IN all civilized countries, it is now passionately asserted that slavery
is a crime; that a war of conquest is murder; that polygamy enslaves
woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing is more infamous
than the slaughter of decrepit men, of helpless mothers, and of
prattling babes; that captured maidens should not be given to their
captors; that wives should not be stoned to death for differing with
their husbands on the subject of religion. We know that there was
a time, in the history of most nations, when all these crimes were
regarded as divine institutions. Nations entertaining this view now are
regarded as savage, and, with the exception of the South Sea Islanders,
Feejees, a few tribes in Central Africa, and some citizens of Delaware,
no human beings are found degraded enough to agree upon these subjects
with Jehovah.
The only evidence we can have that a nation has ceased to be savage, is
that it has abandoned these doctrines of savagery.
To every one except a theologian, it is easy to account for these
mistakes and crimes by saying that civilization is a painful growth;
that the moral perceptions are cultivated through ages of tyranny, of
crime, and of heroism; that it requires centuries for man to put out the
eyes of self and hold in lofty and in equal poise the golden scales
of Justice. Conscience is born of suffering. Mercy is the child of
the imagination. Man advances as he becomes acquainted with his
surroundings, with the mutual obligations of life, and learns to take
advantage of the forces of nature.
The believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say, that
there was a time when slavery was right, when women could sell their
babes, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of
extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, when religious
toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having
expressed an honest thought. He is compelled to insist that Jehovah is
as bad now as he was then; that he is as good now as he was then. Once,
all the crimes that I have mentioned were commanded by God; now they are
prohibited. Once, God was in favor of them all; now the Devil is their
defender. In other words, the Devil entertains the same opinion to-day
that God held four thousand years ago. The Devil is as good now as
Jehovah was then, and God was as bad then as the Devil is now. Other
nations besides the Jews had similar laws and ideas--believed in and
practiced the same crimes, and yet, it is not claimed that they received
a revelation. They had no knowledge of the true God, and yet they
practiced the same crimes, of their own motion, that the Jews did by
command of Jehovah. From this it would seem that man can do wrong
without a special revelation.
The passages upholding slavery, polygamy, war and religious persecution
are certainly not evidences of the inspiration of that book. Suppose
nothing had been in the Old Testament upholding these crimes, would
the modern Christian suspect that it was not inspired on that account?
Suppose nothing had been in the Old Testament except laws in favor of
these crimes, would it still be insisted that it was inspired? If the
Devil had inspired a book, will some Christian tell us in what respect,
on the subjects of slavery, polygamy, war and liberty, it would have
differed from some parts of the Old Testament? Suppose we knew
that after inspired men had finished the Bible the Devil had gotten
possession of it and had written a few passages, what part would
Christians now pick out as being probably his work? Which of the
following passages would be selected as having been written by the
Devil: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill all the males among the
little ones, and kill every woman, but all the women children keep alive
for yourselves"?
Is there a believer in the Bible who does not now wish that God, amid
the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, had said to Moses that man should
not own his fellow-man; that women should not sell their babes; that all
men should be allowed to think and investigate for themselves, and that
the sword never should be unsheathed to shed innocent blood? Is there
a believer who would not be delighted to find that every one of the
infamous passages are interpolations, and that the skirts of God were
never reddened by the blood of maiden, wife, or babe? Is there an honest
man who does not regret that God commanded a husband to stone his wife
for suggesting the worship of some other God? Surely we do not need
an inspired book to teach us that slavery is right, that polygamy is
virtue, and that intellectual liberty is a crime.