I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide, and protest against its being placed in the hands of the young, because its pages are defiled with obscenity.
Aside from thousands of coarse and vulgar expressions contained in it, there are at least a hundred passages so obscene that their appearance in any other book would exclude that book from the mails and send its publisher to prison. The United States courts have declared parts of the Bible to be obscene. There are entire chapters, such as the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, that reek with obscenity from beginning to end.
In proof of the charge of obscenity, I refer you to the following: Isaiah xxxvi, 12; Ezek. iv, 12–15; Gen. xix, 30–36; xxx, 1–16; xxxviii; 2 Kings xviii, 27; Lev. xv, 16–33; Job xl, 16, 17; 1 Kings xiv, 10; Isaiah iii, 17.
That portions of the Bible are obscene and unfit to be read, is admitted even by Christians. Noah Webster, a Protestant, edited an expurgated edition of the Bible. In vindication of his work, he says:
“Many passages are expressed in language which decency forbids to be repeated in families and in the pulpit.”
The Rev. Dr. Embree, Methodist, of Kansas, in a speech before the Topeka School Board advocating the reading of Bible selections in the public schools of that city, recently said:
“I would not want the Bible read indiscriminately. I think some of it unfit to be read by any one.”
The Rev. Father Maguire, Catholic, in his debate with the Rev. Mr. Greg, at Dublin, gave utterance to the following:
“I beg of you not to continue such a practice; it is disreputable. I will ask Mr. Greg a question (and I beg of you, my brethren of the Protestant church, to bear this in mind), I will ask him if he dare to take up the Bible and read from the book of Genesis the fact of Onan—I ask him will he read that? Will he read the fact relative to Lot and his two daughters? Will he read these and many other passages which I could point out to him in the Holy Bible, which I would not take one thousand guineas, nay, all the money in the world, and read them here to-day?”
Richard Lalor Shiel, M. P., and Privy Counselor to the Queen, thus wrote: