over their heads. But view them as patriots whom danger aroused from the repose of life; as pious men awakened by concern for the public virtue, and nobler men never spoke speech.
Out from the heart of Nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old.
Little needs now be said of the New Testament, of the simple truth that rustles in its leaves, its parables, epistles, where Paul lifts up his manly voice, and John, or whoso wrote the words, pours out the mystic melody of his faith. Why tell the deep words of Jesus? Have we exhausted their meaning? The world—has it outgrown Love to God and Man? They still act in gentle bosoms, giving strength to the strong, and justice and meekness and charity and faith to beautiful souls, long tried and oppressed. There is no need of new words to tell of this.
Now it is not in nature to respect the false, and yet
reverence the true. Call the Bible master—we do not see
the excellence it has. Take it as other books, we have its
Beauty, Truth, Religion, not its deformities, fables, and
theology. We shall not believe in ghosts, though Isaiah
did: nor in devils, though Jesus teach there are such.
We shall see the excellence of Paul in his manly character,
not in the miracles wrought by his apron; the nobleness
of Jesus, in the doctrine he taught and the life he lived,
not in the walk on the water or the miraculous draughts
of fish. We shall care little about the “endless
genealogies and old-wives' fables,” though still deemed essential
by many—but much for being good and doing good.
Our faith—let him shake down the Andes who has an arm
for that work.
On the other hand, he that accepts the monstrous prodigies of the Gospels; is delighted to believe that Jesus had divine authority for laying on forms, and damning all but the baptized; that he gave Peter authority to bind and loose on earth and in heaven; commanded his disciples to make friends of “the mammon of unrighteousness,” to tease God, as an unjust judge, into compliance, with vain repetitions—can he accept the Absolute Religion? It is not possible, for a long time, to make serious things of trifles, without making trifles of serious things. Cannot
