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and told by a priest that they were originally derived from god. Now 

 instead of believing the man, and taking no pains to find out what the 

 volume really contains, as is unfortunately the habit of most people, our 

 duty is clearly to investigate the matter, and try 'to find out whether 

 that priest speaks the truth or not, whether he has any sort of inter e.s* 

 in making us believe the volume to be the word of god, or, assuming 

 that he himself honestly believes it to be so, whether he is a sufficient 

 authority on the point. Let us, for instance, take the case of a stranger 

 to the Christian faith, one who never heard of the Bible or its gods, 

 and who meets a Christian priest in the backwoods of America. The 

 holy one informs the stranger that he possesses a book which has been 

 written by god, through the medium of the inspired minds cf a number 

 of holy men. Would you consider the stranger to be a man of sound 

 mental faculties if he at once accepted the word of the parasite, and 

 shaped his whole career according to the teaching cf that book ? Most 

 assuredly not. The most natural thing for the strang-er to do would be 

 to stare in amazement at the saint, and wonder whether he was quite 

 right in his mind. Observing that the priest was really in earnest, and 

 apparently of sane mind, he would parley with him, asking where he 

 procured his book from ; who were the very holy partie^ who had been 

 inspired to write it ; when and where they lived ; and who knew any- 

 thing about them : in short he would demand from the unctions one his 

 credentials before believing such an astounding assertion as that god 

 wrote a book. The replies would be after this fashion. The book was 

 derived in the first instance from a publisher's shop, where it had been 

 printed with lead type and black ink, from another printed copy, which 

 had been printed from another copy, and so on back to the first printed 

 edition, which was copied from a translation of various Hebrew and 

 Greek * originals.' It was about two thousand years, he would say, 

 since some of these ' originals ' were written, and the remainder were 

 supposed to be of much earlier date ; but who the actual writers were 

 he could not tell, although it was beyond doubt they were guided by 

 god's inspiration, for it was so declared in the writings themselves, 

 which had never yet been doubted, except by a few naughty men who 

 were now in hell. Do you think this would be good enough for tho 

 stranger ? Of course not. Then, in the name of common sense, why 

 should we accept these Bible books without enquiry ? To accept any 



