When we have a God for a teacher, the highest and surest virtue is unconditional acquiescence. Judaism, Mohammedanism and Christianity, in giving us a God for a teacher, have taken away from us the liberty to think for ourselves. Each one of these three religions makes unconditional obedience the price of the salvation it offers, but do you know what other word in the English language unconditional obedience is a synonym of?--Silence! A dumb world, a tongue-tied humanity alone can be saved! The good man is the man on his knees with his mouth in the dust. But silence is sterility! Silence is slavery! Think, then, of the character of a religion which makes free speech, free thought, a crime--which hurls hell against the Protestant! There is a third question to be answered: It is true, they say to us, that there are many things in the Koran, the Old Testament and the New, which are really injurious, and which ought to be discarded, but there are also many beautiful principles, noble sentiments and high educational maxims in these scriptures. Why not, then, dwell upon these, and pass in silence over the objectionable teachings of these religions? It is not necessary to repeat again that in all so-called sacred scriptures, there are glorious truths. It could not have been otherwise. All literature, whether secular or religious, is the voice of man and sweeps the whole compass of human love and hope. We have no objection to quoting from the Veddas, the Avestas, the Koran or the Bible; nor do we hesitate to admire and enjoy and praise generously the ravishingly beautiful utterances of the poets and prophets of all times and climes. Nevertheless, it remains true that the modern world finds more practical help and inspiration in secular authors, in the books of science and philosophy, than in these so-called inspired scriptures. Jesus, who is popularly believed to have preached the Sermon on the Mount, has said little or nothing which can help the modern world as much as the scientific revelations of a student like Darwin, or of a philosopher like Herbert Spencer, or of a poet like Goethe or Shakespeare. We know this will sound like blasphemy to the believer, but a moment's honest and fearless reflection will convince everyone of the fact that neither Mohammed nor Jesus had in view modern conditions when they delivered their sermons. Jesus could have had no idea of a world outside of his little Palestine. The thought of the many races of the world mingling together in one country could never have occurred to him. His vision did not embrace the vista of two thousand years, nor did his mind rise to the level of the problems which today tax the brain and heart of man. Jesus believed implicitly that the world would speedily come to an end, that the sun and the moon would soon fall from the face of the sky, and that people living then in Palestine would not taste of death before they saw "the Son of