, and implores every reader to verify
every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This
book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists
testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and
crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with
its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower,
confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite
abysses, are the external witnesses of its truth.

I will tell you what I mean by inspiration. I go and look at the sea,
and the sea says something to me; it makes an impression upon my mind.
That impression depends, first, upon my experience; secondly, upon my
intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a
different brain, he has had a different experience, he has different
memories and different hopes. The sea may speak to him of joy and to me
of grief and sorrow. The sea cannot tell the same thing to two beings,
because no two human beings have had the same experience. So, when I
look upon a flower, or a star, or a painting, or a statue, the more I
know about sculpture the more that statue speaks to me. The more I have
had of human experience, the more I have read, the greater brain I
have, the more the star says to me. In other words, nature says to me
all that I am capable of understanding.

Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer in
the 109th Psalm! Think of one infamous enough to answer it! Had this
inspired Psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of
snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood
upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony
between its surroundings and its sentiments.

Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved this world that he
made up his mind to damn the most of us. I have read this book and what
shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now,
I don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so? They say that if
you do you will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I know
a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it--they
don't tell their honest convictions about the bible.

The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned heretics, built
dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties
of men. How long, O how long, will mankind worship a book? How long