Part 5

I HAVE said that the Bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for the rights of woman. Now I propose to prove it. It takes something besides epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. Let us see what the sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race.

A man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there an altar at which he worships the memory of mother, is less than a man.

11. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

12. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."

The reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred writer, was:

13. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

15. "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."--_1 Tim. ii._

3. "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God."

That is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man does to Christ, and man sustains the same relation to Christ that Christ does to God.

This places the woman infinitely below the man. And yet this barbarous idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. How can any woman look other than with contempt upon such passages? How can any woman believe that this is the will of a most merciful God?

7. "For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man."

And this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next verse:

8. "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man."

This same chivalric gentleman also says:

9. "Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."--_1 Cor. xi._

22. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."

Is it possible for abject obedience to go beyond this?

23. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the saviour of the body.

24. "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."--_Eph. v._

Even the Savior did not put man and woman upon an equality. A man could divorce his wife, but the wife could not divorce her husband.

Every noble woman should hold such apostles and such ideas in contempt. According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon and had to be purified from the crime of having born sons and daughters. To make love and maternity crimes is infamous.

10. "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

11. "And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife,

12. "Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails."--_Deut. xxi_.

This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from hell, from a God or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.

DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION POLYGAMY AND CONCUBINAGE?

VIII.

READ the infamous order of Moses in the 31st chapter of Numbers--an order unfit to be reproduced in print--an order which I am unwilling to repeat. Read the 31 st chapter of Exodus. Read the 21 st chapter of Deuteronomy. Read the-life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Jacob, and then tell me the sacred Bible does not teach polygamy and concubinage. All the languages of the world are insufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes man a beast--woman a slave. It destroys the fireside. It makes virtue an outcast. It makes home a lair of wild beasts. It is the infamy of infamies. Yet this is the doctrine of the Bible--a doctrine defended even by Luther and Melancthon. It is by the Bible that Brigham Young justifies the practice of this beastly horror. It takes from language those sweetest words, husband, wife, father mother, child and lover. It takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of loathsome lust. Yet the book justifying this infamy is the book upon which rests the civilization of the nineteenth century. And because I denounce this frightful thing, the clergy denounce me as a demon, and the infamous _Christian Advocate_ says that the moral sentiment of this State ought to denounce this Illinois Catiline for his blasphemous utterances and for his base and debasing scurrility.

DOES THE BIBLE UPHOLD AND JUSTIFY POLITICAL TYRANNY?

IX.

FOR my part, I insist that man has not only the capacity, but the right to govern himself. All political authority is vested in the people themselves, They have the right to select their officers and agents, and these officers and agents are responsible to the people. Political authority does not come from the clouds. Man should not be governed by the aristocracy of the air. The Bible is not a Republican or Democratic book. Exactly the opposite doctrine is taught. From that volume we learn that the people have no power whatever; that all power and political authority comes from on high, and that all the kings, all the potentates and powers, have been ordained of God; that all the ignorant and cruel kings have been placed upon the world's thrones by the direct act of Deity. The Scriptures teach us that the common people have but one duty--the duty of obedience. Let me read to you some of the political ideas in the great "Magna Charta" of human liberty.

1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.

2. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

According to this, George III. was ordained of God. He was King of Great Britian by divine right, and by divine right was the lawful King of the American Colonies. The leaders in the Revolutionary struggle resisted the power, and according to these passages, resisted the ordinances of God; and for that resistance they are promised the eternal recompense of damnation.

3. "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same....

5. "Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

6. "For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing."--_Romans, xiii._

13. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme.

14. "Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.

15. "For so is the will of God."--_1 Pet. ii._

Had these ideas been carried out, political progress in the world would have been impossible. Upon the necks of the people still would have been the feet of kings. I deny this wretched, this infamous doctrine. Whether higher powers are ordained of God or not, if those higher powers endeavor to destroy the rights of man, I for one shall resist. Whenever and wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in support of a human right, I am a rebel. The despicable doctrine of submission to titled wrong and robed injustice finds no lodgment in the brain of a man. The real rulers are the people, and the rulers so-called are but the servants of the people. They are not ordained of any God. All political power comes from and belongs to man. Upon these texts of Scripture rest the thrones of Europe. For fifteen hundred years these verses have been repeated by brainless kings and heardess priests. For fifteen hundred years each one of these texts has been a bastile in which has been imprisoned the pioneers of progress. Each one of these texts has been an obstruction on the highway of humanity. Each one has been a fortification behind which have crouched the sainted hypocrites and the titled robbers. According to these texts, a robber gets his right to rob from God. And it is the duty of the robbed to submit. The thief gets his right to steal from God. The king gets his right to trample upon human liberty from God. I say, fight the king--fight the priest.

THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY OF GOD.

X.

THE Bible denounces religious liberty. After covering the world with blood, after having made it almost hollow with graves, Christians are beginning to say that men have a right to differ upon religious questions provided the questions about which they differ are not considered of great importance. The motto of the Evangelical Alliance is: "In non-essentials, Liberty; in essentials, Unity."

The Christian world have condescended to say that upon all non-essential points we shall have the right to think for ourselves; but upon matters of the least importance, they will think and speak for us. In this they are consistent. They but follow the teachings of the God they worship. They but adhere to the precepts and commands of the sacred Scriptures. Within that volume there is no such thing as religious toleration. Within that volume there is not one particle of mercy for an unbeliever. For all who think for themselves, for all who are the owners of their own souls, there are threatenings, curses and anathemas. Any Christian who to-day exercises the least toleration is to that extent false to his religion. Let us see what the "Magna Charta" of liberty says upon this subject:

6. "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers.

7. "Namely of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or afar off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.

8. "Thou shalt not consent unto him; nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.

9. "But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

10. "And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."--_Deut. xiii._

That is the religious liberty of the Bible. If the wife of your bosom had said, "I like the religion of India better than the religion of Palestine," it was then your duty to kill her, and the merciful Most High--understand me, I do not believe in any merciful Most High--said:

"Thou shalt not pity her but thou shalt surely kill; thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death."

This I denounce as infamously infamous. If it is necessary to believe in such a God, if it is necessary to adore such a Deity in order to be saved, I will take my part joyfully in perdition. Let me read you a few more extracts from the "Magna Charta" of human liberty.

2. "If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant,

3. "And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.

4. "And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel.

5. "Then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die."

Under this law if the woman you loved had said: "Let us worship the sun; I am tired of this jealous and bloodthirsty Jehovah; let us worship the sun; let us kneel to it as it rises over the hills, filling the world with light and love, when the dawn stands jocund on the mountain's misty top; it is the sun whose beams illumine and cover the earth with verdure and with beauty; it is the sun that covers the trees with leaves, that carpets the earth with grass and adorns the world with flowers; I adore the sun because in its light I have seen your eyes; it has given to me the face of my babe; it has clothed my life with joy; let us in gratitude fall down and worship the glorious beams of the sun."

For this offence she deserved not only death, but death at your hands:

"Thine eye shall not pity her; neither shalt thou spare; neither shalt thou conceal her.

"But thou shalt surely kill her: thy hand shall be the first upon her to put her to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

"And thou shalt stone her with stones that she die."

For my part I had a thousand times rather worship the sun than a God who would make such a law or give such a command. This you may say is the doctrine of the Old Testament--what is the doctrine of the New?

"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned."

That is the religious liberty of the New Testament. That is the "tidings of great joy."

Every one of these words has been a chain upon the limbs, a whip upon the backs of men. Every one has been a fagot. Every one has been a sword. Every one has been a dungeon, a scaffold, a rack. Every one has been a fountain of tears. These words have filled the hearts of men with hatred. These words invented all the instruments of torture. These words covered the earth with blood.

For the sake of argument, suppose that the Bible is an inspired book. If then, as is contended, God gave these frightful laws commanding religious intolerance to his chosen people, and afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came among the Jews and taught a different religion, and they crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown?

DOES THE BIBLE DESCRIBE A GOD OF MERCY?

XI.

IS it possible to conceive of a more jealous, revengeful, changeable, unjust, unreasonable, cruel being than the Jehovah of the Hebrews? Is it possible to read the words said to have been spoken by this Deity, without a shudder? Is it possible to contemplate his character without hatred?

"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh."--_Deut. xxxii._

Is this the language of an infinitely kind and tender parent to his weak, his wandering and suffering children?

"Thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." _Psalms, lxviii._

Is it possible that a God takes delight in seeing dogs lap the blood of his children?

22. "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

23. "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.

24. "And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them."--_Deut. vii._

If these words had proceeded from the mouth of a demon, if they had been spoken by some enraged and infinitely malicious fiend, I should not have been surprised. But these things are attributed to a God of infinite mercy.

40. "So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."--_Josh, x._

14. "And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe."--_Josh. xi._

19. "There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all other they took in battle.

20. "For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses."--_Josh. xi._

There are no words in our language with which to express the indignation I feel when reading these cruel and heartless words.

"When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the sword. But the women, _and the little ones_, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

"Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."

These terrible instructions were given to an army of invasion. The men who were thus ruthlessly murdered were fighting for their homes, their firesides, for their wives and for their little children. Yet these things, by the clergy of San Francisco, are called acts of sublime mercy.

All this is justified by the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The Old Testament is filled with anathemas, with curses, with words of vengeance, of revenge, of jealousy, of hatred and of almost infinite brutality. Do not, I pray you, pluck from the heart the sweet flower of pity and trample it in the bloody dust of superstition. Do not, I beseech you, justify the murder of women, the assassination of dimpled babes. Do not let the gaze of the gorgon of superstition turn your hearts to stone.

Is there an intelligent Christian in the world who would not with joy and gladness receive conclusive testimony to the effect that all the passages in the Bible upholding and sustaining polygamy and concubinage, political tyranny, the subjection of woman, the enslavement of children, establishing domestic and political tyranny, and that all the commands to destroy men, women and children, are but interpolations of kings and priests, made for the purpose of subjugating mankind through the instrumentality of fear? Is there a Christian in the world who would not think vastly more of the Bible if all these infamous things were eliminated from it?

Surely the good things in that book are not rendered more sacred from the fact that in the same volume are found the frightful passages I have quoted. In my judgment the Bible should be read and studied precisely as we read and study any book whatever. The good in it should be preserved and cherished, and that which shocks the human heart should be cast aside forever.

While the Old Testament threatens men, women and children with disease, famine, war, pestilence and death, there are no threatenings of punishment beyond this life. The doctrine of eternal punishment is a dogma of the New Testament. This doctrine, the most cruel, the most infamous of which the human mind can conceive, is taught, if taught at all, in the Bible--in the New Testament. One cannot imagine what the human heart has suffered by reason of the frightful doctrine of eternal damnation. It is a doctrine so abhorrent to every drop of my blood, so infinitely cruel, that it is impossible for me to respect either the head or heart of any human being who teaches or fears it. This doctrine necessarily subverts all ideas of justice. To inflict infinite punishment for finite crimes, or rather for crimes committed by finite beings, is a proposition so monstrous that I am astonished it ever found lodgment in the brain of man. Whoever says that we can be happy in heaven while those we loved on earth are suffering infinite torments in eternal fire, defames and calumniates the human heart.

THE PLAN OF SALVATION.

XII.

WE are told, however, that a way has been provided for the salvation of all men, and that in this plan the infinite mercy of God is made manifest to the children of men. According to the great scheme of the atonement, the innocent suffers for the guilty in order to satisfy a law. What kind of law must it be that is satisfied with the agony of innocence? Who made this law? If God made it he must have known that the innocent would have to suffer as a consequence. The whole scheme is to me a medley of contradictions, impossibilities and theological conclusions. We are told that if Adam and Eve had not sinned in the Garden of Eden death never would have entered the world. We are further informed that had it not been for the devil, Adam and Eve would not have been led astray; and if they had not, as I said before, death never would have touched with its icy hand the human heart. If our first parents had never sinned, and death never had entered the world, you and I never would have existed. The earth would have been filled thousands of generations before you and I were born. At the feast of life, death made seats vacant for us. According to this doctrine, we are indebted to the devil for our existence. Had he not tempted Eve--no sin. If there had been no sin--no death. If there had been no death the world would have been filled ages before you and I were born. Therefore, we owe our existence to the devil. We are further informed that as a consequence of original sin the scheme called the atonement became necessary; and that if the Savior had not taken upon himself flesh and come to this atom called the earth, and if he had not been crucified for us, we should all have been cast forever into hell. Had it not been for the bigotry of the Jews and the treachery of Judas Iscariot, Christ would not have been crucified; and if he had not been crucified, all of us would have had our portion in the lake that burneth with eternal fire.

According to this great doctrine, according to this vast and most wonderful scheme, we owe, as I said before, our existence to the devil, our salvation to Judas Iscariot and the bigotry of the Jews.

So far as I am concerned, I fail to see any mercy in the plan of salvation. Is it mercy to reward a man forever in consideration of believing a certain thing, of the truth of which there is, to his mind, ample testimony? Is it mercy to punish a man with eternal fire simply because there is not testimony enough to satisfy his mind? Can there be such a thing as mercy in eternal punishment?

And yet this same Deity says to me, "resist not evil; pray for those that despitefully use you; love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine." It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.

All atonement, after all, is a kind of moral bankruptcy. Under its provisions, man is allowed the luxury of sinning upon a credit. Whenever he is guilty of a wicked action he says, "charge it." This kind of bookkeeping, in my judgment, tends to breed extravagance in sin.

The truth is, most Christians are better than their creeds; most creeds are better than the Bible, and most men are better than their God.

OTHER RELIGIONS.

XIII.