saved his children an inestimable amount of suffering.

Were the visitor to be further pressed by the zealot with the vision of
eternal hell, I believe he would retort that there is no reason for God
to punish those who doubt or deny faith in His existence, since it is
His own doing; and if He desired each one of His children to worship Him
according to the precepts of a certain creed, He surely would have
instilled that creed into man's make-up together with the rest of his
characteristics. Undoubtedly, He would not esteem any creed which damned
the human intellect by cursing the doubts which are the necessary
consequence of its exercise, or the creed which cursed the moral faculty
by asserting the guilt of honest error.

If our visitor would but glance at the history, the evolution, of
religious beliefs, he would realize and soundly assert that all
religions are human in their origins, erroneous in their theories, and
ridiculous in their threats and rewards.

CHAPTER II

THE KORAN AND THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

_The Jews emerge into history, not a nation of keen spiritual
aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people,
worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells,
of whom the Old Testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives
fragmentary but convincing evidence_.

JAMES T. SHOTWELL.

_Consider Jahveh. Cruel god of a horde of nomadic invaders settling
in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from
an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. He was plural by
place and tribe and function. What did the prophetic movement do
with his sacred powers? It identified his taboos with a written
constitution_.

HORACE M. KALLEN.

_The mental attitude of these priest-dominated ancestors of ours is
amazing. They were like children in the hands of unscrupulous
teachers. In reading these old chronicles it is impossible not to be
shocked by the incongruity ever arising out of the juxtaposition of
theory and practice_.

LLEWELYN POWYS.

Our Martian visitor, having withstood the blasts of the Zealot, is
approached by a Mohammedan who places in his hands the Koran and tells
him that it is a divinely inspired revelation, as revealed by Allah
through his prophet, Mohammed. Having already had some experience with
earthly religionists, the Martian is disposed to avail himself of the