When I seriously believe a thing, I say so in a few words, leaving the reader to determine what my belief is worth. But I do not choose to temper down every expression of personal opinion into courteous generalities. Let us learn to speak plainly and intelligibly first, and, if it may be, gracefully afterwards.—John Ruskin.
TO make it possible for a man to be as honest in his religion as he would like to be in his business; to make him as unafraid in church as he aims to be anywhere else, and to help make him as impatient of a lie on Sunday as he is on any other day of the week, is the object of these studies on the bible. I wish to be able to kindle in the breast of every free citizen of this free country the love of truth, irrespective of whether it helps or hurts; I wish to shame cowardice and cant out of every man and woman who speaks the English language.
CONTENTS
A Word with the Reader—Protestant and Catholic
Catholic and Protestant Bibles
Catholics Make Their Own Bible
I. The Tercentenary of the English Bible
Some Lay Defenders of the Bible—Bryan's Challenge
What Is the Best Thing That Can Be Said in Favor of the Bible?
I. The First Chapter of the Bible