ve done with this nightmare fetish of a
murderous tribe of savages. We have no use for him. We have no criminal
so ruthless nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch our
cities, imperfect as we are. The thought of him defiles and nauseates.
We should think him too horrible and pitiless for a devil, this
red-handed, black-hearted Jehovah of the Jews.

And yet: in the inspired Book, in the Holy Bible, this awful creature
is still enshrined as "God the Father Almighty." It is marvellous. It
is beyond the comprehension of any man not blinded by superstition, not
warped by prejudice and old-time convention. _This_ the God of Heaven?
_This_ the Father of Christ? This the Creator of the Milky Way? No.
He will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not
clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare: a bad dream born in savage
minds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish lust for blood.

But if He is not the Most High, if He is not the Heavenly Father, if
He is not the King of kings, the Bible is not an inspired book, and its
claims to divine revelation will not stand. THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE

Carlyle said we might judge a people by their heroes. The heroes of the
Bible, like the God of the Bible, are immoral savages. That is because
the Bible is a compilation from the literature of savage and immoral
tribes.

Had the Bible been the word of God we should have found in it a
lofty and a pure ideal of God. We should not have found in it open
approval--divine approval--of such unspeakable savages as Moses, David,
Solomon, Jacob, and Lot.

Let us consider the lives of a few of the Bible heroes. We will begin
with Moses.

We used to be taught in school that Moses was the meekest man the world
has known: and we used to marvel.

It is written in the second chapter of Exodus thus:

And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that
he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens:
and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.

And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that
there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

And when he went out the second day, behold two men of the
Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the
wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who
made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill
me as thou killedst the Egypti