The worthlessness of the argument might be readily shown to any one accustomed to use his reason, by pointing out that the religious books of the Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Medea, Persians, and Etruscans, are lost to us. We may compare the assertion with that which Englishmen might have made, to the effect that the British breed of horses was superior to any other, for no one could show them a better; yet as soon as our Crusaders became acquainted with the Arabian steed, the value of the assumption was destroyed. Yet such a remark would be wholly inoperative on the mind of every bigot whose judgment of evidence is always bribed by his prejudice. Consequently, to make any serious impression upon the mind of the Bibliolater, it is desirable, if possible, to make copies of the holy images worshipped by other nations, under the name of sacred books, and to place these side by side with that grotesque production, which, for our purposes, may be compared to Diana of the Ephesians--the thing which fell down from Jupiter.
Yet even when we do bring from distant countries, to which in our complacency we give the name of "heathen," copies of their deified books, and show their equality with, or superiority to that which we are told was arranged by the disposition of angels (Acts vii. 53)--the scriptures that Paul (2 Tim. iii. 16) affirms were entirely given by inspiration of God [--Greek--], see also 1 Pet. i. 11, 12,--we are met by the assertion, if the equality is allowed, that the Pagan writings have been copied from, or are traceable to, the writers in the Old or in the New Testament.
Whenever a thoughtless theologian asserts that such a thing _must_ be so, he is not by any means particular as to the facts upon which he bases his belief. This weakness of his is so conspicuous to the logical observer, that he sometimes feels pity at having to wound a mind so earnest as to be unable to use its reason. He almost regards himself as a man fighting a child or a weak woman. Yet men will, in their power and knowledge, deprive a baby of a bon-bon, which it is sucking eagerly, if they know that it is poisonous, and will lay violent hands upon a tender girl who, in a whirlwind of passion, is about to throw herself before a railway train. After the event both the individuals may learn to thank the roughness which saved them; and I feel sure that many an earnest religionist, who now thinks that the philosophers are treating him cruelly, by trying to deprive him of a cherished faith, will ultimately be grateful for having been induced to cease grovelling in the dust of a coarse antiquity.