As a system Christianity has had its day. Long ago it may have served a good purpose, but after eighteen hundred years it is worn threadbare and useless. If some of its milder tenets still cling to and fit our vast mediocrity, it is equally certain that the intellectual giants have moulted it as the birds moult their plumage in a dying year, and have taken on the bright new garments of higher thought, the spring plumage of intellectual liberty.
When I heard that the Bible was going to be revised I felt very glad, because I thought there was a wide field of usefulness open to somebody right there; and I concluded to do all I could to help it along. I understood that they wanted the substance retained as it was, with the language made more as we use language now.
So I began my revision in this way: "Good morning, Moses, I hear that you have some gods in this country. Do you know anything about it?"
"Oh, yes, I'm the head god's head man." "You are?"
"Yes, I had a talk with the head god—the top one of the three (we are down to three here now), and he told me to tell people what a good god he is, and that they must all praise him up for it."
"He did! Well is that all he said?"
"Oh, no, he told me to tell them that he is the only God, and is the kind father of all, and loves all alike, and that they must all just trust in him and he will take good care of them."
"I thought you said a while ago that there were three of these gods; now this one says he is the only one. Is there trouble in the cabinet?"
"No, there are three, but there is one. See?"
"Well, no, I can't say that I do. But no matter, the rest of that about the father business was pretty good. That was the best I ever heard. But do you know that the very last man I talked with said that this god was partial to some folks and treated some others pretty shabbily."