To want to realize his essence or live conformably to his concept (which with believers in God signifies as much as to be "pious," and with believers in humanity means living "humanly") is what only the sensual and sinful man can propose to himself, the man so long as he has the anxious choice between happiness of sense and peace of soul, so long as he is a "poor sinner." The Christian is nothing but a sensual man who, knowing of the sacred and being conscious that he violates it, sees in himself a poor sinner: sensualness, recognized as "sinfulness," is Christian consciousness, is the Christian himself. And if "sin" and "sinfulness" are now no longer taken into the mouths of moderns, but, instead of that, "egoism," "self-seeking," "selfishness," and the like, engage them; if the devil has been translated into the "un-man" or "egoistic man,"--is the Christian less present then than before? Is not the old discord between good and evil,--is not a judge over us, man,--is not a calling, the calling to make oneself man--left? If they no longer name it calling, but "task" or, very likely, "duty," the change of name is quite correct, because "man" is not, like God, a personal being that can "call"; but outside the name the thing remains as of old. * * * * * Every one has a relation to objects, and more, every one is differently related to them. Let us choose as an example that book to which millions of men had a relation for two thousand years, the Bible. What is it, what was it, to each? Absolutely, only what he _made out of it_! For him who makes to himself nothing at all out of it, it is nothing at all; for him who uses it as an amulet, it has solely the value, the significance, of a means of sorcery; for him who, like children, plays with it, it is nothing but a plaything; etc. Now, Christianity asks that it shall _be the same for all_: say, the sacred book or the "sacred Scriptures." This means as much as that the Christian's view shall also be that of other men, and that no one may be otherwise related to that object. And with this the ownness of the relation is destroyed, and one mind, one disposition, is fixed as the "_true_," the "only true" one. In the limitation of the freedom to make of the Bible what I will, the freedom of making in general is limited; and the coercion of a view or a judgment is put in its place. He who should pass the judgment that the Bible was a long error of mankind would judge--_criminally_.