30. Its acceptance by modern Christians the result of religious teaching. In India the people believe that the Vedas and other sacred books or Bibles are divine. Why do they believe it? Because for a hundred generations they have been taught it by their priests. The Turks believe that the Koran came from God. They believe it because for twelve centuries this has been their religious teaching. For nearly two thousand years Christian priests have taught that the Holy Bible is the word of God. As a result of this the masses of Europe and America believe it to be divine. Each generation, thoroughly impregnated with superstition, transmitted the disease to the succeeding one and made it easy for the clergy to impose their teachings on the people and perpetuate their rule. The belief of Christians in the divinity of the Bible, like the belief of Hindoos in the divinity of the Vedas, and of Mohammedans in the divinity of the Koran, is the result of religious teaching. The ease with which a belief in the divine character of a book obtains, even in an enlightened age, is illustrated by the inspired (?) books that have appeared in this country from time to time, and for several of which numerous adherents have been secured. About seventy-five years ago a curious volume, called the Book of Mormon, made its appearance. A few impostors and deluded men proclaimed its divinity. A priesthood was established; Mormon education and Mormon proselytism began their work, and already nearly a million converts have been made to the divinity of this book. Dr. Isaac Watts says: "The greatest part of the Christian world can hardly give any reason why they believe the Bible to be the Word of God, but because they have always believed it, and they were taught so from their infancy." Really the entire Christian world--pope, bishop, priest, and layman--the learned and the unlearned--can give no other valid reason.