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.