I hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some parts of the Old Testament; but I seriously think that the loss of the first fourteen books would be a distinct gain to the world. For the rest, there is considerable literary and some ethical value in Job (which is not Jewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in the Song of Solomon (which is an erotic love song), and in parts of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. But I don't think any of these books equal to Henry George's _Progress and Poverty_, or William Morris' _News from Nowhere_. Of course, I am not blaming Moses and the Prophets: they could only tell us what they knew. The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is nothing in those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the religious persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the fox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs and cattle. There is nothing about "cultivating towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind," nothing about liberty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness; nothing against anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and forgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences of the possessions and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the Commandments amount to very little. Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology, and science. It relates childish stories of impossible miracles as facts. It presents a low idea of God. It gives an erroneous account of the relations between God and man. It fosters international hatred. It fosters religious pride and fanaticism. Its penal code is horrible. Its texts have been used for nearly two thousand years in defence of war, slavery, religious persecution, and the slaughter of "witches" and of "sorcerers." In a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have perpetrated massacre and outrage with the blood-bolstered phrases of the Bible on their lips. In a thousand trials the cruel witness of Moses has sent innocent women to a painful death. And always when an apology or a defence of the barbarities of human slavery was needed it was sought for and found in the Holy Bible. Renan says: In all ancient Christian literature there is not one word that tells the slave to revolt, or that tells the master to liberate the slave, or even that touches the problem of public right which arises out of slavery. Mr. Remsburg, in his book, _The Bible_, shows that in America slavery was defended by the churches on the authority of the sacred Scriptures. He says: