That is from chapter vii. In chapter xx. there are further instructions of a like horrible kind:

And here, in a long quotation, is an example of the mercy of Jahweh, and his faculty for cursing:

I think I have quoted enough to show that what I say of the Jewish God Jehovah is based on fact. But I could, if needful, heap proof on proof, for the books of the Old Testament reek with blood, and are horrible with atrocities.

Now, consider, is the God of whom we have been reading a God of love? Is He the Father of Christ? Is He not rather the savage idol of a savage tribe?

Man and his gods: what a tragi-comedy it is. Man has never seen one of his gods, never heard the voice of one of his gods, does not know the shape, expression, or bearing of one of his gods. Yet man has cursed man, hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered man, for the sake of shadows and fantasies of his own terror, or vanity, or desire. We tiny, vain feeblenesses, we fussy ephemera; we sting each other, hate each other, hiss at each other, for the sake of the monster gods of our own delirium. As we are whirled upon our spinning, glowing planet through the unfathomable spaces, where myriads of suns, like golden bees, gleam through the awful mystery of "the vast void night," what are the phantom gods to us? They are no more than the waterspouts on the ocean, or the fleeting shadows on the hills. But the man, and the woman, and the child, and the dog with its wistful eyes; these know us, touch us, appeal to us, love us, serve us, grieve us.

Shall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for the sake of the lurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in his box?

Do you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who prized nothing but his own aggrandisement, and slew or cursed all who offended him, is the Creator, the same who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and the resplendent mystery of the Milky Way?

Is this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of Christ? Is he the God who inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter—we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of savages. We have no use for him. We have no criminal so ruthless nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch our cities, imperfect as we are. The thought of him defiles and nauseates. We should think him too horrible and pitiless for a devil, this red-handed, black-hearted Jehovah of the Jews.

And yet: in the inspired Book, in the Holy Bible, this awful creature is still enshrined as "God the Father Almighty." It is marvellous. It is beyond the comprehension of any man not blinded by superstition, not warped by prejudice and old-time convention. This the God of Heaven? This the Father of Christ? This the Creator of the Milky Way? No. He will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare: a bad dream born in savage minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish lust for blood.

But if He is not the Most High, if He is not the Heavenly Father, if He is not the King of kings, the Bible is not an inspired book, and its claims to divine revelation will not stand. THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE

Carlyle said we might judge a people by their heroes. The heroes of the Bible, like the God of the Bible, are immoral savages. That is because the Bible is a compilation from the literature of savage and immoral tribes.

Had the Bible been the word of God we should have found in it a lofty and a pure ideal of God. We should not have found in it open approval—divine approval—of such unspeakable savages as Moses, David, Solomon, Jacob, and Lot.

Let us consider the lives of a few of the Bible heroes. We will begin with Moses.

We used to be taught in school that Moses was the meekest man the world has known: and we used to marvel.

It is written in the second chapter of Exodus thus:

The meekest of men slays an Egyptian deliberately and in cold blood. It may be pleaded that the Egyptian was doing wrong; but the remarks of the Hebrew suggest that even the countrymen of Moses looked upon his act of violence with disfavour.

But the meekness of Moses is further illustrated in the laws attributed to him, in which the death penalty is almost as common as it was in England in the Middle Ages.

Also, in the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we have the following story. The Lord commands Moses to "avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites," after which Moses is to die. Moses sends out an army:

Moses is a patriarch of the Jews, and the meekest man. But suppose any pagan or Mohammedan general were to behave to a Christian city as Moses behaved to the people of Midian, what should we say of him? But God was pleased with him.

Further, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers you will find how Moses the Meek treated Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for rebelling against himself and Aaron; how the earth opened and swallowed these men and their families and friends, at a hint from Moses; and how the Lord slew with fire from heaven two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense, and how afterwards there came a pestilence by which some fourteen thousand persons died.

Moses was a politician; his brother was a priest. I shall express no opinion of the pair; but I quote from the Book of Exodus, as follows:

Aaron, when asked by Moses why he has done this thing, tells a lie:

So much for this meek father of the Jews.

And now let us consider David and his son Solomon, the greatest of the Bible kings, and the ancestors of Jesus Christ.

Judging King David by the Bible record, I should conclude that he was a cruel, treacherous, and licentious savage. He lived for some time as a bandit, robbing the subjects of the King of Gath, who had given him shelter. When asked about this by the king, David lied. As to the nature of his conduct at this time, no room is left for doubt by the story of Nabal. David demanded blackmail of Nabal, and, on its being refused, set out with four hundred armed men to rob Nabal, and kill every male on his estate. This he was prevented from doing by Nabal's wife, who came out to meet David with fine presents and fine words. Ten days later Nabal died, and David married his widow. See twenty-fifth chapter First Book of Samuel.

David had seven wives, and many children. One of his favourite wives was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah.

While Uriah was at "the front," fighting for David, that king seduced his wife, Bathsheba. To avoid discovery, David recalled Uriah from the war, and bade him go home to his wife. Uriah said it would dishonour him to seek ease and pleasure at home while other soldiers were enduring hardship at the front. The king then made the soldier drunk, but even so could not prevail.

Therefore David sent word to the general to place Uriah in the front of the battle, where the fight was hardest. And Uriah was killed, and David married Bathsheba, who became the mother of Solomon.

So much for David's honour. Now for a sample of his humanity. I quote from the twelfth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel:

But nothing in David's life became him so little as his leaving of it. I quote from the second chapter of the First Book of Kings. David, on his deathbed, is speaking to Solomon, his son:

These seem to have been the last words spoken by King David. Joab was his best general, and had many times saved David's throne.

Solomon began by stealing the throne from his brother, the true heir. Then he murders the brother he has robbed, and disgraces and exiles a priest, who had been long a faithful friend to David, his father. Later he murders Joab at the altar, and brings down the hoar head of Shimei to the grave with blood.

After which he gets him much wisdom, builds a temple, and marries many wives.

Much glamour has been cast upon the names of Solomon and David by their alleged writings. But it is now acknowledged that David wrote few, if any, of the Psalms, and that Solomon wrote neither Ecclesiastes nor the Song of Songs, though some of the Proverbs may be his.

It seems strange to me that such men as Moses, David, and Solomon should be glorified by Christian men and women who execrate Henry VIII. and Richard III. as monsters.

My pet aversion amongst the Bible heroes is Jacob; but Abraham and Lot were pitiful creatures.

Jacob cheated his brother out of the parental blessing, and lied about God, and lied to his father to accomplish his end. He robbed his brother of his birthright by trading on his necessity. He fled from his brother's wrath, and went to his uncle Laban. Here he cheated his uncle out of his cattle and his wealth, and at last came away with his two cousins as his wives, one of whom had stolen her own father's gods.

Abraham was the father of Ishmael by the servant-maid Hagar. At his wife's demand he allowed Hagar and Ishmael to be driven into the desert to die. And here is another pretty story of Abraham. He and his family are driven forth by a famine:

But Abraham was so little ashamed of himself that he did the same thing again, many years afterwards, and Abimelech King of Gerar, behaved to him as nobly as did King Pharaoh on the former occasion.

The story of Lot is too disgusting to repeat. But what are we to think of his offering his daughters to the mob, and of his subsequent conduct?

And what of Noah, who got drunk, and then cursed the whole of his sons' descendants for ever, because Ham had seen him in his shame?

Joseph seems to me to have been anything but an admirable character, and I do not see how his baseness in depriving the Egyptians of their liberties and their land by a corner in wheat can be condoned. Jacob robbed his brother of his birthright by trading on his hunger; Joseph robbed a whole people in the same way.

Samson was a dissolute ruffian and murderer, who in these days would be hanged as a brigand.

Reuben committed incest. Simeon and Levi were guilty of treachery and massacre. Judah was guilty of immorality and hypocrisy.

Joshua was a Jewish general of the usual type. When he captured a city he murdered every man, woman, and child within its walls. Here is one example from the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua:

Elijah the prophet was of the same uncompromising kind. After he had mocked the god Baal, and had triumphed over him by miracle, he said to the Israelites:

Now, there were 450 of the priests of Baal, all of whom Elijah the prophet had killed in cold blood.

And here is a story about Elisha, another great prophet of the Jews. I quote from the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings.

After this, Elisha assists King Jehoram and two other kings to waste and slaughter the Moabites, who had refused to pay tribute. You may read the horrible story for yourselves in the third chapter of the Second Book of Kings. There was the usual massacre, but this time the trees were cut down and the wells choked up.

Later, Elisha cures a man of leprosy, and refuses a reward. But his servant runs after the man, and gets two talents of silver and some garments under false pretences. When Elisha hears of this crime, he strikes the servant with leprosy, and all his seed for ever.

Now, it is not necessary for me to harp upon the conduct of these men of God: what I want to point out is that these cruel and ignorant savages have been saddled upon the Christian religion as heroes and as models.

Even to-day the man who called David, or Moses, or Elisha by his proper name in an average Christian household would be regarded as a wicked blasphemer.

And yet, what would a Christian congregation say of an "Infidel" who committed half the crimes and outrages of any one of those Bible heroes?

Do you know what the Christians call Tom Paine? To this day the respectable Christian Church or chapel goer shudders at the name of the "infidel," Tom Paine. But in point of honour, of virtue, of humanity, and general good character, not one of the Bible heroes I have mentioned was worthy to clean Tom Paine's shoes.

Now, it states in the Bible that God loved Jacob, and hated Esau. Esau was a man, and against him the Bible does not chronicle one bad act. But God hated Esau.

And it states in the Bible that Elijah went up in a chariot of fire to heaven.

And in the New Testament Christ or His apostles speak of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being in heaven. Paul speaks of David as a "man after God's own heart"; Elijah and Moses come down from heaven, and appear talking with Christ; and, in Hebrews, Paul praises Samuel, Jephtha, Samson, and David.

My point is not that these heroes were bad men, but that, in a book alleged to be the word of God, they are treated as heroes.

I have been accused of showing irreverence towards these barbarous kings and priests. Irreverence! It is like charging a historian with disrespect to the memory of Nero.

I have been accused of having an animus against Moses, and David, and all the rest. I have no animus against any man, nor do I presume to censure my fellow creatures. I only wish to show that these favourites of God were not admirable characters, and that therefore the Bible cannot be a divine revelation. As for animus: I do not believe any of these men ever existed. I regard them as myths. Should one be angry with a myth? I should as soon think of being angry with Bluebeard, or the Giant that Jack slew.

But I should be astonished to hear that Bluebeard had been promoted to the position of a holy patriarch, and a model of all the virtues for the emulation of innocent children in a modern Sunday school. And I think it is time the Church considered itself, and told the truth about Jehovah, and Moses, and Joshua, and Samson.

If you fail to agree with me I can only accept your decision with respectful astonishment.

THE BOOK OF BOOKS

Floods of sincere, but unmerited, adulation have been lavished on the Hebrew Bible. The world has many books of higher moral and literary value. It would be easy to compile, from the words of Heretics and Infidels, a purer and more elevated moral guide than this "Book of Books."

The ethical code of the Old Testament is no longer suitable as the rule of life. The moral and intellectual advance of the human race has left it behind.

The historical books of the Old Testament are largely pernicious, and often obscene. These books describe, without disapproval, polygamy, slavery, concubinage, lying and deceit, treachery, incest, murder, wars of plunder, wars of conquest, massacre of prisoners of war, massacre of women and of children, cruelty to animals; and such immoral, dishonest, shameful, or dastardly deeds as those of Solomon, David, Abraham, Jacob, and Lot.

The ethical code of the Old Testament does not teach the sacredness of truth, does not teach religious tolerance, nor humanity, nor human brotherhood, nor peace.

Its morality is crude. Much that is noblest in modern thought has no place in the "Book of Books." For example, take these words of Herbert Spencer's:

There is nothing so comprehensive, nothing so deep as that in the Bible. That covers all the moralities of the Ten Commandments, and all the Ethics of the Law and the Prophets, in one short sentence, and leaves a handsome surplus over.

Note next this, from Kant:

I do not know a Bible sentence so purely moral as that. And in what part of the Bible shall we find a parallel to the following sentence, from an Agnostic newspaper:

Tom Paine left Moses and Isaiah centuries behind when he wrote:

Robert Ingersoll, another "Infidel," surpassed Solomon when he said:

Which simple sentence contains more wisdom than all the pessimism of the King of kings. And again, Ingersoll went beyond the sociological conception of the Prophets when he wrote:

I will now put together a few sayings of Pagans and Unbelievers as an example of non-biblical morality:

Those who regard the Bible as the "Book of Books," and believe it to be invaluable and indispensable to the world, must have allowed their early associations or religious sentiment to mislead them.

Carlyle is more moral than Jeremiah, Ruskin is superior to Isaiah; Ingersoll, the Atheist, is a nobler moralist and a better man than Moses; Plato and Marcus Aurelius are wiser than Solomon; Sir Thomas More, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, Matthew Arnold, and Emerson are worth more to us than all the Prophets.

I hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some parts of the Old Testament; but I seriously think that the loss of the first fourteen books would be a distinct gain to the world. For the rest, there is considerable literary and some ethical value in Job (which is not Jewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in the Song of Solomon (which is an erotic love song), and in parts of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. But I don't think any of these books equal to Henry George's Progress and Poverty, or William Morris' News from Nowhere. Of course, I am not blaming Moses and the Prophets: they could only tell us what they knew.

The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is nothing in those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the religious persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the fox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs and cattle. There is nothing about "cultivating towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind," nothing about liberty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness; nothing against anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and forgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences of the possessions and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the Commandments amount to very little.

Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology, and science.

It relates childish stories of impossible miracles as facts.

It presents a low idea of God.

It gives an erroneous account of the relations between God and man.

It fosters international hatred.

It fosters religious pride and fanaticism.

Its penal code is horrible.

Its texts have been used for nearly two thousand years in defence of war, slavery, religious persecution, and the slaughter of "witches" and of "sorcerers."

In a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have perpetrated massacre and outrage with the blood-bolstered phrases of the Bible on their lips.

In a thousand trials the cruel witness of Moses has sent innocent women to a painful death.

And always when an apology or a defence of the barbarities of human slavery was needed it was sought for and found in the Holy Bible.

Renan says:

Mr. Remsburg, in his book, The Bible, shows that in America slavery was defended by the churches on the authority of the sacred Scriptures. He says:

Mr. Remsburg quotes freely from the sermons and speeches of Christian ministers to show the influence of the Bible in upholding slavery. Here are some of his many examples:

I shall quote no more on the subject of slavery. That inhuman institution was defended by the churches, and the appeal of the churches was to the Bible.

As to witchcraft, the Rev. T. Rhondda Williams says that in one century a hundred thousand women were killed for witchcraft in Germany. Mr. Remsburg offers still more terrible evidence. He says:

Count up the terrible losses in the many religious wars of the world, add in the massacres, the martyrdoms, the tortures for religion's sake; put to the sum the long tale of witchcraft murders; remember what slavery has been; and then ask yourselves whether the Book of Books deserves all the eulogy that has been laid upon it.

I believe that to-day all manner of evil passions are fostered, and all the finer motions of the human spirit are retarded, by the habit of reading those savage old books of the Jews as the word of God.

I do not think the Bible, in its present form, is a fit book to place in the hands of children, and it certainly is not a fit book to send out for the "salvation" of savage and ignorant people.

OUR HEAVENLY FATHER

The Rev. T. Rhondda Williams, in Shall We Understand the Bible? shows very clearly the gradual evolution of the idea of God amongst the Jews from a lower to a higher conception.

Having dealt with the lower conception, let us now consider the higher.

The highest conception of God is supposed to be the Christian conception of God as a Heavenly Father. This conception credits the Supreme Being with supernal tenderness and mercy—"God is Love." That is a very lofty, poetical, and gratifying conception, but it is open to one fatal objection—it is not true.

For this Heavenly Father, whose nature is Love, is also the All-knowing and All-powerful Creator of the world.

Being All-powerful and All-knowing, He has power, and had always power, to create any kind of world He chose. Being a God of Love, He would not choose to create a world in which hate and pain should have a place.

But there is evil in the world. There has been always evil in the world. Why did a good and loving God allow evil to enter the world? Being All-Powerful and All-knowing, He could have excluded evil. Being good, He would hate evil. Being a God of Love He would wish to exclude evil. Why, then, did He permit evil to enter?

The world is full of sorrow, of pain, of hatred and crime, and strife and war. All life is a perpetual deadly struggle for existence. The law of nature is the law of prey.

If God is a tender, loving, All-knowing, and All-powerful Heavenly Father, why did He build a world on cruel lines? Why does He permit evil and pain to continue? Why does He not give the world peace, and health, and happiness, and virtue?

In the New Testament Christ compares God, as Heavenly Father to Man, to an earthly father, representing God as more benevolent and tender: "How much more your Father which is in heaven?"

We may, then, on the authority of the Founder of Christianity, compare the Christian Heavenly Father with the human father. And in doing so we shall find that Christ was not justified in claiming that God is a better father to Man than Man is to his own children. We shall find that the poetical and pleasing theory of a Heavenly Father, and God of Love is a delusion.

"Who among you, if his child asks bread, will give him a stone?" None amongst us. But in the great famines, as in India and Russia, God allows millions to die of starvation. These His children pray to Him for bread. He leaves them to die. Is it not so?

God made the sunshine, sweet children, gracious women; green hills, blue seas; music, laughter, love, humour; the palm tree, the hawthorn buds, the "sweet-briar wind"; the nightingale and the rose.

But God made the earthquake, the volcano, the cyclone; the shark, the viper, the tiger, the octopus, the poison berry; and the deadly loathsome germs of cholera, consumption, typhoid, smallpox, and the black death. God has permitted famine, pestilence, and war. He has permitted martyrdom, witch-burning, slavery, massacre, torture, and human sacrifice. He has for millions of years looked down upon the ignorance, the misery, the crimes of men. He has been at once the author and the audience of the pitiful, unspeakable, long-drawn and far-stretched tragedy of earthly life. Is it not so?

For thousands of years—perhaps for millions of years—the generations of men prayed to God for help, for comfort, for guidance. God was deaf, and dumb, and blind.

Men of science strove to read the riddle of life; to guide and to succour their fellow creatures. The priests and followers of God persecuted and slew these men of science. God made no sign. Is it not so?

To-day men of science are trying to conquer the horrors of cancer and smallpox, and rabies and consumption. But not from Burning Bush nor Holy Hill, nor by the mouth of priest or prophet does our Heavenly Father utter a word of counsel or encouragement.

Millions of innocent dumb animals have been subjected to the horrible tortures of vivisection in the frantic endeavours of men to find a way of escape from the fell destroyers of the human race; and God has allowed the piteous brutes to suffer anguish, when He could have saved them by revealing to Man the secret for which he so cruelly sought. Is it not so?

"Nature is red in beak and claw." On land and in sea the animal creation chase and maim, and slay and devour each other. The beautiful swallow on the wing devours the equally beautiful gnat. The graceful flying-fish, like a fair white bird, goes glancing above the blue magnificence of the tropical seas. His flight is one of terror; he is pursued by the ravenous dolphin. The ichneumon-fly lays its eggs under the skin of the caterpillar. The eggs are hatched by the warmth of the caterpillar's blood. They produce a brood of larvae which devour the caterpillar alive. A pretty child dances on the village green. Her feet crush creeping things: there is a busy ant or blazoned beetle, with its back broken, writhing in the dust, unseen. A germ flies from a stagnant pool, and the laughing child, its mother's darling, dies dreadfully of diphtheria. A tidal wave rolls landward, and twenty thousand human beings are drowned, or crushed to death. A volcano bursts suddenly into eruption, and a beautiful city is a heap of ruins, and its inhabitants are charred or mangled corpses. And the Heavenly Father, who is Love, has power to save, and makes no sign. Is it not so?

Blindness, epilepsy, leprosy, madness, fall like a dreadful blight upon a myriad of God's children, and the Heavenly Father gives neither guidance nor consolation. Only man helps man. Only man pities; only man tries to save.

Millions of harmless women have been burned as witches. God, our Heavenly Father, has power to save them. He allows them to suffer and die.

God knew that those women were being tortured and burnt on a false charge. He knew that the infamous murders were in His name. He knew that the whole fabric of crime was due to the human reading of His "revelation" to man. He could have saved the women; He could have enlightened their persecutors; He could have blown away the terror, the cruelty, and the ignorance of His priests and worshippers with a breath.

And He was silent. He allowed the armies of poor women to be tortured and murdered in His name. Is it not so?

Will you, then, compare the Heavenly Father with a father among men? Is there any earthly father who would allow his children to suffer as God allows Man to suffer? If a man had knowledge and power to prevent or to abolish war and ignorance and hunger and disease; if a man had the knowledge and the power to abolish human error and human suffering and human wrong and did not do it, we should call him an inhuman monster, a cruel fiend. Is it not so?

But God has knowledge and power, and we are asked to regard Him as a Heavenly Father, and a God of infinite wisdom, and infinite mercy, and infinite love.

The Christians used to tell us, and some still tell us, that this Heavenly Father of infinite love and mercy would doom the creatures He had made to Hell—for their sins. That, having created us imperfect, He would punish our imperfections with everlasting torture in a lake of everlasting fire. They used to tell us that this good God allowed a Devil to come on earth and tempt man to his ruin. They used to say this Devil would win more souls than Christ could win: that there should be "more goats than sheep."

To escape from these horrible theories, the Christians (some of them) have thrown over the doctrines of Hell and the Devil.

But without a Devil how can we maintain a belief in a God of love and kindness? With a good God, and a bad God (or Devil), one might get along; for then the good might be ascribed to God, and the evil to the Devil. And that is what the old Persians did in their doctrine of Ormuzd and Ahrimann. But with no Devil the belief in a merciful and loving Heavenly Father becomes impossible.

If God blesses, who curses? If God saves, who damns? If God helps, who harms?

This belief in a "Heavenly Father," like the belief in the perfection of the Bible, drives its votaries into weird and wonderful positions. For example, a Christian wrote to me about an animal called the aye-aye. He said: