Now, it seems to me that he should either have left the stories out, or furnished evidence enough to con- vince the world. According to Mr. Talmage, thou- sands of people are pouring over the Niagara of unbelief into the gulf of eternal pain. Why does not God furnish more evidence? Just in proportion as man has developed intellectually, he has demanded additional testimony. That which satisfies a barbarian, excites only the laughter of a civilized man. Cer- tainly God should furnish evidence in harmony with the spirit of the age. If God wrote his Bible for the average man, he should have written it in such a way that it would have carried conviction to the brain and heart of the average man; and he should have made no man in such a way that he could not, by any possibility, believe it. There certainly should be a harmony between the Bible and the human brain. If I do not believe the Bible, whose fault is it? Mr. Talmage insists that his God wrote the Bible for me. and made me. If this is true, the book and the man should agree. There is no sense in God writing a book for me and then making me in such a way that I cannot believe his book. _Question_. But Mr. Talmage says the reason why you hate the Bible is, that your soul is poisoned; that 87 the Bible "throws you into a rage precisely as pure "water brings on a paroxysm of hydrophobia." _Answer_. Is it because the mind of the infidel is poisoned, that he refuses to believe that an infinite God commanded the murder of mothers, maidens and babes? Is it because their minds are impure, that they refuse to believe that a good God established the institution of human slavery, or that he protected it when established? Is it because their minds are vile, that they refuse to believe that an infinite God established or protected polygamy? Is it a sure sign of an impure mind, when a man insists that God never waged wars of extermination against his helpless children? Does it show that a man has been entirely given over to the devil, because he refuses to believe that God ordered a father to sacri- fice his son? Does it show that a heart is entirely without mercy, simply because a man denies the justice of eternal pain? I denounce many parts of the Old Testament because they are infinitely repugnant to my sense of justice,--because they are bloody, brutal and in- famous,--because they uphold crime and destroy human liberty. It is impossible for me to imagine a greater monster than the God of the Old Testa- 88 ment. He is unworthy of my worship. He com- mands only my detestation, my execration, and my passionate hatred. The God who commanded the murder of children is an infamous fiend. The God who believed in polygamy, is worthy only of con- tempt. The God who established slavery should be hated by every free man. The Jehovah of the Jews was simply a barbarian, and the Old Testament is mostly the barbarous record of a barbarous people.