2. The man of taste and culture hears other Christians harping eternally
on two or three points, adopted perhaps from some dreamy author, and
denouncing all who question the correctness of their version of the
Gospel, as heretics or infidels, while all the time their notions have
little or no resemblance either to the Gospel or to common sense; but
are at best, only perversions or distortions of Christian doctrines,
which have no more likeness to the religion of Christ than a few broken
bricks have to a beautiful and magnificent palace.
3. In many cases the Christians with whom he meets have not only no
general knowledge of religious subjects, but no desire for such
knowledge. The Bible is their book, they say, and they want no other.
And they make but a pitiful use of that. They do not go to the Bible as
to a fountain of infinite knowledge, whose streams of truth blend
naturally with all the truths in the universe, but merely to refresh
their minds with a few misinterpreted passages, which ignorance and
bigotry are accustomed to use to support their misconceptions of
Christian doctrine. They use the book not to make them wise, but to keep
them ignorant. They dwell for ever on the same irrational fancies, and
repeat them for ever in the same outlandish jargon.
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