n can only succeed at present among the intellectual riff-raff
of the populace.

Looking over the past, we see what an immense part dogmatism has played
in history. "Thus saith the Lord" cried the Jewish prophets, and
they not only terrified their contemporaries, but overawed a hundred
generations. "Thus saith the Lord" cried the Christian apostles,
and they converted thousands of open-mouthed slaves to a "maleficent
superstition." "Thus saith the Lord" cried Mohammed, and the scimitars
of Islam flashed from India to Spain. "Thus saith the Lord" cried Joe
Smith, and Mormonism springs up in the practical West, with its buried
gold tablets of revelation and its retrogressive polygamy. "Thus saith
Reason" has been a still small voice, sometimes nearly inaudible, though
never quite drowned; but now it is swelling into a mighty volume of
sound, overwhelming the din of sects and the anathemas of priests.

BELIEVE OR BE DAMNED.

Christian ministers are showing a disposition to fight shy of the second
half of the last chapter of Mark, where Jesus is represented as saying
to his apostles, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to
every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he
that believeth not shall be damned." Some of them tell us to look at the
Revised Version, where we shall see in the margin that this portion
of the chapter does not exist in the earliest manuscripts; and they
innocently expect that Freethinkers will therefore quietly drop the
offensive passage. Oh dear no! Before they have any right to claim such
indulgence they must put forth a new edition of the whole Bible, showing
us what they desire excised, and what they wish to retain and are ready
to defend as the infallible word of God. We should then discuss whether
their selection is justifiable, and after that we should discuss whether
the amended Bible is any diviner than the original one. But we cannot
allow them to keep the Bible as it is, to call it God's Word, to revile
people who doubt it, and to persecute people who oppose it; and yet, at
the same time, to evade responsibility for every awkward text. This will
never do. The clergy cannot have the authority of inspiration in their
pulpits and the ease of eclecticism on the platform and in the press.

Besides, although the text in Mark is the most striking piece of
impudent bigotry, there are many passages of Holy Writ that display the
same spirit. The Jews were