"Changeability.--'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.' Numbers xxv, 10, 11.
"Brutality.--'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.' Leviticus xxiv, 13, 14.
"Savage Cruelty.--'And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtle doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the ides of the altar.' Leviticus i, 14, 15.
"An Ass.--'And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me these three times?' Numbers xxii, 28.
"I have brought a few of these absurd writings to your attention," said Arletta, "hoping that later on you will go over them carefully and give them the same rational consideration you bestow upon other subjects. There is one commendable feature about your Bible however, and that is, it shows that once there existed among your species a noble mortal who devoted his life trying to teach the Apeman human kindness in somewhat the same manner our men used to do, with the exception of the supernatural dogmas. I refer to Jesus Christ. The fact that the same lessons he expounded were taught thousands of years before he was born, or that he failed to grasp nature's beautiful ideas without confounding them with supernatural fancies, does not detract in any way from his nobility of purpose and his name should be mentioned in the future history of the world as one of the great benefactors of the human race. It seems a pity that his over-zealous followers have tried to place him in the light of a deity, for in time to come, when your species begin to reason, they might possibly regard him as an impostor. This should not be the case however, for although Christ no doubt really believed in a religious god, it is unjust to believe that he ever pretended to be anything more than a mere human being himself, or that he knew anything about the wonderful miracles it was subsequently claimed he had performed.
"Any earthly being," said Arletta, as her face fairly beamed with intelligence, "whether it be a man, an Apeman or a monkey, who claims to be related to the Creator of the universe, or to be His prophet, or His specially appointed spokesman, or in any way tries to lead others to believe that he possesses supernatural powers, is either an impostor or an idiot.
"When all earthly beings make use of the reasoning faculties nature endows them with, all religions will perish through the agency of their own untruths."
"Then am I to understand that your people were Atheists?" inquired I of Arletta.
"Not at all," replied she. "We believed in Natural Law but not in religion. Our most intellectual men decided that by no stretch of the imagination could they build a god for religious purposes as great as the Creator of the universe must naturally be, and knowing that it remains for man himself to reach his highest state of perfection without any supernatural influence whatsoever, they therefore abolished all forms of religious worship and established a code of ethics which was termed Natural Law.