I AM not able to say what makes a book "holy," but I would like to give my idea of a good book. No book deserves to be called good or great which does not grapple with the problems of life in such an open and disinterested way as to challenge the most unsparing tests which may be applied to its conclusions, or to the methods by which it has arrived at them. The book that objects to or fears criticism, or is injured by it, is certainly not a great book. Even as gold outlives the fire, a great book must outlive criticism.

The works of such men as Copernicus and La Place, and of Galileo and Herschel, who opened up for us the heavens, are truly great, for the reason that not only do they not plead for protection against criticism, but they resist all the strain that the freest and boldest criticism can bring to bear upon them. The same is true of the works of Darwin, Haeckel, Herbert Spencer, who need neither the sword of the king nor the curse of the priest to prove their conclusions true. And men like Shakespeare, who have circumnavigated the human intellect, and sailed around the globe of beauty and truth, may justly be proud of their work, because criticism can no more hurt them than fire the gold. Can the bible stand the test which proves greatness? To answer this question we have only to observe how vehemently the bible objects to criticism: "He that believeth not shall be damned," and "Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed"—that is to say, who believe blindly. And the defenders of the bible have, alas! committed every conceivable crime in their effort to prevent criticism of the bible. Does this prove the greatness of the bible?

Let us make a brief comparison between the Book of God and some of the books of man. Suppose we wished to teach the splendid truth of the solidarity of the human race—the oneness of mankind—is there anything, either in the New or the Old Testament, which in breadth or beauty approaches the thoughts of the pagan philosophers on this subject?

I am a citizen of the world.—Socrates.

Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of every man, whoever he may be, and for this very reason—that he is a man.—Cicero.

Did any Jew, or Christian, ever say anything like that?

I was not born for one corner; my country is this whole world.—Seneca.

And it was not a slave, but a citizen of the proudest empire the world ever saw, who thus opens his sympathies to embrace the whole of the human family. Where is the bible prophet, or apostle, who could transcend creed and country with the same elan?

The much admired Republic of Zeno aimed simply at this, that neither in cities nor towns we should live under distinct laws, one from another, but should look on all men as our fellow countrymen and citizens... like a flock feeding together with equal rights in a common pasture.—Plutarch. *

What would not Jews or Christians give for such a passage in their "holy" book! How proudly the clergy would quote it, to prove the divinity of their religion, if this beautiful gem sparkled somewhere within the covers of their bible!

I am a man, and nothing human can be foreign to me.—Terrence.

A sentiment like that makes the whole page which expresses it of solid gold. In vain do we look for so big an utterance in "infallible" books. To the Hebrew there was no world outside Israel, and to Jesus all that came before him were "thieves and robbers." Not until Christianity crossed over into Europe did its missionaries discover that "God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth," though even then it was a creed they had to accept or perish.

In the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.

Nature is the only impartial father. The chosen people of this father are those of whatever race and religion who conquer knowledge and follow Reason.—Quintillian.

Love mankind.—Antoninus.

Is it not better than the "love one another," of Jesus, which really meant, "love only your fellow-believer"? Jesus declared that it will be worse for those who rejected him and his apostles, on the last day, than for Sodom and Gomorrah, which were consumed by fire from heaven.

What good man will look on any suffering as foreign to himself?—Juvenal.

The Universe is but a great city; never, in reply to the question to what country you belong, say you are an Athenian, or a Corinthian, but say you are a Cosmopolitan—a citizen of the world.—Epictetus. *

But it was not only in their universalism that the

European writers excelled the Asiatic seers and miracle-workers. It has been persistently claimed that both love and justice are exclusively biblical virtues. We regret to say that this is another untruth, the extensive circulation of which was deemed necessary to protect the bible against its rivals.

Love is the foundation of the law.—Cicero.

Sympathy is what distinguishes us from brutes.—Juvenal.

The love of all to all.—Pythagoras.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it. It is never right to return an injury. — Plato.

We should be good to our enemy and make him our friend. — Cleobulus.

Ask thyself daily to how many ill-minded persons, thou hast shown a kind disposition.—Antoninus.

To the very end of life we will be in action, we will not cease to labor for the common weal, to help individuals, to give aid even to our enemies.—Seneca.

Moreover, the motives which the philosophers held forth were very much more creditable to human nature than the rewards, either here or in the next world, which the bible held out as inducements to action.

What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service than the fact of having done it? Art thou not content to have done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it, as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the foot for walking?—Seneca. *

If so sweet and sane, so large and pure a sentiment could be found in any part of the Word of God, I shall forever after keep my mouth closed. The servitude of man, not the service of man, is the theme of the bible; and if Jesus said that the charities should be done in secret, it was because that was the best way to secure a public reward. "And your father which seeth in secret," said Jesus, "will reward you openly."

The secrecy recommended was a matter of policy. "Reward" is the constant refrain in the bible. Promises of territory, lands, cattle, jewelry, oil and wine, women and girls, in the Old Testament; and in the new, thrones, crowns, golden streets, harps, robes, and endless life beyond the clouds, are the inducements held out to the devotee.

Another equally frequent and equally unfounded assertion of the pulpit has been that but for the bible there would have been no hospitals in the world, or any interest in the poor, by the rich. The defenders of the bible seem to feel that it is only by shutting their eyes and closing their ears that they can continue to believe that the Jews were the only "inspired" people in the world. In the first place, hospitals are more of a necessity in the modern world than they were in olden times. Science has taught us to apply method and system in the department of philanthropy as in that of business, while formerly the care of the needy was largely a private matter. Besides, our cities are bigger, and our populations more heterogeneous, and the struggle for existence more intense to-day, than ever before. We have hospitals to-day, in self-defense, if not for any other reason. Our own peace and comfort would be disturbed and our doorsteps and business offices, as well as homes, would be converted into hospitals, if the State, or public enterprise, did not undertake in some systematic way the housing and nursing of the sick and the unfortunate. It is not only from charity that we have hospitals to-day. We support them also from necessity.

To say, however, that the ancients, being deprived of the bible, took no interest in the care of the sick, or the hungry, is a clear misrepresentation. If the bible is the hospital builder, how many hospitals did the Old Testament people build in Palestine under the reign of David or Solomon? Was there ever a single movement started in Palestine for the protection of the oppressed or the unfortunate of the world? In his Paganism and Christianity, J. H. Farrer, speaking of the practice of charity in the pre-Christian world, cites the examples of Cimon the Athenian giving of his abundance to feed the poor and clothe the naked; of the Lacedaemonians supplying the people of Smyrna with food in time of scarcity, and replying, when thanked for it, that they only deprived themselves and their cattle of a dinner; of Apollonius reminding Vespasian that the supply of the needs of the poor was one of the best uses of a sovereign's wealth; of Arcesilaus visiting Apelles, and, to relieve him of the indigence to which sickness had reduced him, placing twenty drachms under his pillow, while pretending to make him more comfortable; of the Roman nobles, after the accident to the amphitheater at FidenÆ whereby fifty thousand persons were killed or wounded, opening their houses and procuring doctors and relief for the victims; of all the cities of Asia relieving with money or shelter the victims of the great earthquake in Smyrna in 177 A.D. * Seneca's description of the wise man offering aid to the shipwrecked, hospitality to the exile, money to the needy, redeeming prisoners from their chains, releasing them from the arena, and giving sepulture to the criminal, ** is clearly a picture drawn from nature and daily life, not from his imagination; and to suppose that such deeds required the impulse of the church to make them more common is to suppose that human nature itself changed with the change that came over religion.

The Roman historian, Tacitus, gives the following touching description of the behavior of the ancient Pagans in the presence of the suffering and distress caused by the great calamity in Smyrna:

The grandees of Rome displayed their humanity on this occasion; they threw open their doors, they ordered medicines to be distributed, and the physicians attended with assiduity in every quarter. The city of Rome recalled, in that juncture, an image of ancient manners, when, after a battle bravely fought, the sick and wounded were received with open arms, and relieved by the generosity of their country. *

And let it not be forgotten that it was from the Pagan Greeks we received the word philanthropy, which means the love of man, into our modern languages.

Mr. Farrer quotes again many authorities to show that both in Athenian and Roman society there was a constant solicitude for the welfare of the poor:

In the best days of Athens none of her citizens were in want for the necessities of life; for the rich, according to Isocrates, regarding the poverty of their fellow citizens as a disgrace to themselves and the city, helped all who were in need, sending some abroad as traders, letting lands to others to cultivate at fair rents, and enabling others to engage in different occupations. The Areopagus, too, checked pauperism by providing public works. **

He also calls attention to the free schools; the exemption of orphans from the State charges; the maintenance at the public expense of the children of citizens killed in war; the daily payment of money from the treasury to the destitute and the wounded, and the public monthly dinners given by the rich for the benefit of the needy. Under the great Trajan, the like of whom never sat on Jewish or Christian throne, a monthly distribution of food was made to the children of the poor all over Italy, which was paid for by devoting to it a portion of the interest lent by the State to the owners of farms on mortgage. In Rome, there were, in every section of the city, medical officers, paid by the State, who devoted their whole time to the protection of the health of the citizens. One of the laws of Nerva required every one giving a banquet first to make a donation for the poor of his district. The sick and the poor have never failed to provoke sympathy and help in any age or country of the world, and for any one religion to claim all the 'good in the world as its own exclusive property, is enough to make all brave and honest minds recoil therefrom with horror and sorrow. But people never make such absurd claims except when they are in despair.

The pulpit is constantly lauding what it calls the beatitudes of Jesus, and challenging the world to parallel them if it can. We have accepted the challenge.

When asked how a man might best revenge himself, Diogenes replied: "By becoming himself a good and honest man." * And how much saner is Seneca's advice: "Some one has struck you, withdraw; by striking back you will give both an occasion and an excuse for many blows," ** compared with the "Turn also the other cheek," of Jesus! "What is the best way for a man to hurt his enemy, or to give him the greatest pain?" Epictetus was asked. "By preparing to lead himself the best life he can," was his answer.*** But a really European sentiment which perhaps never swelled the breast of any Asiatic teacher was expressed by Seneca, when he wrote: "A great mind that truly respects itself does not revenge an injury, because it does not feel it." **** The Sermon on the Mount is a series of dogmatic utterances, without enlightenment or logic. Jesus gives no reasons, nor does he try to prove the truth of his statements, while Seneca's beatitudes are luminous—like a fountain, crystal clear to its depths.

And where will we find finer examples of men who lived up to these teachings than in Pagan annals? Pittacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, when his enemy had fallen into his hands, instead of avenging himself on him, let him go with this explanation of his conduct: "Forgiveness is better than revenge, for while the former is the sign of a gentle nature, revenge is that of a savage nature." (v) Can his example be matched in the bible? It is true jesus prayed for his murderers, but did he really mean to forgive them? Then why did he only save the thief on the cross that praised him, while he let the other, who reviled him, go to perdition? And why do not the Sunday-schools, instead of teaching our children of Joseph and Joshua, who caused famine and destruction for their own aggrandizement, recite to our boys and girls the story of Gescon, who, recalled from banishment and exalted to the rank of chief general, instead of punishing his persecutors, allowed them to depart in peace, saying: "I will not return evil for evil, but good for evil."

It is in the book of man, not in the book of God, that we must look for examples of heroism, love, pity, justice, truth, honor, humanity. In his History of European Morals, Mr. Lecky writes: "Amongst the many wise sayings which antiquity ascribed to Pythagoras, few are more remarkable than his division of virtue into two branches—to seek truth, and to do good." ** And is there a finer passage, in any of the "divine" books of the many sects, than the creed of the tutor of Alexander the Great—Aristotle:

Cleanse and purify thy heart, for it is the seat of all sin, not by worthless ceremonies, prayers and moanings, but by the stern resolve to sin no more—to uphold right and do right. Sacrifice thyself at the shrine of duty, forgiving injuries, and acting only toward others as you would have them behave towards thy self. ***

Where, again, in Jewish or Christian psalm, or hymnology, is there a finer ideal than this, from Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, rendered in verse by the author of Paganism and Christianity:

That pleases me which pleases thee,

Great Universe: I murmur not,

If but the evils of my lot

May serve thy wider harmony.****

Or this from Seneca:

Man's mind, not birth, determines his degree;

No slave so mean but virtue sets him free.

What if his body's bound! His soul can rise

On wings of thought unfettered to the skies.

What if his body's bought! His soul is free;

No servitude can mar its liberty. (v)

And how much purer the motives recommended in the following, compared with the fear of hell and the hope of heaven, so conspicuous in Christian hymns:

Nature made Virtue man's chief aim and goal

When she made Conscience mistress of his soul,

His noblest actions taste no sweeter praise

Than that which conscience to itself conveys;

Nor on his crimes can punishment be laid

Worse than inflicts a conscience disobeyed.

Virtue calls, and, easy of access,

Spreads smooth the road that leads to happiness;

Mountains may crumble, Etna fall away,

True virtue only suffers no decay. *

To find out how radically anti-biblical, or how essentially Pagan are our civil and political institutions, compare the following from the American Constitution with the Asiatic teaching of the Apostle Paul:

Would it not be more edifying if our preachers or publicists, like Roosevelt and Bryan, instead of lavishing praises on an Asiatic book, out of tune with the intellectual and moral ideals of the modern world, recommended to their countrymen the nobler thoughts of the European masters? On a Sunday morning, what church could listen to a better sermon against superstition than is contained in these lines of Plutarch:

Few of the ills we mortals bear

Excel or equal those we fear;

But worst his lot of all mankind

Whom superstitious terrors bind.

He dreads no storm who stays on shore,

Nor battle who goes not to war;

But he who thinks of God with dread

Hath terror always overhead,

And draws from land and sea and sky

One long unending agony.

And so, methinks, they wrong God less

Who doubt or disbelief confess

Than they who worse of God believe

Than of a man they could conceive,

And every vice to Him assign

To prove Him fickle, false, malign;

As I would rather men should say

"There is no Plutarch" than that they

Should speak of Plutarch as so mean,

So full of petty spite and spleen,

That, if you vexed him in the least,

Into your crops he'd turn his beast. *

We often read in the newspapers of some foolish remark by a clergyman in his sermon, as, for instance, that the fearful and murderous wave of heat in the summer is a punishment from God for the sins of this or that city; or that earthquakes are sent to show the divine displeasure against this or that heresy in the church; or that God is opposed to aviation because the air belongs to the birds, as the sea does to the fishes; or that Christ is coming soon on a white horse: "The Son of God is coming on a white horse and the armies of heaven will follow him. Then he will be crowned king of all Israel. The kingdom promised to David will be resurrected," said the Rev. Dr. Ford C. Ottman, at the Winona Lake convention. The reverend speaker had in mind the following exquisite bible text when he was looking for the "white horse":

I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true.... And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses.... And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations.... and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. *

Is it possible that the American mind has so deteriorated as to hope for the fulfillment of such a prophecy?

But it is to the credit of the Christian clergy that they do not say more foolish things or oftener than they do—seeing that their entire life is spent in reading and teaching from a book full of fables, gossip, inanities, miracles, and, if I may say so—conundrums. What, for instance, may be expected from men who have to feed on such meaningless and even revolting texts as the following:

I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury. **

The deity making the people drunk to get even with them! We leave the text to the clergy.

Thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, every beast of the field.... Come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.

... Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God. ***

And again:

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together, unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men [of war], both free and bond, small and great. *

And what is the sense in the following:

His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth. **

A sensible man would leave such a text severely alone; but the clergy try to make the bullock stand for Christ, the horns, for the extremities of the cross, and the "pushing" has reference to the day of judgment, etc.

Dear me! Who would care to spend the red blood in his veins in such an occupation? The beauty of the better bible, composed of such words of Reason as I have culled from only a few of the ancient masters, lies in the fact that there is not a single passage therein to perplex the understanding, pervert the moral sense or cause a blush. It can not be said of the Jew-ish-Christian bible that it is free from passages which no civilized community would allow in any other than an "inspired" production. And this is enough to condemn the book. The argument that the offensive portions of the Word of God should not be taken separately, but in connection with the better parts of the book, amounts to a plea of guilty. How can the commandment to bear false witness, or to plunder, or to outrage women, become "divine" by being printed in the same book with the Golden Rule?

Compare, once more, the saying of Jesus, that, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee... and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body shall be cast into hell," (Matthew v, 29-31); and this other remarkable advice to make "eunuchs of themselves for the kingdom of heaven's sake" (Matthew xix, 12), with the gloriously wholesome thought of Seneca on such absurd religious practices: "One, out of zeal, makes himself an eunuch, another lances his arms; if this be the way to please their gods, what should a man do if he had a mind to anger them? or, if this be the way to please them, they do certainly deserve not to be worshiped at all... the most barbarous and notorious of tyrants... never went so far as to command any man to torment himself." *

What would not the clergy have given if the above passage had been in their bible, instead of in the writings of a "heathen"? Jesus recommended self-torture; Seneca says, even tyrants "never went so far as to recommend any man to torment himself." Of course, in his extremity, the Christian will plead for a spiritual interpretation of Jesus' sayings: But why use such decidedly materialistic terms, as "plucking out eyes," "cutting off arms," and "making eunuchs of one's self," to convey ideal meanings? Why could not Jesus talk plainly, like Seneca?

In the selection of these few quotations, I have refrained from culling also from the pages of modern writers, lest it be said that since these modern men and women appeared after Christianity, it is to the bible that the world is indebted for their great thoughts and works. Of course, this is not true, seeing how the church persecuted these men and women, and drove them to the stake, or at least, placed the offspring of their brain upon the Index, branding their thought as blasphemy. Nevertheless, I have denied myself the pleasure of invoking the galaxy of intellectual leaders, from Bruno and Spinoza, to Goethe and Voltaire, and, Shakespeare and Shelley, and Ibsen and Emerson, who though they had their many faults, were morally as well as mentally, as far above Ezra, Nehemiah, Noah, Solomon, or Peter and Paul, as sense and beauty are above folly and platitude.

We have really paid the Hebrew-Christian scriptures an unmerited compliment in comparing them with the noblest teachings of the Pagan philosophers. Not only is it impossible to find in the bible the high aspirations of the European mind, its independence and fearlessness of the gods, so eloquently expressed in Seneca's prayer: "O Neptune, your ocean is big, and my bark is frail. You may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will, but whatever happen, I shall keep my rudder true," but even when we compare the contents of the bible with the teachings and practices of the most primitive peoples in the world the result is far from being favorable to the "inspired" volume.

Was Molock, for instance, who devoured children, as destructive as Jehovah who consumed whole nations by fire and the sword? Was Baal or Astaroth as sanguinary as the being who slaughtered in one night all the first-born of Egypt? Did the idols of savages ever think even of drowning a world? Is it possible to find in the dictionary of the gods, one who can compare with the inventor of the Christian hell? When the missionaries entered Borneo to convert the natives, the Rajah drove them out of the land, "because the Christian God used people as firewood after death."

In conclusion, before Mr. Bryan and his colleagues may ask us to produce a better bible, let them find in the Jewish-Christian scriptures a text or a passage which will describe a more enviable state of society in any Jewish or Christian country, of the past or the present, than the picture presented by the unrivaled Pericles in his Athenian oration, beginning with the words:

"We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ not for talk and ostentation, but when there is real use for it. We regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless but as a useless character."