The Hebrew monarchy established under Saul 1095 B.C., continued and cemented under David, and weakened and ruined under Solomon, terminated in the year 975 B.C., lasting altogether one hundred and twenty years.

This marks the culmination of national greatness and glory—and the rapid decline and disintegration.

We now come upon the rise of a new class of men, prophets of a new school—visionary men, dreamers and agitators, reformers—besides miracle-mongers and fault-finders. Discontent reigned. Men began to sing the glories of their past greatness, the wonders of Jehova, the miracles of Moses, and the promises that the Lord had made to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of the land that flowed with milk and honey.

It seems almost unaccountable, even from a theological, Christian standpoint, that God, Jehova, the Lord almighty, should not be able to exhibit his wonderful powers regularly, systematically, instead of by fits and starts, on special occasions, after intervening centuries. Why should a God come and go by leaps and jumps, appearing and disappearing at distant ages, now helping and then punishing? Why lead and mislead? Why permit people to be so foolish and senseless as to create rival gods? Why should he be jealous of a wooden god, or of any other kind of an idol?

Why should it be necessary to whip people into understanding God, knowing him? Why were there so many thousand people slaughtered to force conviction of his marvelous powers?

Is it not an outrage on common sense for a God to stoop to mountebank tricks, subterfuge, and delusion, so-called miracles, in order to establish his existence, or his presence?

If God made man, why did he not make him properly to begin with, so as to suit himself at least? Why did he not make him so as to know the father right from the start?

Why should this almighty God, this Jehova, keep his chosen people continually on the rack of transgression, crime, and folly?

Why did he create them so that they should so easily forget him, and devote their reverence, their veneration, their sacrifices, and their prayers to some brass or wooden image?

The excuse so frequently made throughout the Bible, as a reason for losing battles or being made captives, that the Jews forsook their Jehova, their God, is no extenuating circumstance. How comes it that the nations with the heathen gods were victorious and finally conquered the Hebrew nation and led them forth as captives? The heathen gods must have been equal, indeed frequently superior, to the Hebrew God, because they, the heathen gods, were so very often victorious, and finally subdued the Hebrews.

The two nations Judah and Israel fell into idolatry almost immediately. Solomon even preferred Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians; and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites (1 Kings xi, 5), and how many other strange gods we have no record.

Israel began as a kingdom 975 B.C.; Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, was the first king and Hoshea the last; Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, took Samaria by force, and drove the Ten Tribes into Media captives, in the year 721 B.C.; this kingdom having lasted two hundred and fifty-four years, and having had during that time nineteen kings.

The kingdom of Judah lasted longer, beginning at the same time, 975 B.C. Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, was the first king. The captivity of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem was completed 588 B.C. Judah had existed as a nation about three hundred and eighty-seven years. Jehoiachin and Zedekiah were the last kings. During this period they had about twenty-one kings. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made a conquest of Egypt, besieged Jerusalem, pillaged and burnt the Temple, and carried everything away that he could lay his hands on.

With few exceptions, a worse, a more brutal set of men than these rulers never governed any nation. During their successive reigns, we find an unbroken succession of the barbarities which were at that time the generally recognized method of warfare, accompanied by licentiousness, and all the other savageries of these semi-civilized people.

Prophet traffic flourished in those days. There were as many kinds of prophets as there were gods, with a complement of priests to correspond.

Religious hate and intolerance was manifest on every occasion towards one another. To gain power and control the affairs of state was the chief aim and object. They would curse and destroy one another whenever a favorable opportunity occurred.

Two religious fanatics became especially conspicuous about 918 B.C., Elijah and later Elisha. The antagonism and hostility between the leaders of factions was now very intense. Jezebel slaughtered the prophets of her opponents, and Elijah, who was the leader of the Jehova faction, cursed and raved, and many hundred prophets of Baal were slaughtered (1 Kings xviii, 19, 40). It was brutality against brutality, crime against crime, savagedom against savagedom. The bloody struggle continued right along, the slaying being employed on any and every occasion. Thus he caused the killing of the several fifties, as related in 2 Kings i. Elijah was a zealot; harsh, bitter, and merciless to the opponents of his faith. As to the miracles, they answered the purpose well enough for a lot of ignorant, half-civilized country people. We have had similar tricks repeated by priests all along, deluding, cheating, and defrauding the poor simple-minded, ignorant classes.

“And it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings ii, 11). How could a man go up to heaven? The atmosphere around this terrestrial globe is about two to three hundred miles in hight. The law of gravitation prevents the smallest particle from leaving the earth’s surface, much more a body of the weight of a man. The whirlwind belongs to the earth, and never reaches beyond a certain hight. Besides, everything taken up by a whirlwind or cloud in due time returns to mother earth. As for the horses and chariot of fire, in later days pious persons pretend to have seen similar appearances. A man sitting before a fire fancies he sees all kinds of pictures and faces; they are the reflections of his mind. So when one fancies representations of figures and objects in the clouds, or in the moon, they are either delusions of vision, or the fancied picture of the imagination. There are delusions of hearing. An unsound condition of the nervous system may produce hallucinations of such a nature; a disease or a mental derangement may occasion this sort of nervous disturbances.

A new feature was introduced by these men—the healing art, resuscitating the supposed dead, casting out evil spirits, laying on hands, etc. A sillier piece of charlatanism was never put in print than Elisha’s miraculous resuscitating trick on a child in a cataleptic fit (2 Kings iv, 34, etc.).

A craftier or more cunning piece of business was exciting Jehu, King Ahab’s general, to rebel, and to slaughter the whole of the king’s family. Elisha sends a young prophet to Jehu to pour oil on his head and anoint him king, on his promise to exterminate the king’s family (2 Kings ix): “For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel” (2 Kings ix, 8).

Ahab, Jezebel, and Ahab’s seventy sons were all slaughtered. All the great man’s priests, and his kinsfolk, were slain. And Elisha called together all the prophets of Ahab’s faction, all those that worshiped Baal, and killed them all off. General Jehu was made king as a recompense for the services he had rendered to the Elisha faction. That was about 884 B.C.

Usurpation, conspiracy, and bloody crimes mark this period. Intrigue, robbery, spoilings, lust, and degradation seem epidemic in these nations. When they were not fighting each other, they were warring with these barbarities.

Elijah had undoubtedly a powerful party at his command when he prompted Jehu to revolt and assume the reins of government. He had everything pretty well organized when Elijah said, “And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.”

“Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal” (1 Kings xix, 17, 18). These seven thousand were no doubt his immediate disciples, not the commoner herd of people.

He selected a man to succeed him, whom he no doubt knew well—a farmer, for Elisha was plowing when he was chosen as chief agitator, arch-conspirator, and inheritor of all the rights and privileges of a revolutionary leader (1 Kings xix, 20, etc.).

This plowman, prophet, and conspirator combines in himself also the healer, preacher, and leader, etc. He cures Naaman’s leprosy, causes iron to swim, brings blessings to some and curses to others.

These knavish tricks succeeded with the ignorance and superstition of the day. The people could be swayed in any direction by a clever, determined, bold talker, consequently were easily excited into the committal of any acts, no matter how revolting or brutal.

These political factions led by prophets and priests were not so gentle and polite towards one another as they are at the present day. The church ruled. Gods of either side alternately were in power. Those in power killed off those who were out of power.

Whether it is Elijah or Elisha, leaders of the Jehova party, or Queen Jezebel, leader of the Baal prophets of the other party, the result always depends upon numbers and clever leadership.

Ferocious brutality never ceases but for a short while. There is not a spark of humanity, no mercy, not an act of kindness or consideration.

Menahem was king of Israel 772 B.C. He smote Tipsha and all that were therein. “And all the women therein that were with child he ripped up” (2 Kings xv, 16).

Thus we have page after page marked with bloody crime in the book called sacred history, scripture, and what not. And alas! this is God’s work, God’s own book, God’s own people.

Much has been said about the inaccuracies in the Bible—the contradictions, the errors that are found. We are not concerned in any of them. We are interested in directing the attention of the reader to the book called holy scripture, a book believed to have been written by supernatural inspiration, relating to certain acts done by God; and these acts, accompanied by wonders, were performed for a people especially selected by him, that were under his protection, guidance, direct supervision; and their leaders, lawgivers, kings, priests, prophets, and teachers were by reason of their holiness in communication with this God, either directly or indirectly, and thereby were endowed with powers that rendered them capable of doing things contrary to the fixed laws of nature.

We have endeavored to point to a few of the acts of the greatest and best men figuring in that book called scripture. These men were not divine nor were their acts divine. Their acts were not humane, nor anything approaching what is understood to be humane at the present age. On the contrary, their acts were barbarous, savage, brutal, cruel, and in many instances outrageous.

They, the Hebrews, were no better than their neighbors the heathens, whatever their name or nationality might be. The heathen with their idols were just as good in war, in battle, as, if not better than, the Jews were with their God, their Jehova, and the ark, and finally succeeded in subduing the Jews, burning their Temple with God’s ark, vessels, etc., taking them captives, and destroying them as a nation.

It is evident from history that the principal men of the nation were corrupt; that both the kingdom of Israel and that of Judah were rotten to the core. They were continually warring with each other, as with other nations. Their abuses gave rise to public agitators, who always found supporters.

Men of the Elijah and Elisha stamp never lose an opportunity, and they made the most of all of it while they lived.

They introduced a school of thought and action that laid the foundation for new sects that culminated in the remote future. The belief in medical miracles was more firmly fastened upon the minds of their followers by the prophets, fortune-tellers, and healers, than by any class previous.

Other nations meantime were progressing in civilization—literature, the art of warfare, etc. Greece was gaining laurels. Homer appeared. Hesiod wrote about 900 B.C. TyrtÆus’s Elegies, Archilochus’s Satires, etc., about 700 B.C. The Persians and Romans were rising and making rapid progress and conquest, soon to sweep smaller peoples and nations aside. These heathen made conquests, gained victories, transplanted the captives, and were altogether far more prosperous and successful with their idols than the Hebrews were with their God. Nothing else better proves that the struggles for supremacy among the human families were perfectly natural, each side depending always on their leaders, their skill in fighting, their bravery, and their organization; that their Gods, their idols, their oracles, and their priests played but a small part in the transactions of life; and that all the gods, whether idols, or mythological, or Jehovistic, and no matter of what nationality, had all about the same material value, power, and importance.

From our modern standpoint all the gods may be classed in one category. We may safely pronounce them to be creatures of imagination, sprung into existence through ignorance, fears, and superstition. They are all alike false, frivolous, and foolish. They have not a particle of truth in them. And the Gods that are now held in such high esteem by many people, are no better than the Chaldean idols.

Judah is still struggling to retain her grip on her national life. Every effort prolongs the agony. Hezekiah is king 717 B.C. Isaiah is the prophet. Romantic dreamer, songster, critic, and man of visions, he sees distress, ruin, and misery before him; recalls the glories of the past, but sees none of the faults; sees the greatness of the nation of Solomon, David, and Saul, and now beholds the national degradation. He laments this dreadful condition with a bitterness of feeling. Then he hopes against hope that something will happen in the future that will bring about a happy state of his nation and reproduce the golden prosperity of those glittering ages that are gone. This man is a close observer, a visionary man, and a critic. He writes and sings of his own people, of his own country. In the introduction which he gives himself in Isaiah i and ii, he presents his vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem, etc. He reproaches them for their sin, iniquity, corruption, etc.: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” (i, 7).

His dream and hope of the future: “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (ii, 4).

This entire chapter, like most of the chapters of Isaiah, is a work of the imagination. It is the fancy of a dreamer who mentally sees the thing he longs for. In his nervous exaltation, visions appear, incoherent, meaningless, except to himself. He brings different parts of different objects together, representing things and scenes he is familiar with, in the form of pictures, natural in parts but unnatural and impossible as a whole.

“As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them” (iii, 12). He describes the “tinkling ornaments” about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, their chains and bracelets and mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, and the rings and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins, and the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails, etc. This portion is no doubt realistic. It shows his mental condition and the mood he was in.

His humor changes: “Now I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard” (v, 1). In this chapter he touches upon everything that strikes his fancy. Hell, wind, land, instruments, lions, etc., etc., are all introduced. He rambles all over nature. Imaginary ideas are mixed with realities indiscriminately, for illustration, comparison, lamentation, or complaining. High in the temple he sees the Lord sit; sees the seraphim with six wings, etc. (vii). And in chapter viii he has a “great roll and writes in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” Verse 1: “And I went to the prophetess; and she conceived, and had a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz” (3).

Isaiah lived after the captivity of the Ten Tribes.

He also knows of the constant fighting between the Ten tribes and the two, Israel and Judah. Israel has been carried away captive to other lands and its country has been given to a people called Cutheans, or Samaritans. These cultivated and adopted in some measure the Jewish religion. In moments of despondency he refers to them as he refers to Moab and other nations elsewhere. The whole Christian faith seems to be based on the prophecy of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, 6th and 7th verses. Isaiah starts out in this chapter speaking of the time when God first lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, etc. In the 6th verse he says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” etc. That man has no reference to Christ as Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

Chapter viii, verse 8: “And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of the land, O Immanuel.” This really means the son which the prophetess conceived, and called Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

Chapter ix, verse 21: “Manasseh and Ephraim, and Ephraim and Manasseh; and they together shall be against Judah,” etc. He talks in a confused, mystified fashion, alluding now to this people, now to that; at one time to the Tribes and at another to the Moabites, Assyrians, then to Egypt or Zion; dreams of tyrants, hypocrites, and his hopes revived about the remnants of Israel. When he speaks of the child he has not the remotest dream of Christ. He has no foreknowledge, except what his judgment suggests. He feels annoyed and irritated, then his hope and aspiration soothe and comfort him, and in chapter xi he describes a most happy state of affairs: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (verse 6). “And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox” (xi, 7), etc.

The wildest and most extravagant kinds of interpretation are given to various passages in Isaiah. Into them the theologians force a meaning:

Chapter xxxv, 1: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Christians say it means the joyful flourishing of Christ’s kingdom.

In chapter xliii, verse 2, Jehova declares: “I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no savior.”

He repeats it in chapter xliv, verse 6: “I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there is no God.”

Verse 8: “Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”

Chapter xlix: “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken ye people from afar; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” This is supposed to mean, Christ being sent to the Jews complaineth of them.

Chapter lv: “Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold! for your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgression is your mother put away.” It is said that this means, Christ sheweth that the dereliction of the Jews is not to be imputed to him, by his ability to save. This is the Christian interpretation of the above passage. It is a misrepresentation of facts as well as meaning. Why twist, torture, and falsify it?

Isaiah lived in stirring times. After the captivity of the Ten Tribes, the government and the people were corrupt. An invasion was at hand. Sennacherib invades Judea 712–711 B.C. The Medes and Assyrians were also fighting for supremacy. Being an educated man, he knew the history of his nation—their trials, the triumph and the glory they had enjoyed, and the decline of this people with its pride and pomp to a passing away. He had ample material to supply his imagination; he therefore dreamed, sang praises, saw visions, hoping for something to turn up, miraculous or otherwise, to save the remnant of his nation. He cannot be compared to the two strong, rough miracle-mongers of Israel, Elijah and Elisha, that had lived over a century before him.

This idealistic dreamer had not the slightest knowledge of coming events, of what was to happen seven hundred years later. The minds of men had slowly undergone changes.

The rigidity of the Mosaic laws had undergone some modification, and some change in interpretation as to the meaning of the many commands and usages. With every battle and with every invasion new notions, new customs, were introduced. The transition was surely laying the foundation for various schools, which was inevitable as the intelligence and education progressed.

After Isaiah Jeremiah comes, as a natural result of the age. Manasseh, king of Judah, had been carried captive to Babylon, and restored to power 677 B.C. Ammon and Josiah follow. The latter is killed, and his successor, Jehoahaz king of Judah, is deposed and carried to Egypt 609. Three years later Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem. Jehoiachin reigns three months, and he is carried off captive to Babylon, besides three thousand of the principal persons of dignity, and among these was Ezekiel (598 B.C.). Zedekiah was appointed king. He was the uncle of Jehoiachin, twenty-one years of age when he began his reign; a bad one it was, and he suffered for it. And he was the last of the kings of Judah. In 588 B.C. Jerusalem was captured and destroyed, the Temple burnt; the sons and friends of Zedekiah were slain; Zedekiah’s eyes were put out, and he was bound and taken to Babylon.

Jeremiah had spoken a good many truths, and given them ample warnings what would happen. He met with a great deal of opposition—was thrown into prison and made to suffer for his boldness. His exhortations and his appeals availed nothing.

The heads of the high priests and those of the rulers were cut off. The destruction was complete.

Jeremiah wrote fifty-two chapters, and Christian interpreters managed to find two places in this entire writing that indicated Christ’s kingdom:

Chapter xxiii, verse 5; “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute justice and judgment in the earth”—meaning, Christ shall rule and save them.

Chapter xxxi, verse 22: “How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man”—meaning, Christ is promised.

These are the only two spots whence any possible allusion can be drawn.

This man is unlike the visionary, romantic dreamer Isaiah, whose imagination and nervous exaltation kept him more or less in a state of excitability and carried him into regions of dreamland where his hopes and wishes were planted. Jeremiah writes up the historical occurrences; passes judgment on his own people and on the nations his people had to struggle with, bewailing their corruption, wickedness, wretchedness, misery. He never dreams of Christ or Christianity, nor does he in any part allude to Christ. He also, like Isaiah, wrote and acted in accordance with the times he lived in. He was a steadfast friend to his disciple Baruch. His lamentations describing the miserable state of Jerusalem, bewailing its calamities, are perfectly human, and perfectly natural for a patriot and a poet of his time.

Ezekiel was in Chaldea among the captives about 590 B.C. This man is also largely endowed with a prolific imagination; he is a visionary man. He adopts a new method of talking; when the word of the Lord comes to him, “Son of Man” is the manner in which he is addressed. Jeremiah uses the expression, “Sayeth the Lord,” or “the word to Jeremiah from the Lord saying”——Isaiah uses, “Thus saith the Lord.”

Ezekiel wrote forty-eight chapters. The following are interpreted to mean Christ:

Chapter xxxiv, verse 20: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them: Behold I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle”—meaning, the kingdom of Christ.

Chapter xxxvi, verse 25: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you; and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you”—meaning, the blessings of Christ’s kingdom.

Chapter xxxvii, verse 20: “And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes”—meaning, the promises of Christ’s kingdom.

The political methods of governing nations which had their origin in the ages of barbarism, ignorance, and brutality, left the rotten remnants to construct upon them a system of rules for the guidance of the masses, to control, subjugate, and restrain their mental faculties, the development and advancement of their understanding, and to perpetuate the suppression of their higher intellectual powers.

The beliefs in a God with the inferior natural human functions were handed down to us through many centuries, undergoing transitions and changes to suit the occasions, circumstances, and times.

The toning down of the Hebrew God is in the first instance mainly due to the beneficent influences of the heathen, as they were then called. The educational facilities the Jews enjoyed during their captivity were of a better and higher order, and how much of the entire book called scripture is due to these opportunities afforded them we shall never know. History teaches us, however, that Ezra, when Cyrus was king of Persia, 457 B.C., was permitted to go to Jerusalem to collect what manuscripts and data he could find, and he is credited to have written the Chronicles 453 B.C. How many more books or parts were written and compiled by Ezra and his companions will remain a mystery.

The work of resuscitating the nation—to recover its former importance, to reËstablish some of its former glory—was attempted seventy years later, under Cyrus, who granted the Jews the privilege to return and rebuild the Temple.

They were prompted to do this out of pure motives of patriotism, and it can be regarded only as a struggle to continue to exist as a portion of a historic people. The Levites were instrumental in bringing about their return. The tribes were those belonging to the kingdom of Judah.

At this time an opposition temple and an opposition religion was established by the people of Samaria, a mixture of Cutheans and Israelites. The rivalry and hatred towards each other was as intense as the hatred and bitter factional fight had been between the Ten Tribes and the two tribes Israel and Judah.

Affairs did not succeed well. There were quarrels, wrangles, application to higher authorities to arbitrate and decide their differences and disputes. New kings, new powers, came for conquest and plunder. New leaders, new governors, deceit, treachery, rebellion, assassination, mark these centuries under Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, until 63 B.C., when Judea was made a Roman province. Meantime new sects had organized under different names, each one giving its interpretation as to the signification of the laws contained in the books that were handed down to them. From the multiplicity of opinions, sects, factions, and fanaticisms, the already modified ideas were about to undergo a farther transition, that helped to inaugurate what might well be termed a reformation.

While this nation was crumbling to pieces other nations had advanced in civilization, in art, science, and literature, that never claimed to have done anything under the influence of a Jehova, or any symbol representing him. These nations—Greeks, Romans, Persians—seemed to have succeeded better with mythological gods than the Jews with theirs. They had laws to govern them, which required neither smoke nor thunder to make them. Man, plain man, made them. Some were surrounded with mysterious ceremonies, symbols; others were not. Lycurgus reforms the constitution of Sparta 884 B.C. Carpets are made for tents about this time. The art of sculpture rises in Egypt. Buddha’s religion is introduced into India, and an attempt is made to discover the primitive language of mankind by Psameticus; and, what is of considerable importance, children are being educated in the Grecian language and manners 660 B.C.

These facts are mentioned to show that nations that were not hampered with the Jehovistic religion, that had no miracles, wonders, or arks, were more advanced in the national sciences, had made farther progress in the general civilization of mankind, than the Hebrews. The electricity of amber was discovered by Thales, and he also taught the spherical form of the earth as the true cause of lunar eclipses, 640 B.C. Schools of learning flourished in many places. Authors appeared whose writings are classic to this day—Sappho, AlcÆus, Æsop, Pittachus. Solon’s legislation in Athens superseded the laws of Draco.

It was not the Mosaic God that made these people intelligent, gave them their understanding. Their enlightenment was due simply to the natural processes of the great nervous centers, independent of all supernatural interference.

The school of statuary was opened at Athens by Depoenus and Scyllis. Comedies were enacted on a cart by Susarian and Dolon. Dials were invented by Anaximander, etc. Learning is encouraged at Athens, and a public library is founded. All this and much more occurs about 540 B.C.

Persia, too, is rapidly spreading its empire; growing powerful; progressing in wealth, commerce, and learning. Zoroaster founds his philosophy, without bloodshed, rapine, or murder.

Rome is in a nourishing condition; takes its first census 565 B.C.—811,700 citizens—spreading its empire.

We must ever bear in mind that all these nations were called heathen, and their methods of belief are looked upon by Christian teachers as much inferior to their own.

Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, is not inferior in his morality to any of the moralists of the age in which he lived, 522 B.C. And we may safely say he is equal even to the morals of to-day. Manners, methods, and fashions change, but certain principles remain.

We can examine the pages of the history of other human races and compare them with the Jews, God’s own chosen race, his own people, and the heathen takes the prize in every branch of science, art, and the progress of civilization. The Hebrews for many, many centuries, with their blind infatuation with the supernatural, their constant superstitious practices of their ceremonial, their senseless devotion to an imaginary piece of extravagance, were so steeped in stupidity and ignorance that they had neither time nor inclination to observe and examine nature and its workings, so remained slaves to their preposterous practices.

Republics become fashionable. Corinth starts with her republican form of government 582 B.C., and Rome follows in abolishing a regal government and establishing a republic 509 B.C.

The Carthaginians make a voyage to Great Britain for tin, etc.

Sophocles, Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, and a host of renowned men rise to teach the world how to think, how to speak. Philosophy, medicine, morality, poetry, history, comedy, tragedy, arts, and science had a firm hold on the public mind. A degree of refinement both in manner and in conduct prevailed among all classes.

It was about this time that Ezra and his companions were compiling—rather collecting—fragments for composing the book of Chronicles. Other books may have been compiled or written.

Nehemiah followed Ezra. He rebuilt and repeopled Jerusalem. For all that, nothing good of a permanent character was accomplished.

Time goes on, centuries accumulate; intelligence, experience, and a higher grade of civilization appear. Nations grow more powerful. The struggle for supremacy continues, and Judah, like a shuttlecock, is thrown about from nation to nation, now under one dominion and now under another.

Religious opinions, however, are forming. They are hostile, bitter, inimical towards one another; accompanied with all the hatred, jealousy, spite, that religious differences usually engender. They are all anxious to hold office, priestly or otherwise, consequently bribery, lying, and misrepresentation are the means used to gain the influence of those in power. The rivalry between the sects makes matters no better.

The Samaritan sect were already in existence when Ezra returned to Jerusalem. Hostilities led to conflicts, and there was little peace between them.

In Judea there were several sects, holding various opinions. Like so many political factions, each sought control, and tried to uphold its peculiar views and interpretations.

The Sadducees sprang into life about 244 B.C. This sect believed that the soul dies with the body; “nor do they regard the observance of anything besides that the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent; but this doctrine is received but by few, yet by those still of greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost anything of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise hear them” (Josephus).

This sect, one would judge, consisted of the wealthy and more enlightened class.

“The Pharisees live meanly, despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the contract of reason; and what that prescribes for them, as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice. They also pay respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and, when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers and sacrifices, they perform them according to their directions; insomuch that the cities gave great attestation to them, on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and of their discourse also” (Josephus).

“The doctrine of the Essenes is this, that all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls and esteem that rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for, and when they send what they have dedicated to God unto the Temple, they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the Temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor Barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he that hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way; and neither have many wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the income of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men, and priests, who are to get their coin and their food ready for them. Of a fourth sect of Jewish philosophers, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only ruler and lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” (Josephus).

These matters are quoted to show the changes and modifications religious opinions were undergoing, and must have undergone for many centuries previously, until they reached the present stage.

The arguments, discussions, and reasons given, as well as the beliefs adopted, differ only in degree and kind from those when Abraham and his father dissented from the mode of worship then extant in Chaldea, some one thousand nine hundred years previous, and from the modifications introduced by Moses, the greater part of which were adopted from the Egyptians—whence the Jews really got the first taste of civilization.

These religious notions of the Jews are the opinions, simply the opinions, of a small branch of the human family. There are a great many others.

During all these centuries little or nothing was known of the natural, of the more intimate relations of nature and nature’s forces. And of all nations the Jewish race knew the least. They were too much occupied with the supernatural to ever learn anything of the natural.

The supernatural idea sprang from the mire of ignorance and barbarism and savagery. Crime and outrage mark the centuries as it rolled along in the tide of human events, halting only when forced, and renewing its current when there was nothing to bar its way—struggling madly, conquering, fighting, subduing. Life was of no value, and everything was brutally crushed under this monstrous supernatural idea, until at length it was brought to halt by superior natural forces that in time crushed and subdued it.

After one thousand four hundred years of Jehovaism, of various shades and hues, this religion emerges from the past ages to the coming centuries in a new garb, slightly improved, somewhat milder in temper, and wearing altogether a new mask, so that neither Father Abraham nor General Moses would recognize his offspring.