The Old Testament shows that Jehovah, like his creators, held women in contempt. They were regarded as property: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,--nor his ox." Why should a pure woman worship a God who upheld polygamy? Let us finish this subject: The institution of slavery involves all crimes. Jehovah was a believer in slavery. This is enough. Why should any civilized man worship him? Why should his name "be encircled with love and tenderness in any human heart"? He believed that man could become the property of man--that it was right for his chosen people to deal in human flesh--to buy and sell mothers and babes. He taught that the captives were the property of the captors and directed his chosen people to kill, to enslave, or to pollute. In the presence of these commandments, what becomes of the fine saying, "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? What shall we say of a God who established slavery, and then had the effrontery to say, "Thou shalt not steal"? It may be insisted that Jehovah is the Father of all--and that he has "made of one blood all the nations of the earth." How then can we account for the wars of extermination? Does not the commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself," apply to nations precisely the same as to individuals? Nations, like individuals, become great by the practice of virtue. How did Jehovah command his people to treat their neighbors? He commanded his generals to destroy all, men, women and babes: "Thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth." "I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." "That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." "... I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust...." "The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also, with the man of gray hairs." Is it possible that these words fell from the lips of the Most Merciful? You may reply that the inhabitants of Canaan were unfit to live--that they were ignorant and cruel. Why did not Jehovah, the "Father of all," give them the Ten Commandments? Why did he leave them without a bible, without prophets and priests? Why did he shower all the blessings of revelation on one poor and wretched tribe, and leave the great world in ignorance and crime--and why did he order his favorite children to murder those whom he had neglected? By the question I asked of Dr. Field, the intention was to show that Jephthah, when he sacrificed his daughter to Jehovah, was as much the slave of superstition as is the Hindoo mother when she throws her babe into the yellow waves of the Ganges. It seems that this savage Jephthah was in direct communication with Jehovah at Mizpeh, and that he made a vow unto the Lord and said: