en book cannot change, and many things in
the Bibles of Religion come to be out of date, inappropriate to new
circumstances, and even shocking to an age in which conscience has
become more enlightened than it was of old.

The fact that in the same Revelation as that in which palpably immoral
commands appear, there occur also jewels of fairest radiance, gems of
poetry, pearls of truth, helps us not at all. If moral teachings worthy
only of savages occur in Scriptures containing also rare and precious
precepts of purest sweetness, the juxtaposition of light and darkness
only produces moral chaos. We cannot here appeal to reason or judgment
for both must be silent before authority; both rest on the same ground.
"Thus saith the Lord" precludes all argument.

Let us take two widely accepted Scriptures, both regarded as
authoritative by the respective religions which accept them as coming
from a Divine Preceptor or through a human but illuminated being, Moses
in the one case, Manu in the other. I am, of course, well aware that
in both cases we have to do with books which may contain traditions of
their great authors, even sentences transmitted down the centuries.
The unravelling of the tangled threads woven into such books is a work
needing the highest scholarship and an infinite patience; few of us
are equipped for such labour. But let us ignore the work of the Higher
Criticism, and take the books as they stand, and the objection raised
to them as a basis for morality will at once appear.

Thus we read in the same book: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any
grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be
unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for
ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." "Sanctify yourselves therefore
and be ye holy." Scores of noble passages, inculcating high morality,
might be quoted. But we have also: "If thy brother, the son of thy
mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy
friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying, let us
go and serve other Gods ... thou shalt not consent unto him nor hearken
unto him; neither shalt thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare,
neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him; thine
hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live." A man is told, that h