Christians sometimes tell us, "Give us something better in the place of our religion before you take it from us." But the Bible tells them, "Cease to do evil [before you] learn to do well." Doom error to destruction, and truth will spring out of the ashes. What would you think of a man who should say to a physician, "Stop, sir! before you administer that medicine to my child, I want to know what you are going to let it have in place of its pains and aches"? We do not propose or desire to destroy any religion as a whole, but only the deleterious weeds which are choking and poisoning the healthy plants. We do not wish to put down or arrest the progress of any truth. The clergy sometimes assert that "we could not distinguish right from wrong, but for the Bible." And was nothing known to the world about right and wrong, or the means of distinguishing between them, during the two thousand years which elapsed before the Bible was written? Christians place Moses, its first writer, about fourteen hundred years before Christ, while the Bible dates back 4004 B.C. And then what about those millions of the inhabitants of the globe who never had our Bible? And millions of them never had a Bible of any kind. Are they destitute of moral perception? On the contrary, reliable authority, and even Christian writers, assure us that the morals of many of those nations will put to shame the morals of any nation professing the religion of Christ. Take, for example, the Kalaos tribe of Africa, who appear to have no formal religion whatever; and yet, as Dr. Livingstone informs us, they maintain strict honesty in all their dealings with each other, and have made considerable progress in the arts and manufactures. They have never had a Bible or revelation of any kind. Look also at the inhabitants of the Arru Islands. "These people," says Dr. Livingstone, "appear to have no religion whatever; and yet they live in brotherly peace, and respect each other's rights,"--the rights of property in the fullest sense. The Rev. W. H. Clark, speaking of the Yoruba nation in Central Africa, says, "Their moral and even their civil rights in some respects would put to shame any Christian nation in the world." We might present a hundred more cases of this kind; but these three cases are sufficient to show that nations witt no Bible, no revelation, and even no religion, transcend any Christian nation with respect to strict honesty and a practical sense of right and wrong. How absurd, therefore, is the idea shown to be, that a knowledge of the Christian Bible is essential to the knowledge and practice of good morals! (See chap. 50.) X. OUR DUTIES ARE ALL RECORDED IN THE BIBLE OF NATURE. There is not a moral or religious duty that is not inscribed on the tablet of man's soul or consciousness which he would not soon learn if his attention were not constantly directed to, and his mind occupied with, the erroneous theories of the dark, illiterate ages.