts and wild abstractions of theology, but all theology will be brought to the test of tangible facts. Men will not be seen and judged through the medium of their conceptions of God, but God will be seen, loved and revered, through love and respect for man, inspired by intimate knowledge of his relations and duties. God will be loved and worshipped as manifest, to some extent, in the flesh, in every human being. say to all, look not to the past or passing dispensations, that are based, to a considerable extent, on fiction, for regeneration and progress; but fix your eyes on the kingdom that is coming, whose base is the facts and immutable laws of Nature.

ITEM V.

THE BIBLE IS IN ERROR IN REGARD TO BONDMEN AND BONDMAIDS.

Leviticus 25: 1, 44-46, reads as follows:

"And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying: Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession, and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever."

The question whether bondman here means the same as slave with us I shall pass by. Several things, however, are noticeable. (1.) According to the Bible, it is God that speaks. (2.) He authorizes the Jews to buy human beings. (3.) He authorizes them to buy them of the heathen and of strangers; and, in preceding verses, forbids them to buy Jews. (4.) He authorizes

them to hold those human beings that they buy as bondmen and bondmaids. (5.) He authorizes them to transmit the purchased men and women as an inheritance to their children, for a possession forever. Is God partial? Did he, by express enactment, give up some of his children to be bondmen and bondmaids, and forbid others to be so treated? Did the everlasting Father ever authorize some of his children to buy the bodies and souls of others, and hold them for a perpetual inheritance? I know he never did. Yet the Bible says he did. In this the Bible attributes to God a deed which he never sanctioned. I cannot receive it as true, while I believe that God is just.

The Bible says (Exodus 21: 20, 21):

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"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, that he die under his hand " [immediately]," he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for HE IS HIS

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Several things are to be noticed here. (1.) Whatever this means, it is prefaced by these words, "And God spake all these words, saying." (2.) The allusion is to a man who owns servants and maids. (3.) The owner's right to smite his servant and maid with a rod is recognized and approved. (4.) The owner is to be punished, if, through the severity of the smiting, he or she dies at once, while the smiting is going on. (5.) But if the smitten servant or maid lives a few hours, and dies the next day of the smiting, the owner is not to be punished. (6.) The reason given is, "FOR HE IS HIS MONEY." (7.) The right of the owner to smite his servant or maid unto death with impunity is sanctioned. Did God ever authorize human beings to buy their brethren, and hold and use them as money, and to smite men and women till they die, and then hold them guiltless, because they had only destroyed their own property? The Bible says he did. Here the Bible is in a great error. The God of Nature could do no such thing.

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