towards his brethren, the children of Israel, because they had broken from his authority-had slipped and exchanged his Lord for a "" calf"-a God which he by his own imaginings, and utmost skill, had constructed out of the discordant elements of nature. Moses' own record says that his "anger waxed hot" so soon as he saw the swap of gods that the people had made; and, in his fiery rage he smashed to pieces the tables of testimony which the Lord wrote and handed to him, when they parted, on the top of the mount. Then, according to the record, it was just at the moment of his hottest anger that Moses commenced to pray to the Lord, beseeching him that he would not destroy the objects of his, (Moses') "hot anger." Now, it is known to every individual who ever felt the movings of the spirit of God a controlling power in his own spiritual nature, that hot anger towards subordinate fellow-beings, and prayer to the Father of all spirit-life, in behalf of persons the objects of that vindictiveness, are too great contrarieties to harmoniously intermingle in devotional exercises, in any man, or woman— both emotions, anger and prayer, cannot commingle and both be of God. Therefore, the palpable impossibility of the truth of this story about Moses' devotional exercises is so evident, from its own narration, that it requires no refutative argument other than the truthful rehearsal of the story-it carries a falsehood upon its own face.

STANDARD HIS

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MOBOCRACY OF MOSES THE PRIESTS FLOCK ΤΟ HIS MOB KILLS THREE THOUSAND OF THE PEOPLE, THEN HE CALLS THE WORK OF HIS MOB THE PLAGUE OF THE LORD.

"And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame, amongst their enemies;) Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate yourself to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon And the Lord you a blessing this day. plagued the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made." [Ex. XXXII: 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 35.

*

*

*

SECTION 1. Probably, "The Lord God of Israel" may have dictated the matter of the above extract from Moses' record; but by this concession I concede this much, only: That the Lord God of Israel was an ideal image created by Moses, and by him set before the people for them to fall before and worship. In short, the Lord God of Israel was a false God; and, this Moses was the oracle of that false God to those he ruled, and the expounder of his proclamations and edicts to the people-not allowing the people to embrace any rival God, nor entertain any which would compete with his for their affections. The lowest hells of spirit-life contain no beings which possess a spirit more fiendish than did the author of the above proclamation and order. This oracle of the Supreme Myth gets fiercely angry because the

people see no loveliness in his ideal God and abandon it; then, in the moments of his hottest anger he, the oracle, in behalf of his, pretendedly, offended Lord, by proclamation, calls for volunteers for the service of his offended majesty, who was unable to protect his honor by fighting his own battles. In answer to the proclamation, the special favorites of the oracle, the pap-receivers of power-of the government-flock to his standard; thence, as before said, issues forth from the self-created oracle of the Myth supreme, the nefarious edict.

SEC. 2. I said, above, that the special favorites of the ruling authority-its pimps and pap-receivers-flocked to its standard at the sound of its first given note of alarm for its safety. Though the record be silent as to there having been any of Moses' pets who joined him in his murderous onslaught on the people, other than "the sons of Levi," the priests of his religion, undoubtedly, and as a matter of course, there were others, among which was Joshua-he was Moses' fighting general. But it was Moses who gave the order for his mob of Levites and favorites to strike, and as to the manner of dealing their blows. This order for the slaying of his kinsmen and countrymen, without being brought before any civil tribunal, and without paternal entreaty, even, and which was the penalty for the exercise of private judgment, in the matter of choice between two false godshis newly constructed god, and theirs, the god of their youth and former country--was given by Moses thus:

"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor."

SEC. 3. To say nothing of the humanity of man, dweller in the flesh, in his unperverted state, nor of what he would do, or what he would not do, while in that condition, all reclaimable vitiated moral agents, in the spirit-spheres, in their calm and reflective moments, would have shrunk from the issuing of that inhuman and atrocious order of Moses,

and the impious slander that it was, on their Father-God. Moses' power to control his fellowmen, with his policy, lay in the people's belief in his ideal, arbitrary, and vindictive God; he knew that if they ceased to believe in, and rejected his Myth, his power to rule them was at an end; hence, his great anxiety, and his "hot anger," and the severity of his measures, and the celerity of his movements, in murdering the people when they turned from the God which he created, to the recognition of the God of their youth, represented to their senses by the image of the ox-called, in pentateuchal parlance, "the golden calf."

SEC. 4. In what I have said, above, I have neither impeached the attributes of the Source of all spirit-life, nor have I denied God, the world's Savior; nor have I villified his character, in the least. His chief attributes are Justice, Truth, Mercy, and Loving-kindness, universal. His ways are the ways of Wisdom, Peace, and Harmony. These were the attributes and the characteristics of that God whom Jesus, of Nazareth, preached and taught his disciples to obey; and he enjoined it upon them that they should teach the same unto "all nations," to the world's end. But, "how art the mighty fallen!" Those now, to-day, who profess to preach the doctrines promulgated by this man of Nazareth, and teach in his name, teach the fiendish doctrines of Moses. Jesus taught that which, if exemplified in the lives of men, would redeem mankind from all their discordances. Those apostates, and illegitimates, who, to-day, are teaching religion in the name of Jesus, teach for the commandments of God and the precepts of Jesus, that which, if faithfully lived by man-carried out in his practice-will continue to damn mankind in remediless woes in this sphere of existence, and hurl him into the abyss of discordance in the next.

SEC. 5. I will here insert a few sentences mainly explanatory of the word "naked,” as used in the above quotation. It is there said that Aaron made the people naked; and also, it is there said, that, when Moses saw that the people

were naked, he assumed his sanguinary belligerent attitude toward them, and then called for those who would, to come to his standard-to come unto him. It is there further said that the mobocrats who went over to his side, "did according to the word of Moses," and slew three thousand of the people in one day. Moses had told every man comprising his mob, to put his sword by his side, (concealed of course,) and then by dextrous movements, they fell upon the people, who were unarmed, by surprise; and, at the word of Moses, they gave quarter to none; hence the great slaughtering of the people without any apparent resistance from them. Aaron had disarmed them, and this was their "nakedness," spoken of in the above quotation.

SEC. 6. The construction which I have put upon the word "naked," in the above extract from Moses' record, is not a forced one; neither is it far fetched, nor unjust to the record, as may be seen by an examination of the interpretations given to it in the writings of olden time. In alluding to the battle had with the Amalekites by the children of Israel, Josephus says:

"Thou didst bestow upon us the security of weapons when we were naked."

Then, one of the most influential orthodox biblical commentators, in commenting on this subject, remarks as follows:

"Besides, there are those who, by their being naked, understand they were unarmed: for Aaron had disarmed them to their shame, by setting up the calf for them to dance about; which made them lay aside all thoughts of their arms, and so were more easily slain by the Levites."

This was shrewd on the part of Aaron, who all the time was playing into the hands of Moses and Joshua. They were upon the mountain devising schemes how to override and rule the people, and the while Aaron was with the people in the valley, watching and participating in their doings, and keeping Moses and Joshua informed of the people's ways. Hence, possessing the knowledge which he