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where there is more robbery than in Christian lands--
no country where more cashiers are defaulters, where
more presidents of banks take the money of depositors,
where there is more adulteration of food, where
fewer ounces make a pound, where fewer inches make
a yard, where there is more breach of trust, more
respectable larceny under the name of embezzlement,
or more slander circulated as gospel.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage insists that there are no
contradictions in the Bible--that it is a perfect har-
mony from Genesis to Revelation--a harmony as
perfect as any piece of music ever written by
Beethoven or Handel?
_Answer_. Of course, if God wrote it, the Bible
ought to be perfect. I do not see why a minister
should be so perfectly astonished to find that an
inspired book is consistent with itself throughout.
Yet the truth is, the Bible is infinitely inconsistent.
Compare the two systems--the system of Jehovah
and that of Jesus. In the Old Testament the doctrine
of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was
taught. In the New Testament, "forgive your
"enemies," and "pray for those who despitefully
"use you and persecute you." In the Old Testament
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it is kill, burn, massacre, destroy; in the New forgive.
The two systems are inconsistent, and one is just
about as far wrong as the other. To live for and
thirst for revenge, to gloat over the agony of an
enemy, is one extreme; to "resist not evil" is the
other extreme; and both these extremes are equally
distant from the golden mean of justice.
The four gospels do not even agree as to the terms
of salvation. And yet, Mr. Talmage tells us that
there are four cardinal doctrines taught in the Bible--
the goodness of God, the fall of man, the sympathetic
and forgiving nature of the Savior, and two desti-
nies--one for believers and the other for unbelievers.
That is to say: