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Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
17. "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.
18. "And they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."—Mark xvi.
I would like to see the clergy who have been answering me, tested in this way: Let them drink poison, let them take up serpents, let them cure the sick by the laying on of hands, and I will then believe that they believe.
I deny the witchcraft stories of the world. Witches are born in the ignorant, frightened minds of men. Reason will exorcise them. "They are tales told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." These devils have covered the world with blood and tears. They have filled the earth with fear. They have filled the lives of children with darkness and horror. They have peopled the sweet world of imagination with monsters. They have made religion a strange mingling of fear and ferocity. I am doing what I can to reave the heavens of these monsters. For my part, I laugh at them all. I hold them all in contempt, ancient and modern, great and small.
THE BIBLE IDEA OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. VI.
ALL religion has for its basis the tyranny of God and the slavery of man.
18. "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them.
19. "Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto, the gate of his place.
20. "And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.
21. "And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."—Deut. xxi.
Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. He proceeded to obey. And the boy, being then about thirty years of age, was not consulted. At the command of a phantom of the air, a man was willing to offer upon the altar his only son. And such was the slavery of children, that the only son had not the spirit to resist.
Have you ever read the story of Jephthah?
30 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31. "Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
32. "So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
33. "And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34."And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35. "And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back....
39. "And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."—Judges xi.
Is there in the history of the world a sadder thing than this? What can we think of a father who would sacrifice his daughter to a demon God? And what can we think of a God who would accept such a sacrifice? Can such a God be worthy of the worship of man? I plead for the rights of children. I plead for the government of kindness and love. I plead for the republic of home, the democracy of the fireside. I plead for affection. And for this I am pursued by invective. For this I am called a fiend, a devil, a monster, by Christian editors and clergymen, by those who pretend to love their enemies and pray for those that despitefully use them.
Allow me to give you another instance of affection related in the Scriptures. There was, it seems, a most excellent man by the name of Job. The Lord was walking up and down, and happening to meet Satan, said to him: "Are you acquainted with my servant Job? Have you noticed what an excellent man he is?" And Satan replied to him and said: "Why should he not be an excellent man—you have given him everything he wants? Take from him what he has and he will curse you." And thereupon the Lord gave Satan the power to destroy the property and children of Job. In a little while these high contracting parties met again; and the Lord seemed somewhat elated with his success, and called again the attention of Satan to the sinlessness of Job. Satan then told him to touch his body and he would curse him. And thereupon power was given to Satan over the body of Job, and he covered his body with boils. Yet in all this, Job did not sin with his lips.
This book seems to have been written to show the excellence of patience, and to prove that at last God will reward all who will bear the afflictions of heaven with fortitude and without complaint. The sons and daughters of Job had been slain, and then the Lord, in order to reward Job, gave him other children, other sons and other daughters—not the same ones he had lost; but others. And this, according to the writer, made ample amends. Is that the idea we now have of love? If I have a child, no matter how deformed that child may be, and if it dies, nobody can make the loss to me good by bringing a more beautiful child. I want the one I loved and the one I lost.
THE GALLANTRY OF GOD. VII.
I HAVE said that the Bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for the rights of woman. Now I propose to prove it. It takes something besides epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. Let us see what the sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race.
A man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there an altar at which he worships the memory of mother, is less than a man.
11. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
The reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred writer, was:
13. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15. "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."—1 Tim. ii.
3. "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God."
That is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man does to Christ, and man sustains the same relation to Christ that Christ does to God.
This places the woman infinitely below the man. And yet this barbarous idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. How can any woman look other than with contempt upon such passages? How can any woman believe that this is the will of a most merciful God?
7. "For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man."
And this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next verse:
8. "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man."
This same chivalric gentleman also says:
9. "Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."—1 Cor. xi.
22. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."