To conclude this chapter, a few remarks will suffice.—If the foregoing account of the creation is maintained to be truly the work of Infinite Wisdom and Power, what a picture presents itself to the mind of a sensible and reasonable man! Can it be possible for such an one to believe it? His mind must reject it as the most barefaced falsehood that ever could be proposed to human credence; as impossible to be true, and equally impossible to be credited by any person having the least claim on common sense. And yet, in this crazy world, to give credit to it, is to be respectable; but to deny its truth, is to be infamous, and an object of Christian horror, unworthy to live in this world, and sure of damnation in the next. No man living can get over this certain conclusion, that if the Governor of the Universe did act towards Adam and Eve, together with the rest of the antediluvians, as is recorded in the Bible, he made them for no other apparent end than to quarrel with them, so as to have a pretence to punish and torment creatures who had no power to resist. And can such a Being be the object of love and adoration? The Devil himself is not painted in colors half so black. But enough has been said on this subject. We turn from it in disgust, and boldly say to all the world, that no such God ever did, nor does now exist; nor did the facts recorded in the Bible, of Adam’s fall, _ever take place._ CHAPTER II. A REVIEW OF THE DELUGE AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES AT THE TOWER OF BABEL TO destroy all mankind by drowning, because of their wickedness, seems to us a strange reason; for, when we attentively consider it, we are compelled to conclude that the Jewish God had banished from his moral government the very appearance of justice. What! no compassion for the young men and women who had been brought up under circumstances so unfavorable to virtue, from the bad example of their fathers? What! no mercy for the thousands of infants? What! no feeling towards the youth, from manhood through all the gradations down to helpless infancy? None. We know that it is common for men and women to go crazy. From so strange a perversion of justice on the part of Jehovah, it would seem that he, at times, has his crazy fits, also. Destroy the innocent with the guilty—allowing the innocent no chance of escape! If this were performed by an earthly monarch, _insanity_ would be the most charitable allowance to be made for so atrocious an act. But when ascribed to the all-wise and powerful God, and insisted on as an article of faith, such doctrines are only fit for madmen to preach and idiots to hear. Christians little think to what extent they blaspheme the God whom they profess to adore.