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idle; and I have a notion that there has always been a law against
murder, because a large majority of people have always objected to
being murdered. If he will read his Old Testament with care, he
will find that God violated most of his own commandments--all except
that "Thou shalt worship no other God before me," and, may be, the
commandment against work on the Sabbath day. With these two
exceptions I am satisfied that God himself violated all the rest.
He told his chosen people to rob the Gentiles; that violated the
commandment against stealing. He said himself that he had sent
out lying spirits; that certainly was a violation of another
commandment. He ordered soldiers to kill men, women and babes;
that was a violation of another. He also told them to divide the
maidens among the soldiers; that was a substantial violation of
another. One of the commandments was that you should not covet
your neighbor's property. In that commandment you will find that
a man's wife is put on an equality with his ox. Yet his chosen
people were allowed not only to covet the property of the Gentiles,
but to take it. If Dr. Fulton will read a little more, he will
find that all the good laws in the Decalogue had been in force in
Egypt a century before Moses was born. He will find that like laws
and many better ones were in force in India and China, long before
Moses knew what a bulrush was. If he will think a little while,
he will find that one of the Ten Commandments, the one on the
subject of graven images, was bad. The result of that was that
Palestine never produced a painter, or a sculptor, and that no Jew
became famous in art until long after the destruction of Jerusalem.
A commandment that robs a people of painting and statuary is not
a good one. The idea of the Bible being the basis of law is almost
too silly to be seriously refuted. I admit that I did say that
Shakespeare was the greatest man who ever lived; and Dr. Fulton
says in regard to this statement, "What foolishness!" He then
proceeds to insult his audience by telling them that while many of
them have copies of Shakespeare's works in their houses, they have
not read twenty pages of them. This fact may account for their
attending his church and being satisfied with that sermon. I do
not believe to-day that Shakespeare is more influential than the
Bible, but what influence Shakespeare has, is for good. No man
can read it without having his intellectual w