temper
the spread of certain doctrines."-(Dr. Mozley.)

of deliberate and audacious fraud set itself in action for

"No one can have attentively studied the subject without being struck by the absence of any such dogmas from the earlier records of the teachings of Jesus."-(Supernatural Religion.)

"The pure Deism of the first century was changed by the Church of Rome into the incomprehensible dogma of the Trinity."-(Gibbon's Christianity)

The religion of Thomas Paine was very much nearer the religion of Jesus Christ than that of any of the orthodox clergy the world over. These self-righteous persons are either lamentably ignorant of Paine's religion or lamentably deceptive and dishonest in denying that he had any religion. Would one who had no religion say (as did Thomas Paine,) "Do we want to contemplate the power, wisdom, munificence and mercy of God? We see them in the immensity of creation, in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed, in the abundance with which He fills the earth and in His not withholding this abundance. even from the unthankful?"

Paine's religion was the same as that of the late Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D., and were Paine living to-day he would be one of the strictest of the orthodox Christian Church, in its Unitarian branch. His creed and his religion, as expressed by himself, was, "I believe in one God only and hope for happiness in the world to come The world is my country; to do good is my religion." That is all there was of the religion of Christ.

In Moncure D. Conway's most interesting life of Thomas Paine, the author says of that truly logical book-the Age of Reason that Paine regarded it as a defense of true religion, from its degradation by superstition or destruction by atheism, these, as he declares, being the purposes of his work." Again Mr. Conways says, "So far as it is theological, the Age of Reason was meant to combat Infidelity."

In writing to Samuel Adams, from France, Paine says:

The people of France were running headlong into atheism, and I had the work (Age of Reason) translated into their own language to stop them in that career and fix them to the first article of every man's creed, who has any creed at all—I believe in God."

From the works of such eminent Christian writers as Rev. Samuel Davidson, D. D., Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, D. D., Drs. Oort, Kuenen and Hooykas, and other investigators into the Christianity of Christ and the subsequent engrafting thereon of what the Church has made the Christianity of the centuries succeeding that of Christ, can be found such information as would amaze those who think that the Christianity of to-day. is the same as that taught by its founder. Orthodox Christianity was utterly unknown to him. From the works of the writers alluded to can be shown facts which are rarely, if ever, presented by any of the orthodox clergy. It can be shown that no one knows who are the writers of the books of the Bible, or when such books were written, or what they were in the original.

There are no autograph writings of the books of either the Old or New Testament. Consequently there can be no evidence of any correct translation.

The priesthood have made these books to read just what it was their interest they should read. As to Christ himself, the records supposed to be furnished by persons of the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are the only records of Christ's life. These records differ materially. Among other differences is one of eleven years as to the time of Christ's birth. They were not written till a century and a half after Christ's death.

"The confused and irreconcilable accounts in the gospels of the life and death of Christ were manifestly written to supply a want of the Church in the second century."-(Waite.)

It is now ascertained that probably no persons of the names of those to whom are attributed the records of Christ's life, wrote those records; consequently they are anonymous writings, and therefore the whole of the life and ministry of

Christ has no authoritative name to satisfy us of its truthfulness. If such a person as Christ ever lived, he was doubtless a gentle-hearted, loving being, who was actuated by a desire to do all he could toward lightening the burdens, alleviating the sufferings and cheering the hearts of his fellowmen; having his sympathies with the poor, the weak and the lowly; always the enemy of injustice and tyranny. As illustrating how dif ferent this gentle character is sometimes presented to us, we quote from Luke xix: 27, which makes the kind and loving Jesus to say: "Those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay before me," words so utterly inconsistent with his nature could scarcely be imagined. No one who believes in the "meek and lowly" Jesus could possibly believe but that that quotation was the work of some ecclesiastical forger.

Col. R. G. Ingersoll has said: "For the man Jesus, who loved his fellowmen, I have the most profound respect; but for Christianity, as taught in orthodox creeds, I have the most supreme contempt.'

"Nothing can be more incredible than the account given of the birth of Jesus in the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke. Nothing can be more revolting."—(Rev. J. W. Chadwick.)

The further we have come down the centuries from the time of Christ, the further we appear to have departed from the religion of Christ. It is perhaps more true to-day than during any of the eighteen centuries that are past that the Christian religion, as represented by the orthodox Church, is Christian. only in name.

In the Arena for July, 1890, is an article by Rev. Carlos Martyn, D. D., entitled "Churchianity (or so-called Christianity) vs. Christianity," which illustrates this thought. Dr. Martyn says: It (Churchianity) is like counterfeit coin-current, but false. It puts the emphasis on belief, when it should put it on conduct. It builds cathedrals not men. Religion is transformed from a principle into an institution. We look for Christ and find a church. Phariseeism

is resurrected and baptized with a Christian name."

There appears, however, at the present time, a revolt in all our churches against the dogmas which have so long stood between the Church and the religion of Christ. Christians themselves are beginning to think these dogmas incompatible with the enlightened age in which we live, and that they should be "relegated to the limbo into which are flung the cast-off garments of vagabond theories."

Many are earnestly and anxiously asking the question of Rev. Dr. Heber Newton-" Will Christianity ever get back to Jesus Christ?"

Efforts in that direction are making most successful progress.

The Christian Register of Boston says: "We are at the beginning of a movement in religion more extensive than any recorded in history. Compared with it the Protestant reformation is a small episode. The movement is wider than any one religion and deeper than any one can measure. Five hundred years from now it will be seen that just before the twentieth century, the creeds of all nations and churches began to break up, and that throughout the world there was a rush of religious feeling which carried these fragments of creeds away."

66

The signs of the times" were never more favorable than now for a change from the effete theology of ecclesiastical councils and the dogmatic creeds of nominal Christianity, to the Christianity of primitive times-the Christianity of Christ.

THE

CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT.

HE word incongruity embraces in its meaning inconsistencies, contradictions, inaccuracies and absurdities, and as all these so abound in the books of the Bible, and as Christianity has adopted the Bible as the foundation of its faith, it, of course, adopts all that is incongruous in the Bible, so that the title of this article would seem to be both comprehensive and appropriate.

To speak of all the incongruities in the Bible or of the Christian religion would be a task impossible of accomplishment by anyone. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of them.

Prof. Ladd, of Yale University, says: "There are probably a hundred thousand errors in the text of the Bible."

The Truth-Seeker says: "In the collection of the manuscript for Grierback's edition, as many as 150,000 different readings of the scriptures are discovered."

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: "The history of the New Testament revision made generally known the fact that there were 150,000 disagreements in the various M. S. of the New Testament alone, upon which the reviewers were dependent for their knowledge of the original Greek.

While

the first forty chapters are, for the most part, actually, Isaiah, the last twenty-seven are from another prophet, who lived two centuries later. Yet there is not a hint of this in the revision.

The Book of Daniel was written two hundred years after Daniel's death. . . . Hundreds of years elapsed

from the time that the books of the Bible were collected and assumed their present form. Meantime they floated about, written upon tablets, or leaves of bark, and on parchment;