The Christian Creed; or, What it is Blasphemy to Deny

The poor Pharisees tried to obey the law as given by Jahveh; their reward was to be condemned by his son. Yet it is blasphemy to deny that "I and my Father are one" (John x., 30).

It is blasphemy to deny that Jahveh commanded the Israelites to "make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe" (Numbers xv., 38, 39). It is hard to believe, though it is blasphemy to deny, that the "Eternal Spirit" troubled himself about "a fringe."

It is blasphemy to deny that there is a "pit," within the earth, into which people may fall alive, when the earth opens her mouth and swallows them up; further, that Korah, Dathan and Abiram, their wives, their sons and their little children, were so swallowed up, and "went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them" (Numb, xvi., 27-33).

It is blasphemy to deny that a plague so fierce that it slew 14,700 people in a few hours could be stopped by a man with a censer full of incense who "stood between the dead and the living" (xvi., 46-49). One can only suppose that the plague advanced steadily across the camp, like a fog, killing every person it covered. Thus only could a man stand between the living and the dead. Yet no such advancing destruction is known to history.

It is blasphemy to deny that a dry old rod belonging to Aaron blossomed miraculously when eleven other dry old rods behaved in the normal fashion (xvii., 2-9). And not only did Aaron's rod bud and blossom, but it also yielded almonds, and this all in the course of one night. It is blasphemy to suggest that Moses, Aaron's brother, who took the rods and who hid them "before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness," quietly substituted a blooming and fruiting branch in the place of his brother's rod, and yet this would be the explanation which would be at once suggested if a similar trick were played now-a-days. But in those easy-going and credulous times very little skill was needed to impose upon a crowd ready to be deceived.

It is interesting to note, in passing, the admirable provision made by Jahveh-through the mouth of his servant, Moses – for Aaron and his family. "All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee. And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the Lord, shall be thine" (Numb, xviii., 12, 13). This claim on the part of the priesthood has never been regarded as part of that ceremonial law which has been "done away in Christ."

The story of Balaam is one of the tests to which true faith must be submitted. We learn in this that when Balak sent to ask Balaam to go to him that he might curse Israel, god at first commanded him not to go (Numbers xxii., 12), but a little later commanded him to go (20). God, as we know, never changes. When Balaam obeyed god's command and went, "god's anger was kindled against him because he went" (22), that is because Balaam did what god told him to do, and "the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him." Balaam was riding on a donkey, and the donkey saw the angel, though no one else did, "and the ass turned aside out of the way." Again the angel placed himself in front of the donkey, and the donkey squeezed past him, crushing Balaam's foot against the wall. For the third time the angel confronted the donkey, and on this occasion in a narrow place, "where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left." Then the donkey tumbled down. Balaam was, not unnaturally, disturbed at his donkey's extraordinary behavior, and he had struck her each time that she had, as he thought, misbehaved. And now occurred a wonderful thing. "The Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in my hand, for now would I kill thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay." Sensible persons are expected to believe this absurd story of a conversation between a man and a donkey. Peter speaks of it without any expression of doubt, saying: "the dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbad the madness of the prophet" (2 Peter ii., 16). It is blasphemy to deny it; it is madness to believe it. Balaam's ass stands on a level with Mahomet's, and only the credulous and superstitious can yield credence to the stories of either.

It is not worth while to delay over Balaam's rhapsodies, except to note their extreme inaccuracy. "God is not a man that he should lie" (Numbers xxiii,, 19); yet "I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet" (Ezech. xiv., 9). "Nor the son of man that he should repent" (Numbers xxiii., 19); yet "it repented the Lord that he had made man" (Gen. vi., 6). "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers xxiii., 21); yet, "I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people;" "how long will this people provoke me?" (Exodus xxxii., 9, and Numbers xiv., 11). This declaration is the more startling when we find Moses- whose acquaintance with the people was more intimate than that of Balaam-saying: "Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord… Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you" (Deut. ix., 7 and 24). It is needless to accumulate these contradictory statements, all of which we are commanded to believe on peril of damnation.

Immediately after Balaam's declaration of Israel's holiness, we read how the people reverted to idolatry, and how "the anger of the Lord was kindled against them" (Numbers xxv., 3). Some more murders were committed to pacify Jahveh, and he himself slew 24,000 by a plague.

In Numbers xxxi. we have one of the most horrible stories related even in the Bible, the story of the slaughter of the Midianites. Jahveh sent his tribes against this unhappy race, and, after their usual wicked fashion, they "slew all the males." Moved, however, by an unwonted touch of pity, they "took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones," and brought them alive back to their camp. Moses, Jahveh's friend, "was wroth with the officers of the host" for their unworthy humanity, and shrieked out in his rage: "Have ye saved all the women alive?" And then he commanded them to "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman" that had been married, "but all the women children that" were virgins "keep alive for yourselves." This bloodthirsty and loathsome command is of "divine authority." It is blasphemy to deny that it was god-given. Yet what of the blasphemy that ascribes an order so fiendish to "the God of the spirits of all flesh?" These baby boys and prattling children, kill every one; these mothers and matrons of Midian, murder them one after another. Such is the command of Jahveh, who said: "Thou shalt not kill." And these fair and pure maidens, these helpless women-children, whose natural guardians ye have slain, keep these for the satisfactions of your passions. Such is the command of Jahveh, who said: "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Some of these fair girls were claimed as "the Lord's tribute," 352 in all. These were handed over to the Levites, and small doubt can be felt as to their fate.

To add a touch of the comic to this tragic scene, we learn that after all the fighting and the slaughter, not one solitary Israelite was missing, while the Midianitish nation, of which not a male was left alive, turns up again later as merrily as though it had never been destroyed, and "prevailed against Israel, and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds" (Judges vi., 2).

The book of Deuteronomy is awkward for the true believer, because it is a recital of the story related in the preceding book, and constantly contradicts the previous narrative. Thus Moses commands Israel to make no likeness or similitude of Jahveh on the ground that when he spake to them "out of the midst of the fire," "ye heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude" (Deut. iv., 12); yet turning back we read that seventy-four of them "saw the god of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God" (Ex. xxiv., 10,11). It can scarcely be pretended that when they saw a visible being with "feet" and a "hand," they "saw no similitude."

In Deut. v., 15, the reason for keeping holy the sabbath day is different from the reason given in Ex. xx., 11. Both of these are given as the very words of Jahveh, spoken from "Horeb" or "Sinai." One of the versions must be inaccurate, yet it is blasphemy to deny either. In Deut. v., 22, Moses says that after the ten commandments "he added no more." In Exodus he added a large number of other commands (see xx. – xxiii.).

We learn in Deut. viii., 4, that during the forty years wasted in the wilderness "thy raiment waxed not old upon thee." This was very satisfactory for the adults, but what happened to the growing children? The raiment of a week-old baby can scarcely have been suitable to the man of forty; did the clothes grow with the body, and as the numbers of the people increased very much during the forty years, were new clothes born as well as new babies? If such questions are regarded as blasphemous, I can only answer that they are suggested by Moses' assertion of the remarkable durability of the raiment, and raiment that did not become old might surely also grow and reproduce itself. Once begin miracle-working on old clothes, and none can say how far it may go.

It is blasphemy to assert that it is wrong to swear, for the Bible commands: "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God… and swear by his name" (Deut. x., 20). It is blasphemy to assert that it is right to swear, for the Bible commands: "Swear not at all" (Matt, v., 34).

Deuteronomy xiii., from the first verse to the last, is a disgrace to the book in which it is contained, and a scandal to the community which permits it to be circulated as of divine authority. Yet it is blasphemy to attack it and to show its horrible atrocity. If a prophet or dreamer arise and try to turn away the Hebrews from Jahveh, then they are told: "The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God" (v. 3). Yet, although it is Jahveh's own doing, that unfortunate "prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death" (v. 5). The same fate is to befall "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" (v. 6), if such try to turn any away from Jahveh's worship; with a refinement of cruelty, devilish in its wickedness, "thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death" (v. 9). The wife, passionately loved, is to see her husband, in whose bosom she has lain, raise his hand against her, foremost of a howling mob, greedy for her blood. The daughter is to clasp her father's knees in vain; he must strike her down as she clings to him in her agony. The trusting and trusted friend is to be betrayed to the slaughterers, and the hand most closely grasped in love is to be the first to catch up the heavy stone and to beat out the faithful life. And it is blasphemy to cry out against this horror, but not blasphemy to ascribe its invention to the god "whose tender mercy is over all his works."

The murder commenced in the family circle is to be continued in the national policy. If a city of the Hebrews reject Jahveh, "thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword" (v. 15); nothing is to escape, a burning bloodstained ruin is to be left "for the Lord thy God" (v. 16), and then Jahveh will bless his brutal servants, who have done "that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God" (v. 18). This command is of divine authority, and has been largely obeyed in Christendom, but people have fortunately become too civilised to carry it out now.

In Deut. xiv., some of the natural history blunders of Lev. xi. are repeated. It is confusing, however, after reading in Lev. xi., 21-23, "these may ye eat, of every flying creeping thing," etc., to find in Deut. xiv., 19, "Every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you; they shall not be eaten." So that the Israelites are deprived of those remarkable four-legged locusts, beetles and grasshoppers which "have legs above their feet." (Do other animals carry their feet above their legs?) It is delightful to find Moses speaking of a bat as a bird; clearly in those days the schoolmaster was not abroad, but it is hard that we should be compelled to choose between the blasphemy of speaking of the bat as a mammal, and the falsehood of treating it as a bird. A beautiful touch of generosity is to be found in v. 21: "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien."

The general law of warfare laid down in Deut. xx., 10-15, is brutal in the extreme. If any foreign city ventures to defend itself against Hebrew aggression, and closes its gates against the invader, then it is to be besieged, and "when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt Smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword." A yet worse fate is to be dealt out to the cities of Palestine, for in these "thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth" (v. 16). Of course such method of war has nothing surprising, when we consider the cruelty and barbarism of the Eastern nations of which the Hebrews were one, but it is surprising that in the nineteenth century the bloody customs of a savage tribe should be set forth as founded on "divine authority."

If possible, still viler is the treatment of captive women; when thou "seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house… and after that thou shalt… be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be if thou have no delight in her," thy passions being satisfied, "then thou shalt let her go whither she will" (Deut. xxi., 11-14). No wonder that prostitution is rife in every Christian city, when this command is placed before young men's eyes as "of divine authority." Similar low views are taken in Deut. xxiv., 1. While this degrading teaching is that of Jahveh, Manu, a mere man, with no "divine authority," but with only a human heart, taught his followers to treat every aged woman as their mother, every young woman as their sister.

It is rather odd to note in passing that he is declared to be cursed who marries "his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother" (Deut. xxvii., 22), when we remember that Abraham said of his wife Sarah: "Indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife" (Gen. xx., 12). Thus Abraham, who is so highly blessed in one part of god's word, is cursed in another.

The book of Joshua is taken up with the bloody wars of the Israelites; it is a mere record of savage butchery; every page reeks with slaughter. "They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" (Josh, vi., 21). This, repeated ad nauseam, is the book of Joshua. The tale is varied now and then with the record of absurd miracles, as that of the falling down of the walls of Jericho, or the standing still of the sun and moon at the command of Joshua. From its ferocity and absurdity, the book is beneath contempt, yet it is of "divine authority."

In the Book of Judges we have the record of a number of utterly unimportant victories and defeats in the history of the Hebrew nation. Why should these be accepted as "of divine authority" any more than any corresponding history of some other equally obscure and barbarous people?

Over the barbarous stories of Ehud stabbing Eglon, with its disgusting details (iii., 21, 22); of Jael murdering her guest, in defiance of all desert laws of hospitality, and receiving for her treachery the blessing of the Lord, a blessing shared only with Mary, the mother of Jesus (v. 24, compare Luke i., 28); of Gideon and of Abimelech, with the evil spirit sent by god (Judges ix., 23); of Jephthah and his vow and his sacrifice of his daughter (xi., 29-39), as Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia; of Samson with his absurd and brutal conduct (xiv., 19; xv., 4, 5; and 14- 19, etc.); of the Levite and his concubine, and the foul details thereon (xix.) – what can any say of these save that such coarse and brutal stories belong to the childhood of every nation, and that while other peoples look back on their savage history as a thing that is past, these Hebrew stories are preserved in perennial freshness, and are placed as a burden on the consciences of the civilised nations of Europe, and, to our shame, are defended from criticism by the brutal laws of blasphemy invented in savage times and sanctioned in England to-day.

The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah are interesting for the light they throw on the growth of the Israelitish people, but regarded as of divine authority, they give manifold occasion "for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme."

Thus we read how the "ark of God" was carried to battle, and how the Philistines were afraid, and asked: "Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods?" But they wisely determined to try and save themselves, and bade each other: "Quit yourselves like men, and fight." So they overcame Israel and his "mighty Gods," and took the ark itself captive (chap. iv.). Jahveh, however, if he could not fight the Philistines, was strong enough to fight their gods, and when he was offered the hospitality of Dagon's temple, and was left quiet for the night, he knocked poor Dagon down. The Philistines put Dagon up again, and this so annoyed Jahveh that on the following night he knocked Dagon down again, and cut off his head and "the palms of his hands" on the threshold. After that Jahveh performed a miniature edition of the plagues of Egypt in the various towns to which his ark was carried, until some clever priests hit upon the idea of putting the ark on a cart and harnessing in two milch kine, and letting them go wherever they pleased. Off marched the kine to Bethshemesh, and there they met the fate of all the unlucky creatures that did Jahveh any service, for the men of Bethshemesh took them and offered them as "a burnt offering to the Lord." Then Jahveh broke out on the poor men of Bethshemesh, and killed 50,070 of them, because they (all of them?) had peeped into the ark (chaps, v., vi.). And it is actually blasphemy to deny any detail of this absurd story.

1 Samuel xv. is a chapter that many a pious soul must wish blotted out from the Old Testament. Samuel, as bloodthirsty as Moses, gave in "the Lord's" name the horrible command: "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (v. 3). This fiendish command was not wholly obeyed, for Saul saved the king, and the best of the sheep and of the other animals. Thereupon Samuel came down and cursed Saul vigorously, and then committed the absurdity of telling Saul that the "Strength of Israel," whose change of purpose he had just announced, and who "repented that he had made Saul king" (v. 35), was "not a man that he should repent" (v. 29). After this manifest untruth, he murdered poor Agag, hewing him "in pieces before the Lord" (v. 33). Yet it is blasphemy to deny that this tissue of bloodshed and lying is inspired by "the spirit of truth."

After this the contradictions about the connexion of Saul and David are of small moment. In chap. xvi., 18-23, David is brought to play the harp to Saul, and he is described as "a mighty valiant man and a man of war," and he became Saul's arm or-bearer as well as musician. In the next chapter David leaves him (v. 15) and goes back to feed his father's sheep, when a war breaks out; a curious proceeding for a "mighty valiant man." Six weeks later David carries some food to his brethren in the camp, and hearing the Philistine giant Goliath utter a challenge, he offers to go and fight him. Saul points out to the man who six weeks before was "mighty valiant" and "a man of war," that he could not fight the Philistine, for he was "but a youth," while Goliath was "a man of war from his youth." David then relates the story of a struggle he had with a curious composite animal, a "lion and a bear," who stole a lamb, and "I went out after him and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth, and when he arose against me I caught him by the beard and slew him." Saul then put his armor on him, but the former armor-bearer and man of war had forgotten how to use armor, and refused to wear it. He then killed the Philistine, and Saul, in whose court he had lived six weeks before, and who "loved him greatly" (xvi., 21), asked one of his captains who he was, and bade him "inquire whose son the stripling is" (xvii., 55, 56). We can only understand the king's loss of memory when we think how much changed David was; the "man of war" had become a "stripling," the "mighty valiant man," the armor-bearer, had changed into a "youth" who could not wear armor. No wonder poor Saul was puzzled, and if he could not understand it when he was on the spot, how cruel to threaten us with imprisonment and damnation if we blunder about it 3,000 years afterwards. Almost immediately after David is playing away on his harp "as at other times" (xviii., 10).

The bloodthirsty, treacherous, profligate character of David is so well known that I will not deal with it here, further than to call attention to the fact that this deep-dyed criminal was the man "after God's own heart," the man who "did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite" (1 Kings xv., 5).

There is one grave difficulty of identity that meets us here which we must not overlook. In 1 Sam. xxiv, 1, we read: "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say: go number Israel and Judah." In 1 Chron. xxi., 1, we read: "And

Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." Are "God" and "Satan" convertible terms? It is clearly blasphemy to say that they are not, since the above verses prove that they are, yet I fancy it must be blasphemy to say that they are.

The barbaric magnificence of the temple built by Solomon is fully described in 1 Kings vi. – viii., and we are bound to believe that Solomon offered up 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep! It would scarcely have been possible for him to have killed more than one animal in five minutes, for each corpse would have to be dragged away to make room for the next, and this is supposing that others prepared the dead animals for sacrifice. Yet at this rapid rate, without stopping for food or rest or sleep, it would have taken Solomon 11,833 hours and 15 minutes to complete his task, or 493 days. As he must have stopped for food and sleep we may double this time, and a pleasant 2 3/4 years poor Solomon must have passed.

Numberless contradictions may be found in these historical books, but I pass over them all at present, as well as over the succeeding books until we come to the prophets, for to these I must devote the remainder of the space allotted to this part of my subject. We may note in passing the ludicrous absurdity of the headings, "reciprocal love of Christ and his Church," etc., put by commentators over the sensual and suggestive descriptions of male and female beauty in the amorous "Song of Solomon."

Isaiah is by far the finest and least objectionable of the seventeen prophets whose supposed productions form the latter part of the Old Testament. A distinctly higher moral tone appears in the writings called by his name, and this is especially noticeable in the "second Isaiah," who wrote after the Babylonish captivity. There is also much fine imagery and poetic feeling, and a distinct effort to raise the people above the brutal savagery of animal sacrifice to the recognition that justice and right-doing are more acceptable to Jahveh than dead animals. Jahveh himself has wonderfully altered, and though there are many traces of the savage Mosaic deity, the prevailing thought is of the "High and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose Name is Holy" (Is. lvii., 15).

It seems strange, after reading some of the more beautiful passages, to suddenly come upon such a passage as that in chapter xxxiv., 6-8. Yet all are equally inspired, and must be equally accepted as divine. It is hard to imagine that the coarse indecency of chapter xxxvi., 12, is dictated by "a God of purity." Nor is it easy to see what good Isaiah did by walking about "naked and barefoot" (chap. xx., 2,3). The completeness of the nakedness is not left in doubt (v. 4). In any civilised community Isaiah would have been taken up by the police. A fresh difficulty is thrown in the believer's way by the statement: "The grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth" (chap. xxxviii., 18). It is therefore blasphemy to say that there is any "hope" for the dead. Yet it is equally blasphemy to deny that the dead have hope of resurrection.

Jeremiah is a most melancholy prophet. He wails from beginning to end; he is often childish, is rarely indecent, and although it may be blasphemy to say so, he and his "Lamentations" are really not worth reading.

Ezekiel is both childish and obscene in the grossest sense. I can fancy how Sir W. V. Harcourt would characterise Ezekiel if he were not protected by law. In the first chapter we are introduced to a wonderful chariot, borne by four living creatures, each of whom had four wings and four faces, and four sides, and they had a "likeness" which was separate from them, for "it went up and down among the living creatures" (chap. i., 18); and the chariot had four wheels, or perhaps eight, for there was "as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel" (v. 16); these wheels "went upon their four sides" (v. 17), which must have been very awkward, and they were full of eyes-what do wheels do with eyes? – and were "so high that they were dreadful" (v. 18); on the top of this conglomeration of four-faced creatures and eyed wheels was a firmament, and on the firmament a throne, and on the throne a man, amber-colored, and fire enwrapped, and the man was "the Lord." And it is blasphemy to deny the truth of this unintelligible jargon of absurdities. Then this man converses with Ezekiel, and "a hand" – apparently minus an arm and a body-brings a book (chap. ii., 9), and Ezekiel eats this "roll" (chap. iii., 1-3), a very indigestible one, 1 should fancy. Then Ezekiel takes a tile, and sketches a town on it, and pretends to besiege the tile, and sticks up an iron pan which he makes believe is an iron wall, and then he lies before it, making a fort and a mount, and bringing battering rams to bear on his old brickbat (chap. iv., 1-4). And it is blasphemy not to believe that this midsummer madness was god-inspired. The remainder of his conduct (w. 9-15) is too disgusting to mention, and as we are not protected, to print it would bring us under Lord Campbell's Act. The same remark applies to the unutterable nastiness of chaps, xvi. and xxiii. And this is in a book put into the hands of little boys and girls, without one protest from the Home Secretary. After all this we are not surprised to read "the spirit" lifted Ezekiel up in the air, "the form of a hand" taking him "by a lock of mine head" (chap. viii., 3). When we read that Gabriel lifted Mahomet in this manner, we say it is an impudent fraud; when we read it of Ezekiel it is "the very truth of God."

The book of Daniel has been so utterly destroyed by criticism that it would be wasted time to dwell upon it. Yet this book is kept as one of the "prophets," although it has been proved to demonstration that the pretended prophecies were written after the event.

The "minor prophets" deserve a pamphlet to themselves, so full of absurdities are they. Hosea, judging by chap. i., 2, 3, and iv., 1, 2, must have been a man of very indifferent character. His writings have the two characteristics of the minor prophets, indecency and maniacal raving; sexual vice is played upon in a manner that is wearisomely disgusting (see v., 1-13; iv., 12-14; v., 3, 4; vi., 10, etc., etc.). Amos tells us how "the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumbline" (chap. vii., 7, 8). Amos was always seeing queer things, and "the Lord" was always asking him what he saw! He saw some grasshoppers (vii., 1, 2), and a basket of summer fruit (viii., 1), and the "Lord standing upon the altar" (ix., 1). Jonah's adventures are famous, and it is blasphemy to deny that throwing Jonah into the sea stilled the waves, that a great fish swallowed him, that the fish was a whale (Matt, xii., 40), that he lived in the whale's stomach for three days and three nights, said his prayers there, and was thrown up safe and sound after living for seventy-two hours inside an animal! Zechariah is as bad for vision-seeing as Amos. He sees red, speckled and white horses among myrtle trees (i., 8), and then four horns (v. 18); a friendly angel talks with him (v. 9), and explains matters in a fashion that makes them more confused. Then there is a "man with a measuring line" (ii., 1), and Joshua the high priest "in filthy garments," whom they undressed and dressed up again (iii., 1-5). And there are a candlestick, and two olive-trees, and some pipes which "empty the golden oil," and which are the "two anointed ones" (iv.). Next comes "a flying roll," and then can anyone make sense of the following: "Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, what is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, this is their resemblance through all the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead, and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and behold there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, to build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base." (Zech. v., 5-11.) Yet if we do not believe this we shall be dammed.

I might heap together yet more of these absurdities, but to what end? Who but a lunatic could have written such incoherent matter? Yet this Old Testament, containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality is by English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy – if there were anyone to be blasphemed-blacker and more insolent than any word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker.