Page:Genesis I-II- (IA genesisiii00grot).pdf/16

6 In the Koran, which says: "Let there be no violence in religion," a verse we miss in the two testaments. And we should not forget that Mohammedanism has its strong side for good in its resolute denunciation of idolatry and polytheism, and that on this road which man has made through the entangling thickets of religious beliefs, Islam ranks next to Judaism and is in so far entitled to our respect and regard. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the reversion in religion to a lower type exhibited by Mormonism, is sought to be justified by the polygamous and polytheistic element in the Bible. But those parts of the Bible which teach morality and a pure conduct it seems foolish to reject. Certainly one feels like taking all one can from a book like the Bible, in which we all have a right and which has descended, a stream of ideas and experience, from a long past, the commingling of the flow of many centuries of thought. We should be tolerant of what may appear defects in the Bible in order to take a just attitude toward that book and to relieve ourselves of the charge of hasty criticism on one side or the other. All this does not prevent our studying the Bible and its origin a part from the lessons it conveys. At present we see how it lures the mass of people, setting before them bread and wine, doing them good, and then transforming them into idolaters unawares. The companions of Olysses are fabled to have retained their human minds in the bodies of the swine into which the enchantress Circe had changed them, and something like this is seen to happen with those who have fallen under the solid sway of the Bible. We know them, tender and true, under this strange disguise. Ah, if the could only throw it off and become reasonable as well as loving! Matthew Arnold says, that he who would read his Bible to advantage must study other books as well, and he who only reads the Bible cannot understand it fully.

The beautiful prayer: Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord! is in reality best uttered by those who are doing something in the direction of working for light. To pray in this way and then to turn our backs to the light must be both stupid and