THE DESTROYER OF WEEDS, THISTLES AND THORNS, IS A BENEFACTOR PRICE 35 CENTS The only complete and authorized edition NEW YORK C. P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER 117 EAST 21ST STREET 1912 UNIVERSITY OF ᄋᄋ ΤΟ MRS. SUE. M. FARRELL, IN LAW MY SISTER, AND IN FACT MY FRIEND, THIS VOLUME, AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND LOVE IS DEDICATED. 1245555 PREFACE. OR many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated facts. To me it seemed almost a crime to teach that this record was written by inspired men; that slavery, polygamy, wars of conquest and extermination were right, and that there was a time when men could win the approbation of infinite Intelligence, Justice, and Mercy, by violating maidens and by butchering babes. To me it seemed more reasonable that savage men had made these laws; and I endeavored in a lecture, entitled “Some Mistakes of Moses," to point out some of the errors, |