daughter shalt thou take unto thy son; for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods."

Did the God of Nature write the laws of love and fraternity on their hearts, and then forbid one portion of his children to enter into any agreement of friendship with another portion to promote one another's prosperity? Did he ever command one portion of the human family to show no mercy to other portions of it, and to smite and destroy them, lest a too close and loving intimacy should grow up between them? The Bible says he did, and gives this as the reason why he did it: "For thou (the Jewish nation) art a holy people unto the Lord thy God," therefore, thine eye shall have no pity upon the nations which the Lord thy God giveth unto thee, but shalt utterly consume them all." Holy people, indeed! If this is holiness, what is sin? If to do such deeds can entitle men to the favor of God, what can render them deserving of his frown?

In Joshua is a history of the manner in which this holy people executed these instructions (Joshua 6:21). It says, in regard to Jericho, "They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox, ass, and sheep, with the edge of the sword." In Joshua 8: 24, 25, 26, it says of the destruction of Ai: ·

"When Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness whereunto they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned to Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. And so it was, that all that fell that day, both men and women, were twelve thousand, and Joshua drew not back his hand wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord which he spoke by Joshua."

In Joshua, tenth chapter, is an account of the destruction of many cities in nearly these words: "And they (the Israelites)

smote with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed, all the souls therein, and let none remain, but they utterly destroyed all that breatheth, as the Lord God of Israel commanded." The same bloody detail is continued in the eleventh chapter. And those who entertained this hatred towards their fellow-beings, who had never injured them, and who waged these aggressive, exterminating wars against unknown and innocent tribes of men — innocent, at least, so far as any wrongs to their destroyers were concerned are said, by the Bible, and are now believed to have been, "a holy people unto the Lord God; whom the Lord God had chosen to be a peculiar people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth." The Bible is mistaken here in its views of God, as a universal Father and an impartial Sovereign, and of the relations of man to man, as children of a common parent, and members of a common brotherhood.

Then we are told that, for four hundred years, God watched over and disciplined that portion of his children, called Israelites, to wage this exterminating war against other portions of the great human family. The story, as told in the Bible, is one of fearful horror. God, as it relates, had settled to destroy certain nations, and to give their country and wealth to another nation. Four hundred years before the deed was done, he is made to say that he must wait till their " iniquity is full." So the people selected as his instruments of wrath and vengeance, are led through various trials for four hundred years; till the Canaanites were wicked enough to be destroyed. Then, by a series of most astounding events, such as the passage of a deep sea and river on dry land of one million being sustained forty years in a desert, without laboring for food or raiment one suit of clothes lasting the whole time- the sun and moon standing still, and in many ways the laws of the physical universe being suspended, to enable these holy people, as they are called, to march

to the slaughter of whole nations which had never known or injured them!

One of these wonders deserves particular notice, and is told in these words (Numbers 11 : 3) :—

"And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side round about the camp, as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth."

Now a day's journey was a fraction over thirty-three miles, and two cubits made three and a half feet English measure. Here, then, in one night, a flock of quails gathered around the camp of Israel, covering the surface of the earth over thirty miles in width all around the camp, and three and one half feet in depth, to furnish food for the people. That was a large gathering of quails to be made in one night! Think of it! Thirty miles wide all around the camp, of three and one half feet deep! And all to help them on their way to slaughter the

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men, women, infants, and sucklings," and leave not a soul that breatheth, in the land of Canaan. This God is said to have done, because he had sworn to Abraham that he would do it; and because he had set his heart on the Jewish nation above all others; and because he wished to put them into possession of a land flowing with milk and honey; that these, having slaughtered the people of all other religions around them, might sustain their own peculiar views of God and worship!

The great end of all these wonders, and of this slaughter of human beings, is said to have been to establish on earth the doctrine of One God, in opposition to Polytheism. According to the account, the laws of Nature were, in many most singular ways, suspended, and rivers of innocent blood made to flow, and myriads of innocent human beings slain "by the edge of the sword," to eradicate idolatry from the human mind, and to plant in its stead the doctrine and worship of one God! Important

to human welfare as may be this doctrine, and essential as it is that this one God should be lovingly and reverently obeyed, can it be supposed that, to win men to this doctrine and to this obedience, this just and loving Father would array his children in such bloody and malignant hostility one against another? Is this the way to root out error and establish truth? Is it possible to win men to the love and worship of one God by such means? Can God possibly win the world to himself by violence and blood -by arraying tribe against tribe, and nation against nation, in exterminating, revengeful wars? Is it possible for God to commend himself to the confidence and worship of the human soul by such arguments? It cannot be done. By the inspiration and authority of God, in the very nature of man, I say, that not the Almighty God can commend himself to the love and worship of human beings by the slaughter of men, women, infants, and sucklings. I repeat, the human soul instinctively revolts against such injustice and cruelty. GOD IS LOVE. The soul of man is love; and only by this can the human family be gathered around the throne of the true God. LOVE IS POWER, and the only power by which God can establish his empire over the human heart. By this, all can and will be finally brought to dwell in love.

But the Bible and nearly all Christendom would have us think that the sword, dyed deep in the blood of millions, was the great argument to establish the doctrine and worship of one God. No human parent could gain such an end by such means; much less can the great Father of all. The human soul, until its entire nature is changed, and the very capacity to love and to feel sentiments of justice and mercy is annihilated, can never be excited to love and worship any being by such means. Not the shrine of Juggernaut nor of Moloch stands in a deeper and darker ocean of human blood than, according to the Bible, does the shrine of that being whom Jews and Christians are called upon

to love and worship as the true and living God. The Bible errs, and the soul of man cannot and will not always receive it as truth, in its account of the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites.

ITEM X.

THE BIBLE ERRS IN ITS VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT.

Ir teaches that man may rightfully dictate law to man, and punish him if he disobeys. It often inculcates obedience to kings, magistrates, and all in authority over us, in domestic, social, political, and religious affairs. "Children, obey your parents;" "Wives, obey your husbands;" "Servants, obey your masters." All were to obey magistrates, or kings and rulers. The Jews were to obey Moses, the priests, elders, and judges. What they tell us to do, we must do. True, it is sometimes added, "in the Lord". which is said to mean, obey them when they tell you to do what is right. But who is to decide whether the commands are right? Is the child, the wife, the servant, or the subject? If so, why not say at once, as Nature says, that truth and right, not man, are the fountains of authority, and can alone make any law binding? No command is binding on a child merely because it is given by a parent; no order is binding on a servant or wife because it is enacted by congress or legislature, or dictated by a master or husband. No human being is under any obligation to do what a human being, or any number of human beings combined, tells him to do. No matter what relation the person or persons giving the command sustain to the person or persons to whom it is given, the only circumstance that can render obedience to it a duty, is the fact of its being right. Nothing is true and right because Moses, Mohammed, or Confucius said it. We are not bound to do anything because Jesus requires it, nor to refuse to do anything