2. Jehovah promised Abraham, in the second place, all the country "from the river of Egypt to the great river,—the River Euphrates" (Gen. xv. 18). And yet, after the lapse of three thousand years, we do not find many occupying a foot of it. Another failure to execute his promise.

3. "To thee will I give it [the promised land], and to thy seed for ever" (Gen. xiii. 15). It will be observed here, that the title and possession was to be perpetual,—to the end of the world, "for ever." And yet it has been in the possession of other nations five or six times; and now not many of the Lord's holy people can be found there. Another signal failure.

4. Jehovah promised Abraham all the land "from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates;" but they have never had possession of the country within two hundred miles of the river of Egypt (Nile). A writer quaintly suggests that Jehovah could never have previously seen the country he selected for his holy people, or he would not have chosen it; for all modern travelers agree in describing it as being a poor, mountainous, rocky, barren, and desolate country. One writer says, "It is a country of rocks and mountains, stones, cliffs, bounded by vast, dreary, and uninhabitable deserts." St. Jerome describes it as being "the refuse and rubbish of nature." And this is the country, let it be remembered, that Jehovah promised his people as the chosen spot of the earth. How little he knew of geography!

5. Jehovah and Abraham appear to have been very intimate friends, as they ate and slept together; and the "Judge of all the earth" was often a guest in the little, narrow, mud-built hut of the patriarch to eat veal, parched corn, and griddle-cakes with him, and have his feet washed also by the old man (Gen. xviii. 18). From such circumstances it would appear that Jehovah traveled over the country in the character of a foot-pad or "tramp," and got into the mud occasionally. It is strange that Christians can read their Bible without noticing this disparaging caricature of their God.

6. Abraham's conduct towards his servant-girl Hagar is both I disgraceful and inhuman, as he first destroyed her character and virtue by criminal intimacy, and then turned her and her child into the wilderness to starve (Gen. xxi.). Such conduct is certainly very reprehensible.

7. And this is the man who is represented as being chosen by a God of infinite wisdom, infinite purity, and infinite holiness, to stand at the head of the moral regeneration and salvation of the whole human race. Such a conception is derogatory to the divine character, and demoralizing to those who read and believe it.

8. Among other immoral and disgraceful acts of "God's chosen servant," "the righteous patriarch," "the Holy man of God," was that of uttering the most shameful and unblushing falsehood. He is charged with intentional lying on two different occasions, in representing his wife as being his sister,—once to Pharaoh, and once to King Abimelech; and his wife indorsed \ his falsehood. (See Gen. chap. xii. and xx.)

9. And yet, in the face of all these immoral deeds, God is represented as saying, "Abraham kept all my commands, all my statutes, and all my laws." (See Gen. xxvi. 5.) Hence the inevitable conclusion that Abraham was living up to the commands, statutes, and laws of God, while committing these crimes and outrages upon humanity. What a moral, or rather immoral lesson, is this to place before the heathen of foreign countries, and the children of our own, who read the Bible! It must have a tendency to demoralize them, and encourage them in the commission of similar crimes, as certainly as they are beings endowed with human frailties. Note these facts.

10. And we find other disgraceful, as well as incredible, deeds charged to the father of "the faithful." The account of the surrender of his manhood, and the obliteration of every impulse parental feeling required to obtain his consent to butcher his son Isaac upon the altar, imparts a humiliating moral lesson (Gent. xxii.). It matters not that he did not commit the deed. He consented to do it, and was ready to do it; which proves a state of mind calculated to make humanity shudder. The New-Zealanders have been known to point the missionaries to this example as a justification of their cruel practices of slaughtering human beings. If a father in this age of civilization should do such a thing, or even attempt it as Abraham did, he would be looked upon as a monster in human shape, or perfectly insane, even if he should claim that God called upon him to perform the act. It would have been infinitely better to disobey such a God than to disobey and outrage every parental and kindly im-pulse of his nature. But the case furnishes prima-facie evidence that Abraham was under a religious delusion in supposing God required the performance of such an inhuman deed. To assume that he did would make him more of a demon than a God. Any man or woman is to be pitied whose education has misled him or her, and blinded them so that they can not see that the reading of a book teaching such lessons must prove morally injurious to the mind.

11. The injunction on Abraham to slay his son is said to have been imposed upon him to try his faith. His faith in what? I would ask. Faith in his own humanity? faith in his love and affection for his son? Nothing of the kind! but faith in his susceptibility of rendering himself an inhuman monster. Let us suppose a father says to his son, "Richard, I want you to draw a knife, and cut your brother Robert's throat;" and afterwards explains the matter by telling him he issued this order to try whether he would obey him. But his son would evince more manhood, and a better moral character, by refusing to obey him. It is much better to obey the dictates of conscience, humanity, and mercy, than to obey a father or a God in a case like this.