“When he talked to me and persuaded me that a good wife ought to think as her husband did, I got so as to take whatever he said as the truth. He made us fast, and when Ben asked him if God had ordered us to starve he said yes. When he announced that the boy must be killed we both remonstrated, but finally thought it was all right. On the day appointed for the ceremony he called Ben out of the house and told him he had to die for our savior. The little fellow knelt down and I got on my knees by his side; John raised the knife, looked hard into the boy’s face, and then drove the knife into his breast.”
Here the mother was overcome with grief. Regaining her composure, she continued: “I am always thinking of Ben; I am always hearing him in the night asking to be brought in and laid on his bed, and begging for a little water before he died.”
Let me recall another half-forgotten scene. In a quiet village of New England live a pair whom nature meant for good, kind citizens. But they have become infatuated with the Bible. They believe it to be infallible. Day after day they pore over its pages. They dwell with especial interest upon the story of Abraham and Isaac, until at last they become impressed with the belief that they, too, are called upon to offer up their child. The fatal hour arrives. Nerved for the cruel deed, they approach the bedside of their child, a sweet-faced, curly-haired girl of four. How placidly she rests! Folded upon her breast are dimpled hands, white as the winter snow; curtained in slumber are eyes as mild as the summer sky. How beautiful! How pure! We would risk our lives to save that pretty thing from harm. How dear, then, must she be to that father and that mother! She is their idol. But that idol is about to be sacrificed upon the altar of superstition. There they stand—the mother with a lamp in her hand, the father with a knife. They gaze for a moment upon their sleeping victim. Then the father lifts his arm and plunges the knife into the heart of his child! A quiver—the blue eyes open, and cast a reproachful look upon the parent. The little lips exclaim, “O papa!” and the sacrifice is made!
You may say these people were insane. Aye, but what made them insane? And what, more than almost any other cause, is filling our asylums with these unfortunate people? The vain attempt to reconcile with reason the irreconcilable teachings of the Bible.
Cannibalism.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it teaches the horrible custom of cannibalism.
“The fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers” (Ezek. v, 10).
“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat” (Lev. xxvi, 29).
“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend” (Jer. xix, 9).