Throughout Christendom “man’s inhumanity to man” is only equaled by his cruelty to the inferior animals. The Buddhist, who has not the Bible for his guide, considers it a sin to harm the meanest creature. Even the savage kills only what he needs for food, or such as threaten him with danger. But the Christian, whose Bible gives him dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, maims and murders in pure wantonness, and after years of patient service, even turns his beast of burden out to die of hunger and neglect.
For the sake of these dumb creatures, would that our world had less theology, and more humanity; had fewer Moodys, and more Henry Berghs!
CHAPTER XXXIII.
TYRANNY—INTOLERANCE.
Tyranny.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it enjoins submission to tyrants.
“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, ... whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors” (1 Pet. ii, 13).
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation” (Rom. xiii, 1, 2).