Day by day more facts were found that could not be reconciled with the Scriptures, or the creeds. Neither was it possible to annihilate facts by denial. The man who believed the Bible could not accept the facts, and the man who believed the facts could not accept the Bible. At first, the Bible was the standard, and all facts inconsistent with that standard were denied. But in a little while science became the standard, and the passages in the Bible contrary to the standard had to be explained or given up. Great efforts were made to harmonize the mistakes in the Bible with the demonstrations of science. It was difficult to be ingenious enough to defend them both. The pious professors twisted and turned but found it hard to reconcile the creation of Adam with the slow development of man from lower forms. They were greatly troubled about the age of the universe. It seemed incredible that until about six thousand years ago there was nothing in existence but God--and nothing. And yet they tried to save the Bible by giving new meanings to the inspired texts, and casting a little suspicion on the facts. This course has mostly been abandoned, although a few survivals, like Mr. Gladstone, still insist there is no conflict between Revelation and Science. But these champions of Holy Writ succeed only in causing the laughter of the intelligent and the amazement of the honest. The more intelligent theologians confessed that the inspired writers could not be implicitly believed. As they personally know nothing of astronomy or geology and were forced to rely entirely on inspiration, it is wonderful that more mistakes were not made. So it was claimed that Jehovah cared nothing about science, and allowed the blunders and mistakes of the ignorant people concerning everything except religion, to appear in his supernatural book as inspired truths. The Bible, they said, was written to teach religion in its highest and purest form--to make mankind fit to associate with God and his angels. True, polygamy was tolerated and slavery established, yet Jehovah believed in neither, but on account of the wickedness of the Jews was in favor of both. At the same time quite a number of real scholars were investigating other religions, and in a little while they were enabled to show that these religions had been manufactured by men--that their Christs and apostles were myths and that all their sacred books were false and foolish. This pleased the Christians. They knew that theirs was the only true religion and that their Bible was the only inspired book.