9. And yet, in the face of all these immoral deeds, God is represented as saying, "Abraham kept all my commands, all my statutes, and all my laws." (See Gen. xxvi. 5.) Hence the inevitable conclusion that Abraham was living up to the commands, statutes, and laws of God, while committing these crimes and outrages upon humanity. What a moral, or rather immoral lesson, is this to place before the heathen of foreign countries, and the children of our own, who read the Bible! It must have a tendency to demoralize them, and encourage them in the commission of similar crimes, as certainly as they are beings endowed with human frailties. Note these facts. 10. And we find other disgraceful, as well as incredible, deeds charged to the father of "the faithful." The account of the surrender of his manhood, and the obliteration of every impulse parental feeling required to obtain his consent to butcher his son Isaac upon the altar, imparts a humiliating moral lesson (Gent. xxii.). It matters not that he did not commit the deed. He consented to do it, and was ready to do it; which proves a state of mind calculated to make humanity shudder. The New-Zealanders have been known to point the missionaries to this example as a justification of their cruel practices of slaughtering human beings. If a father in this age of civilization should do such a thing, or even attempt it as Abraham did, he would be looked upon as a monster in human shape, or perfectly insane, even if he should claim that God called upon him to perform the act. It would have been infinitely better to disobey such a God than to disobey and outrage every parental and kindly im-pulse of his nature. But the case furnishes _prima-facie_ evidence that Abraham was under a religious delusion in supposing God required the performance of such an inhuman deed. To assume that he did would make him more of a demon than a God. Any man or woman is to be pitied whose education has misled him or her, and blinded them so that they can not see that the reading of a book teaching such lessons must prove morally injurious to the mind. 11. The injunction on Abraham to slay his son is said to have been imposed upon him to try his faith. His faith in what? I would ask. Faith in his own humanity? faith in his love and affection for his son? Nothing of the kind! but faith in his susceptibility of rendering himself an inhuman monster. Let us suppose a father says to his son, "Richard, I want you to draw a knife, and cut your brother Robert's throat;" and afterwards explains the matter by telling him he issued this order to try whether he would obey him. But his son would evince more manhood, and a better moral character, by refusing to obey him. It is much better to obey the dictates of conscience, humanity, and mercy, than to obey a father or a God in a case like this.