said, "Behold, I am the only God," these savages would not have left
all baser gods and worshipped Him? Why, these men, and all the
thousands of generations of their children, have been looking for
God since first they learned to look at sea and sky. They are
looking for Him now. They have fought countless bloody wars and
have committed countless horrible atrocities in their zeal for Him.
And you ask us to believe that His grand revelation of Himself is
bound up in a volume of fables and errors collected thousands of
years ago by superstitious priests and prophets of Palestine, and
Egypt, and Assyria.

We cannot believe such a statement. No man can believe it who tests
it by his reason in the same way in which he would test any modern
problem. If the leaders of religion brought the same vigour and
subtlety of mind to bear upon religion which they bring to bear
upon any criticism of religion, if they weighed the Bible as they
have weighed astronomy and evolution, the Christian religion would
not last a year.

If my reader has not studied this matter, let him read the books I
have recommended, and then sit down and consider the Bible revelation
and story with the same fearless honesty and clear common sense with
which he would consider the Bibles of the Mohammedan, or Buddhist, or
Hindoo, and then ask himself the question: "Is the Bible a holy and
inspired book, and the word of God to man, or is it an incongruous
and contradictory collection of tribal traditions and ancient fables,
written by men of genius and imagination?"