CHAPTER XXIII.--OBSCENE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE--TWO HUNDRED CASES.

No person of refinement and good morals, who has not been warped and biased by education or religious training in favor of the Christian Bible, can read that book through without being often shocked and put to the blush by its obscene and vulgar language! Indeed, there are more than two hundred texts calculated to raise a blush on the cheek of modesty. Many of them are so obscene that we would not dare copy them into this work. It would not only outrage the feelings of the reader, but it would render the author liable to prosecution.

A law has been recently passed by Congress prohibiting the publication and circulation of obscene literature; and many persons have already been prosecuted under that law,--some of them for merely selecting and publishing some of the obscene texts of the Bible. But, without being influenced by these considerations, we will, in order to spare the feelings of the reader, merely state the import of some of these texts.

1. Omitting the history of Adam, in which we find some not very refined language, we will commence with Noah. We are told that Noah became so drunk as to strip off all his clothing, and one of his sons, to avoid seeing him in that situation, walked backward, and covered him: for which act his father cursed him. Thus it appears that Noah, although "a righteous man," was not a very modest or decent one. And such a man being held up as a righteous example must have a demoralizing tendency upon those who accept him in this light. (See Gen. ix. )

2. The story of Abraham and Sarah, and the account of Abraham's illicit intimacy with his servant-maid Hagar, as related in Genesis (chap. xvi.), and his and Sarah's gossip over the affair, is any thing but modest.

3. The "holy man" Lot: The story of Lot's incest with his daughters, as set forth in Genesis (chap. xix.), is both immodest and disgusting.

4. Rachel and Bilhah: The tea-table talk of Jacob and Rachel, about the act of Jacob in seducing their maid-servant Bilhah, must be morally repulsive to all only Bible believers.

5. The story of Leah and Zilpah is not much better. (See Gen. xxx.)

6. The bargain between Leah and Rachel about Reuben's mandrakes (Gen. xxx.) is too immodest to relate or contemplate.

7. Jacob's trick of using peeled sticks and poplar-trees among his cattle is something more than a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous. And were it not deemed "divine revelation, heavenly instruction," it would have been left out (Gen. xxx.).

8. The account of Rachel's stealing her father's images, and then telling an indecent falsehood to hide it, is not very suitable for a "Holy Book" (Gen. xxxi.).

9. The story of the defilement of Dinah we will not attempt to describe, as we can not do it without offending decency. (See Gen. xxxiv.)

10. The story of Reuben and Bilhah, in the next chapter, may be instructive to the pious, but is not so to persons of refined taste.

11. If you read the narratives of Judah, Onan, and Tamar, as related in the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, for humanity's sake keep it out of the hands of your children, and use _your_ influence to prevent its circulation among the heathen; for it must have the effect to sink them still deeper in moral depravity and mental degradation.

12. The disgusting story of Absalom's familiarity with his father's concubines, as related (2 Sam. xvi. 32), is so disgusting, that we will barely allude to it. Having referred to twelve cases more, we shall pursue the repulsive subject no further, except merely to indicate the chapter and verse where a long list of such cases may be found and examined by those who may need more evidence that the Bible is an obscene book, not fit to be read in decent society.

13. Vulgar language is used in representing men as acting like dogs. (See 2 Kings ix. 8.)

14. Job describes disgusting conduct toward a woman (Job xxxi. 9).

15. Solomon's Song of Songs contains much that is obscene language from the first to the eighth chapter.

16. Isaiah makes revolting suggestions relative to stripping women. (See Isa. xxxii. 2.)

17. Ezekiel is represented as eating disgusting food (dung) (Ezek. iv. 12).

18. Jehovah's command to Hosea to marry a harlot is of immoral tendency.

19. Isaiah frequently makes use of vulgar language. One case may be found in chap. lxvi. 3.

20. Another case in Hosea, describing horrible treatment of women and children. (See chap. xiii. 16.)

21. The conduct of Sechem towards certain women, as told in Gen. xxxiv. 4, is loathsome.

22. The conduct of parents toward their daughters, as described in Deut.