here on this earth of the prince of this world, that is, the devil, and
that is taught both in the Old Testament and in the New, that man is
this kind of a being, this is forever gone. There is no rational,
intelligent, free belief in it left.

Then the old theory of the Bible has been taken away, that theory which
makes it a book without error or flaw, and makes us under the highest
obligation to receive all its teachings as the veritable word of God,
whether they seem to us hideous, blasphemous, immoral, degrading, or
not. This is gone.

Professor Goldwin Smith, in an article published within a year, treats
the belief, the continued holding to this old theory about the Bible,
under the head of Christianity's "Millstone." He writes from the point
of view of the old belief; but he says, if Christianity is going to be
saved, this millstone must be taken off from about its neck, and
allowed to sink into the sea.

If we hold that theory, what? Why, then, we must still believe that, in
order to help on the slaughter of his enemies on the part of a
barbarian general, God stopped the whole machinery of the universe for
hours until he got through with his killing. We must believe the
literal story of Jonah's being swallowed by the whale. We must believe
no end of incredibilities; and then, if we dare to read with our eyes
open, we must believe immoral things, cruel things, about men and about
God, things which our civilization would not endure, were it not for
the power of tradition, which hallows that which used to be believed in
the past.

This conception of the Bible, then, is gone.