26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the
children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the
crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
--Matt. xv.
Do you think that was kind? Do you think it was godlike? What would
you think of a physician, if a woman came to him distressed and said,
"Doctor, come to my daughter; she is very ill. She has lost her reason,
and she is all I have!" What would you think of the doctor who would not
reply at all at first, and then, when she fell at his feet and worshiped
him, answered that he did not spend his time doctoring dogs? Would you
like him as a family physician? Do you think that, even if he were to
cure the child then, he would have done a noble thing? Is it evidence of
a perfect character to accompany a service with an insult? Do you think
a man who could offer such an indignity to a sorrowing mother has a
perfect character, is an ideal God? I do not. And I hope that Jesus
never said it. I prefer to believe that that story is a libel.
It won't do. We have either to give up the "inspiration" theory of the
Bible, and acknowledge that it is the work of men of a crude and brutal
age, and like any other book of legend and myth of any other people; or
else to give up the claim that God is any better than the rest of us.
You can take your choice.
Whenever a theologian undertakes to explain matters so as to keep the
Bible and the divine character both intact, I am always reminded of
the story of the Irishman who was given a bed in the second story of
a lodging-house the first night he spent in New York. In the night the
fire-engines ran past with their frightful noise. Aroused from a deep
sleep and utterly terrified, Mike's first thought was to get out of
the house. He hastily jerked on the most important part of his costume,
unfortunately wrong side before, and jumped out of the window. His friend
ran to the window and exclaimed, "Are ye kilt, Mike?" Picking himself up
and looking himself over by the light of the street lamp, he replied,
"No, not kilt, Pat, but I fear I am_ fatally twishted_."
Next we have God's opinion (on Bible authority) as to the use of wives.
They were to be forcibly changed around _as a punishment to their
husbands_ and for offences committed by the latter.
11 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against
thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before
thy eyes and give them unto thy neighbor.
--2 Sam. xii.
The latter part of the verse is omitted as being unfit to read. Don't
understand that I think any of it is exactly choice literature; but that
cover has been used to silence objection long enough. If it is fit to
teach as the word and will of God for women, it ought to be fit to read
in a theatre--but it is not.
What do you think of a religion that upholds such morals and such
justice as that just quoted? What do you think of women supporting the
Bible in the face of that as the will of God? Of all human beings a
woman should spurn the Bible first. She, above all others, should try
to destroy its influence; and I mean to do what little I can in that
direction. The morals of the nineteenth century have outgrown the Bible.
Jehovah stands condemned before the bar of every noble soul. What Moses
and David and Samuel taught as the word and will of God, we, who are
fortunate enough to live in the same age with Charles Darwin, know to
be the expression of a low social condition untempered by the light of
science. Their "thus saith the Lord," read in the light of to-day, is
"thus saith ignorance and fear"--no more, no less.
If you will read the 12th chapter of Leviticus, which is unfit to read
here, you will see that the Bible esteems it twice as great a crime to
be the mother of a girl as to be the mother of a boy; so highly esteemed
was woman by the priesthood; so great a favorite was she of Jehovah.*
* See Appendix K.
And do you know there is a law in the Bible* which "the Lord spake unto
Moses" that says if a man is jealous of his wife, "whether he have cause
or not," he is to take her to a priest, and take a little barley meal
(if you ever want to try it, remember it must be barley meal; I don't
suppose the priest could tell whether she was guilty or not if you were
to take corn meal or hominy grits) and put it in the wife's hands. And
the priest is to take some "holy" water and scrape up the dirt off the
floor of the Tabernacle, and put the dirt in the water and make the
wife drink it. Now just imagine an infinite God getting up a scheme like
that! Then the priest curses her and says if she is guilty she shall
rot.... "and she shall say Amen." That is her defence! Then the priest
takes the stuff she has in her hands--this barley-meal "jealousy
offering"--and "waves it before the Lord." (I suppose you all know what
that part is done for. If you don't, ask some theological student with
a number six hat-band; he'll tell you.) And then he burns a pinch of it
(that is probably for luck), and at this point it is time to make the
woman drink some more of the filthy water (which he does with great
alacrity), and "if she be guilty the water will turn bitter within
her,"... "and she shall be accursed among her people." (You doubtless
perceive that her defence has been most elaborate throughout.) Do you
think that water would be bitter to the priest?
*See Numbers v. 11-31.
But if she does not complain that the water is bitter, and if her "Amen"
is perfectly satisfactory all round, and she be pronounced innocent,
what then? Is the husband in any way reproved for his brutality? Did the
Lord "reveal" to Moses that he should drink the rest of that holy water
and dirt? No! That wasn't in Moses' line. Neither he nor the husband
drink the rest of that water--priest doesn't either; they don't even
take a pinch of the barley. But after she is subjected to this, and the
show is over, "if she be innocent, then shall she go free!" Oh, ye
gods! what magnificent generosity! I should have thought they would have
hanged her then for being innocent.
"And then shall the man be guiltless of iniquity, and the woman shall
bear her iniquity."
_If she is innocent she shall bear her iniquity_. You all see how that
is done I suppose. If you don't, ask your little number six theological
student, and he will tell you all about it, and he will also prove to
you, without being asked, that he and God are capable of regulating the
entire universe without the aid of General Butler.
But I am told that I ought to respect and love the Bible; that all women
ought to take an active part in teaching it to the heathen, to show
them how good Jehovah is to his daughters. But if he is, he has been
unusually unfortunate in his choice of executors.
Nor is it only in the Old Testament that such morals and such justice
are taught. The clergy put that part off by saying--"Oh, that was
a different dispensation, and God, the Unchangeable, has changed his
mind." That is the sole excuse they give for all the "holy" men, who
used to talk personally with God, practicing polygamy and all the
other immoralities. They maintain that it was God's best man who upheld
polygamy then, and that it is the Devil's best man who does it now.
Odd idea, isn't it? Simply a question of time and place; and as Col.
Ingersoll says, you have got to look on a map to see whether you are
damned or not. But it does seem to me that a God that did not always
know better than that, is not a safe chief magistrate. He might take to
those views again, They say history is likely to repeat itself. Anyhow,
I would rather be on the safe side and just fix the laws so that he
couldn't. It would be just as well.
But now we have come to "St." Paul and his ideas on the woman question.
He worked the whole problem by simple proportion and found that man
stands in the same relation to woman as God stands to man. That is, man
is to woman as God is to man--and only a slight remainder. I'm not going
to misrepresent this gifted saint. I shall let him speak for himself. He
does it pretty well for a saint, and much more plainly than they usually
do.
33 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, _as
unto the Lord,_
33 For the husband is the head of the wife, _even as Christ
is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the
body._
--Ephesians v.
The husband is the saviour of the wife! Pretty slim hold on heaven for
most women, isn't it? And then suppose she hasn't any husband? Her case
is fatal.
34 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let
the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
--Ephesians v.
Paul was a modest person in his requirements.
9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel,
with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or
pearls, or costly array.
--1 Timothy ii.
It does seem as if anybody would know that braided hair was wicked; and
as to "gold and pearls and costly array," all you have to do to prove
the infallibility of Paul--and what absolute faith Christians have in
it!--is to go into any fashionable church and observe the absence of all
such sinfulness:
10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with
good works.