many men in different lands and long-divided generations.

I now turn to Dr. Aked. On page 25 of his book, _Changing Creeds_,
he says:

Ignorance has claimed the Bible for its own. Bigotry has made
the Bible its battleground. Its phrases have become the
shibboleth of pietistic sectarians. Its authority has been
evoked in support of the foulest crimes committed by the vilest
men; and its very existence has been made a pretext for theories
which shut out God from His own world. In our day Bible worship
has become, with many very good but very unthoughtful people, a
disease.

So much for the attitude of the various schools of religious thought
towards the Bible.

Now, in the opinion of these Christian teachers, is the Bible perfect
or imperfect? Dr. Aked gives his opinion with characteristic candour
and energy:

For observe the position: men are told that the Bible is the
infallible revelation of God to man, and that its statements
concerning God and man are to be unhesitatingly accepted as
statements made upon the authority of God. They turn to its
pages, and they find historical errors, arithmetical mistakes,
scientific blunders (or, rather, blunders most unscientific),
inconsistencies, and manifold contradictions; and, what is far
worse, they find that the most horrible crimes are committed by
men who calmly plead in justification of their terrible misdeeds