




                        Is The Bible Worth Reading

                             And Other Essays

                                    By

                            Lemuel K. Washburn

                                 New York

                         The Truth Seeker Company

                                   1911





CONTENTS


Dedication
Is The Bible Worth Reading
Sacrifice
The Drama Of Life
Nature In June
The Infinite Purpose
Freethought Commands
A Rainbow Religion
A Cruel God
What Is Jesus
Deeds Better Than Professions
Give Us The Truth
The American Sunday
Lord And Master
Are Christians Intelligent Or Honest
The Danger Of The Ballot
Who Carried The Cross
Modern Disciples Of Jesus
A Poor Excuse
Profession And Practice
Where Is Truth
What Does It Prove
Human Responsibility
Abolish Dirt
Religion And Morality
Jesus As A Model
Singing Lies
A Walk Through A Cemetery
Peace With God
Saving The Soul
The Search For Something To Worship
Where Are They
Some Questions For Christians To Answer
The Image Of God
Religion And Science
The Bible And The Child
When To Help The World
The Judgment Of God
Christianity And Freethought
The Brotherhood And Freedom Of Man
Whatever Is Is Right
The Object Of Life
Man
The Dogma Of The Divine Man
The Rich Man's Gospel
Speak Well Of One Another
Disgraceful Partnerships
Science And Theology
Unequal Remuneration
The Old And The New
Guard The Ear
The Character Of God
Not Important
Oaths
Dead Words
Confession Of Sin
Death's Philanthropy
Our Attitude Towards Nature
Reverence For Motherhood
The God Of The Bible
The Measure Of Suffering
Nature
Creeds
Don't Try To Stop The Sun Shining
Follow Me
Can We Never Get Along Without Servants?
A Heavenly Father
Worship Not Needed
Was Jesus A Good Man
How To Help Mankind
On The Cross
Equal Moral Standards
Authority
A Clean Sabbath
Human Integrity
Is It True
Keep The Children At Home
Teacher And Preacher
Fear Of Doubts
Bible-Backing
Beggars
Habits
Can Poverty Be Abolished
The Roman Catholic God
Human Cruelty
Infidelity
Atheism
Christian Happiness
What God Knows
The Meaning Of The Word God
What Has Jesus Done For The World
The Agnostic's Position
Orthodoxy
Ideas Of Jesus
The Silence Of Jesus
Does The Church Save
Save The Republic
A Woman's Religion
The Sacrifice Of Jesus
Fashionable Hypocrisy
The Saturday Half-Holiday
The Motive For Preaching
The Christian's God
Indifference To Religion
Sunday Schools
Going To Church
Who Is The Greatest Living Man






                             [Illustration.]

                            Lemuel K. Washburn





DEDICATION


The writer of this book dedicates it to all men and women of common
honesty and common sense.





IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING


That depends. If a man is going to get his living by standing in a
Christian pulpit, I should be obliged to answer, Yes! But if he is going
to follow any other calling, or work at any trade, I should have to
answer, No! There is absolutely no information in the Bible that man can
make any use of as he goes through life. The Bible is not a book of
knowledge. It does not give instruction in any of the sciences. It
furnishes no help to labor. It is useless as a political guide. There is
nothing in it that gives the mechanic any hint, or affords the farmer any
enlightenment in his occupation.

If man wishes to learn about the earth or the heavens; about life or the
animal kingdom, he has no need to study the Bible. If he is desirous of
reading the best poetry or the most entertaining literature he will not
find it in the Bible. If he wants to read to store his mind with facts,
the Bible is the last book for him to open, for never yet was a volume
written that contained fewer facts than this book. If he is anxious to get
some information that will help him earn an honest living he does not want
to spend his time reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Kings, Psalms, or the
Gospels. If he wants to read just for the fun of reading to kill time, or
to see how much nonsensical writing there is in one book, let him read the
Bible.

I have not said that there are not wise sayings in the Bible, or a few
dramatic incidents, but there are just as wise sayings, and wiser ones,
too, out of the book, and there are dramas of human life that surpass in
interest anything contained in the Old or New Testament.

No person can make a decent excuse for reading the Bible more than once.
To do such a thing would be a foolish waste of time. But our stoutest
objection to reading this book is, not that it contains nothing
particularly good, but _that it contains so much that is positively bad_.
To read this book is to get false ideas, absurd ideas, bad ideas. The
injury to the human mind that reads the Bible as a reliable book is beyond
repair. I do not think that this book should be read by children, by any
human being less than twenty years of age, and it would be better for
mankind if not a man or woman read a line of it until he or she was fifty
years old.

What I want to say is this, that there is nothing in the Bible that is of
the least consequence to the people of the twentieth century. English
literature is richer a thousand fold than this so-called sacred volume. We
have books of more information and of more inspiration than the Bible. As
the relic of a barbarous and superstitious people, it should have a place
in our libraries, but it is not a work of any value to this age. I pity
men who stand in pulpits and call this book the word of God. I wish they
had brains enough to earn their living without having to repeat this
foolish falsehood. The day will come when this book will be estimated for
what it a worth, and when that day comes, the Bible will no longer be
called the word of God, but the work of ignorant, superstitious men.

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The cross everywhere is a dagger in the heart of liberty.

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A miracle is not an explanation of what we cannot comprehend.

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The statue of liberty that will endure on this continent is not the one
made of granite or bronze, but the one made of love of freedom.

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Take away every achievement of the world and leave man freedom, and the
earth would again bloom with every glory of attainment; but take away
liberty and everything useful and beautiful would vanish.





SACRIFICE


The sacrifice of Jesus, so much boasted by the Christian church, is
nothing compared to the sacrifice of a mother for her family. It is not to
be spoken of in the same light. A mother's sacrifice is constant:
momentary, hourly, daily, life-long. It never ceases. It is a veritable
providence; a watchful care; a real giving of one life for another, or for
several others; a gift of love so pure and holy, so single and complete,
that it is an offering in spirit and in substance.

This is to me the highest, purest, holiest act of humanity. All others,
when weighed with this unselfish consecration to duty, seem small and
insignificant. There is, in a mother's life, no counting of cost, no
calculation of reward. It is enough that a duty is to be done; that a
service is to be rendered; that a sacrifice is called for. The true mother
gives herself to the offices of love without hope, expectation, or wish of
recompense. A mother's love for her children cannot be determined by any
earthly measure, by any material standard. It outshines all glory, and is
the last gleam of light in the human heart. A mother's love walks in a
thousand Gethsemanes, endures a thousand Calvaries, and has a thousand
agonies that the dying of Jesus upon a cross cannot symbolize. This
maternal sacrifice is the greater that it is made cheerfully, without a
murmur, and even with joy. If it is not sought; it is never pushed aside.

A mother's sacrifice for her family makes a chapter of suffering, of
patient toil and strife, of heroic endurance and forbearance, that
religion is not yet high enough to appreciate; and this sublime devotion
is not in one home, but in _hundreds of thousands in every land_
everywhere on earth, and it is real, true, heart-born, and the utmost of
renunciation that human life has revealed.

The brief martyrdom of Jesus was not voluntary, was not