hands to make a record? Probably few Christians will agree as to what they mean by "inspiration." The general idea is, that the minds of the writers of the books of the Bible were controlled by the divine will in such a way that they expressed, independently of their own opinions, the thought of God. I believe it is admitted that God did not choose the exact words, and is not responsible for the punctuation or syntax. It is hard to give any reason for claiming more for the Bible than is claimed by those who wrote it. There is no claim of "inspiration" made by the writer of First and Second Kings. Not one word about the author having been "inspired" is found in the book of Job, or in Ruth, or in Chronicles, or in the Psalms, or Ecclesiastes, or in Solomon's Song, and nothing is said about the author of the book of Esther having been "inspired." Christians now say that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were "inspired" to write the four gospels, and yet neither Mark, nor Luke, nor John, nor Matthew claims to have been "inspired." If they were "inspired," certainly they should have stated that fact. The very first thing stated in each of the gospels should have been a declaration by the writer that he had been "inspired," and that he was about to write the book under the guidance of God, 338 and at the conclusion of each gospel there should have been a solemn statement that the writer had put down nothing of himself, but had in all things followed the direction and guidance of the divine will. The church now endeavors to establish the inspiration of the Bible by force, by social ostracism, and by attacking the reputation of every man who denies or doubts. In all Christian countries, they begin with the child in the cradle. Each infant is told by its mother, by its father, or by some of its relatives, that "the Bible is an inspired book." This pretended fact, by repetition "in season and out of "season," is finally burned and branded into the brain to such a degree that the child of average intelligence never outgrows the conviction that the Bible is, in some peculiar sense, an "inspired" book. The question has to be settled for each generation. The evidence is not sufficient, and the foundation of Christianity is perpetually insecure. Beneath this great religious fabric there is no rock. For eighteen centu- ries, hundreds and thousands and millions of people have been endeavoring to establish the fact that the Scriptures are inspired, and since the dawn of science, since the first star appeared in the night of the Middle Ages, until this moment, the number of 339