"Oh,
my God," said he, "you ought to have seen that moon before the War!"

I simply say these things to convince you that everything in nature has
a different story to tell every human being. So the bible tells a
different story to every man that reads it. History proves what I say.
Why so many sects? Why so much persecution? Simply because two people
couldn't understand it exactly alike. You may reply that God intended
it should be so understood, and that is the real revelation that God
intended.

For instance, I write a letter to Smith. I want to convey to him
certain thoughts. If I am honest I will use the words which will
convey to him my thoughts, but not being infinite, I don't know exactly
how Smith will understand my words; but if I were infinite I would be
bound to use the words that I know Smith would get my exact idea from.
If God intended to make a revelation to me He has to make it to me
through my brain and my reasoning. He cannot make a revelation to
another man for me. That other man will have God's word for it but I
will only have that man's word for it. As that man has been dead for
several thousand years, and as I don't know what his reputation was for
truth and veracity in the neighborhood in which he lived, I will wait
for the Lord to speak again.

Suppose when I read it, the revelation to me, through the bible, is
that it is not true, and God knew that I would know that when I did
read it, and knew, if I did not say it, I would be dishonest. Is it
possible that He would damn me for being honest, and give me wings if I
would play the hypocrite?

The inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of the
gentleman who reads it. Yet they tell me this book was written by the
creator of every shining star. Now let us see. I want to be honest
and candid. I have just as much at stake in the way of soul as any
doctor of divinity that ever lived, and more than some I have met.
According to this book, the first attempt at peopling this world was a
failure. God had to destroy all but eight. He saved some of the same
kind to start again, which I think was a mistake. After that, the
people still getting worse, he selected from the wide world a few of
the tribe of Abraham. He had no time to waste with everybody. He had
no time to throw away on Egypt. It had at that time a vast and
splendid civilization, in which there were free schools; in which the
one man married the one wife; wher