“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one for a moment can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history. The identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jehovah; if the ‘ten words’ were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the deluge a fiction; that of the fall a legend; that of the creation the dream of a seer,—if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than the stories of the regal period of Rome, what is to be said of the Messianic doctrine which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who on this theory have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legends and quicksands? “The antagonism between natural knowledge and the Pentateuch would be as great if the speculations of our time had never been heard of. It arises out of contradictions upon matters of fact. The books of ecclesiastical authority declare that certain events happened in a certain fashion; the books of scientific authority say they did not.” “What we are pleased to call religion now-a-days is for the most part Hellenized Judaism; and, not un-frequently, the Hellenic element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world paganism and a great infusion of the worst and weakest products of Greek scientific speculation; while fragments of Persian and Babylonian—or rather Accadian—mythology burden the Judaic contribution to the common stock. The antagonism of Science is not to Religion, but to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which Religion herself is wellnigh crushed. Now, for my part, I trust this antagonism will never cease, but that to the end of time true Science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of relieving men from the burden of false Science which is imposed upon them in the name of Religion.” The fact that well-dressed congregations do not laugh sacerdotalists to scorn shows how safe it is to rely upon the credulity and indifference of those who have been taught mere myths as real history from early childhood. The day will come when even children will laugh in the faces of priests when they seriously speak of the fall of Adam and Eve as a matter of actual occurrence. The great curse of true religion to-day is _literalism_, enforced by priestcraft, in regard to what relates to our most sacred concerns.