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<html>
    <h1>
      BIBLE ROMANCES
    </h1>
    <h3>
      First Series
    </h3>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By G. W. Foote
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE CREATION STORY. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOAH'S FLOOD. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> EVE AND THE APPLE. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE BIBLE DEVIL. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE TEN PLAGUES; </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> JONAH AND THE WHALE. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE WANDERING JEWS. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE TOWER OF BABEL. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> BALAAM'S ASS. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> GOD'S THIEVES IN CANAAN. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> CAIN AND ABEL. </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> LOT'S WIFE. </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
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    </p>
    <h2>
      THE CREATION STORY.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;1.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Book of Genesis is generally thought, as Professor Huxley says, to
      contain the beginning and the end of sound science. The mythology of the
      Jews is held to be a divine revelation of the early history of man, and of
      the cosmic changes preparatory to his creation. The masses of the people
      in every Christian country are taught in their childhood that God created
      the universe, including this earth with all its flora and fauna, in five
      days; that he created man, "the bright consummate flower" of his work, on
      the sixth day, and rested on the seventh. Yet every student knows this
      conception to be utterly false; every man of science rejects it as absurd;
      and even the clergy themselves mostly disbelieve it Why, then, do they not
      disabuse the popular mind, and preach what they deem true instead of what
      they know to be false? The answer is very simple. Because they feel that
      the doctrine of the Fall is bound up with the Genesaic account of
      Creation, and that if the latter be discredited the former will not long
      be retained. The doctrine of the Fall being the foundation of the scheme
      of Atonement, the clergy will never admit the Creation Story to be
      mythical until they are forced to do so by external pressure. At any rate
      they cannot be expected to proclaim its falsity, since by so doing they
      would destroy the main prop of their power. What the recognised teachers
      of religion will not do, however, should not be left undone, especially
      when it is so needful and important. Men of science, by teaching positive
      and indisputable truths, are gradually but surely revolutionising the
      world of thought, and dethroning the priesthoods of mystery and
      superstition. Yet their influence on the masses is indirect, and they do
      not often trouble themselves to show the contradiction between their
      discoveries and what is preached from the pulpit. Perhaps they are right.
      But it is also right that others should appeal to the people in the name
      not only of science, but also of scholarship and common sense, and show
      them the incredible absurdity of much that the clergy are handsomely paid
      to preach as the veritable and infallible Word of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Creation Story, with which the Book of Genesis opens, is incoherent,
      discrepant, and intrinsically absurd, as we shall attempt to show. It is
      also discordant with the plainest truths of Science. Let us examine it,
      after casting aside all prejudice and predilection.
    </p>
    <p>
      If the universe, including this earth and its principal inhabitant, man,
      was created in six days, it follows that less than six thousand years ago
      chaos reigned throughout nature. This, however, is clearly untrue. Our
      earth has revolved round its central sun for numberless millions of years.
      Geology proves also that million years have elapsed since organic
      existence first appeared on the earth's surface, and this world became the
      theatre of life and death. Darwin speaks of the known history of the world
      as "of a length quite incomprehensible by us," yet even that he affirms
      "will hereafter be recognised as a mere fragment of time" com-pared with
      the vast periods which Biology will demand. The instructed members of the
      Church have long recognised these-statements as substantially true, and
      they have tried to reconcile them with Scripture by assuming that the word
      which in the History of Creation is rendered <i>day</i> really means a <i>period</i>,
      that is an elastic space of time which may be expanded or contracted to
      suit all requirements. But there are two fatal objections to this
      assumption. In the first place, the same word is rendered <i>day</i> in
      the fourth commandment, and if it means period in Genesis it means period
      in Exodus. In that case we are commanded to work six periods and rest on
      the seventh, and each period must cover a geological epoch. How pleasant
      for those who happen to be born in the seventh period, how unpleasant for
      those born in one of the six! The lives of the one class all work, those
      of the other all play! In the second place, the account of each day's
      creation concludes with the refrain "and the evening and the morning were
      the first (or other) day." Now evening and morning are terms which mark
      the luminous gradations between night and day, and these phenomena, like
      night and day, depend on the earth's revolving on its axis and presenting
      different portions of its surface to the sun. Evening and morning clearly
      imply a space of twenty-four hours, and the writer of Genesis, whoever he
      was, would probably be surprised at any other interpretation of his words.
      It is sometimes argued, as for instance by Dr. M'Caul, that these primeval
      days were of vast and unknown duration, the evening and the morning not
      being dependent on their present causes. But this supposition could only
      apply to the first three days, for the sun, moon, and stars were created
      on the fourth day, expressly "to rule over the day and over the night, and
      to divide the light from the darkness." The fifth and sixth days, at
      least, must be understood as of normal length, and thus the chronological
      difficulties remain. All animal life was brought into existence on the
      last two days, and therefore the Bible still allows an antiquity of less
      than six thousand years for the world's fauna. Geology and Biology allow
      millions of years. Here then Science and the Bible are in flagrant and
      irreconcilable contradiction.
    </p>
    <p>
      The fact that the writer of Genesis represents light as existing three
      days before the creation of the sun, the source of light, has frequently
      been noticed. One learned commentator supposed that God had infused a
      certain "luminosity" through the air, which was not exactly the same as
      the light of the sun. But light is not a <i>thing</i>; it is a phenomenon
      caused by definite laws of astronomy and optics. Such explanations are but
      fanciful refuges of superstition. "God said let there be light and there
      was light," is not the language of science and history, but the language
      of poetry. As such it is sublime. We find a similar expression in the
      Vedas of the Hindoos: "He thought, I will create worlds, and they were
      there!" Both become ridiculous when presented to us as a scientific
      statement The physical astronomer knows how worlds are formed, as well as
      how their movements are determined; he knows also the causes of light; and
      he knows that none of these processes resembles the accounts given in the
      Creation Stories of the Hebrews and the Hindoos.
    </p>
    <p>
      Science knows nothing of six creative epochs, any more than of six
      creative days; and it is quite certain that the order of Creation given in
      Genesis differs widely from the revelations of Geology. For instance (and
      one instance in such a case is as good as a thousand), fish and fowl are
      said to have been created on the same day. Let us, for the sake of
      argument, assume that day means period. The conclusion still is that fish
      and fowl were created together. Starting from this conclusion, what should
      we expect to find in our geological researches? Why, the fossil remains of
      fish and of fowl in the same epochs. But we find nothing of the kind.
      Marine animals antedate the carboniferous period, during which all our
      coal deposits were laid, but no remains of fowl are found until a later
      period. Now the carboniferious period alone, according to Sir William
      Thompson, covers many millions of years; so that instead of fish and fowl
      being contemporaneous, we find them geologically separated by
      inconceivable spaces of time. Here again the Bible and Science fatally
      disagree.
    </p>
    <p>
      Even if we admit that the fifth day of creation was a <i>period</i>, the
      chronology of the Bible is still fatally at variance with fact With
      respect to the antiquity of the human race, it is precise and
      unmistakable. It gives us the age of Adam at his death, and the ages of
      the other antediluvian patriarchs. From the Flood the genealogies are
      carefully recorded, until we enter the historic period, after which there
      is not much room for dispute. From the creation of Adam to the birth of
      Christ, the Bible allows about four thousand years. The antiquity of the
      human race, therefore, according to Scripture, is less than six thousand
      years. Science, however, proves that this is but a fragment of the vast
      period during which man has inhabited the earth. There was a civilisation
      in Egypt thousands of years before the alleged creation of Adam. The
      Cushite civilisation was even more ancient Archaeology shows us traces of
      man's presence, in a ruder state, long before that. The researches of Mr.
      Pengelly in Kent's Cavern prove that cave-men lived there more than
      two-hundred thousand years ago; while geological investigations in the
      Valley of the Somme have established the fact that primitive men existed
      there in the tertiary period. Professor Draper writes:&mdash;"So far as
      investigations have gone, they indisputably-refer the existence of man to
      a date remote from us by many hundreds of thousands of years. It must be
      borne in mind that these investigations are quite recent, and confined to
      a very limited geographical space. No researches have yet been made in
      those regions which might reasonably be regarded as the primitive habitat
      of man. We are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand
      years of Patristic chronology. It is difficult to assign a shorter date
      for the last glaciation of Europe than a quarter of a million of years,
      and <i>human existence antedates that</i>. The chronology of the Bible is
      thus altogether obsolete."
    </p>
    <p>
      The idea of a seven-days' creation was not confined to the Jews: it was
      shared by the Persians and Etruscans. The division of the year into months
      and weeks is a general, although not a universal practice. The ancient
      Egyptians observed a ten-days' week, but the seven-days' week was well
      known to them. The naming of the days of the week after the seven Planets
      was noted by Dion Cassius as originally an Egyptian custom, which spread
      from Egypt into the Roman Empire. The Brahmins of India also distinguish
      the days of the week by the planetary names. This division of time was
      purely astronomical. The Jews kept the Feast of the New Moon, and other of
      their ceremonies were determined by lunar and solar phenomena. We may be
      sure that the myth of a seven-days' creation followed and did not precede
      the regular observance of that period.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is one feature of the Hebrew story of creation which shows how
      anthropomorphic they were. The Persians represent Ormuzd as keeping high
      festival with his angels on the seventh day, after creating all things in
      six. But the Hebrews represent Jehovah as <i>resting</i> on the seventh
      day, as though the arduous labors of creation had completely exhausted his
      energies. Fancy <i>Omnipotence</i> requiring rest to recruit its strength!
      The Bible, and especially in its earlier parts, is grossly
      anthropomorphic. It exhibits God as conversing with men, sharing their
      repasts, and helping them to slaughter their foes. It represents him as
      visible to human eyes, and in one instance as giving Moses a back view of
      his person. Yet these childish fancies are still thrust upon as divine
      truths, which if we disbelieve we shall be eternally damned!
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us now examine the Creation Story internally. In the first place we
      find two distinct records, the one occupying the whole of the first
      chapter of Genesis and the first three verses of the second, at which
      point the other commences. These two records belong to different periods
      of Jewish history. The older one is the Elohistic, so called because the
      creator is designated by the plural term <i>Elohim</i>, which in our
      version is translated <i>God</i>. The more modern one is the Jehovistic,
      in which Elohim is combined with the singular term <i>Jehovah</i>,
      translated in our-version <i>the Lord God</i>. The Elohistic and
      Jehovistic accounts both relate the creation of man, but instead of
      agreeing they widely differ. The former makes God create man in his own
      image; the latter does not even allude to this important circumstance. The
      former represents man as created male and female at the outset; the latter
      represents the male as created first, and the female for a special reason
      afterwards. In the former God enjoins the primal pair to "be fruitful and
      multiply and replenish the earth;" in the latter there is no such
      injunction, but on the contrary, the bringing forth of children in sorrow
      is imposed upon the woman as a punishment for her sin, and she does not
      appear to have borne any offspring until after the expulsion from the
      Garden of Eden. Lastly, the Elohistic record makes no mention of this
      Paradise, in which, according to the Jehovistic record, the drama of the
      Fall was enacted, but represents man as immediately commissioned to subdue
      and populate the world. Such discrepancies are enough to stagger the
      blindest credulity.
    </p>
    <p>
      We now proceed to examine the Jehovistic account of Creation in detail. We
      read that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, the Hebrew
      word for which is <i>adamah</i>. The word Adam means "be red," and <i>adamah</i>
      may be referred to the red soil of Palestine. Kalisch also observes that
      man may have been originally called Adam on account of the red color of
      his skin. The Chinese represent man as kneaded of <i>yellow</i> earth, and
      the <i>red</i> Indians of <i>red</i> clay. The belief that man was formed
      of earth was not confined to the Jews, but has been almost universal, and
      undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after death return to the
      earth and resolve into the elements. The Lord God placed this forlorn
      first man in the Garden of Eden with the command to till it, and
      permission to eat of the fruit of all its trees except "the tree of
      knowledge of good and evil." How Adam trespassed and fell, and brought a
      curse upon himself and all his innocent posterity, we shall consider in
      another pamphlet. The story of the Fall is infinitely curious and
      diverting, and must be treated separately.
    </p>
    <p>
      Adam's first exploit, after he had taken a good look round him, was very
      marvellous. All the cattle and beasts of the field and fowl of the air
      were brought before him to be named, and "whatsover Adam called every
      living creature, that was the name thereof." This first Zoological
      Dictionary is unfortunately lost, or we should be able to call every
      animal by its right name, which would doubtless gratify them as well as
      ourselves. The fishes and insects were not included in this primitive
      nomenclature, so the loss of the Dictionary does not concern them.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lord made the animals pass before Adam seemingly with the expectation
      that he would choose a partner from amongst them. Nothing, however, struck
      his fancy. If he had fallen in love with a female gorilla or
      ourang-outang, what a difference it would have made in the world's
      history!
    </p>
    <p>
      After this wonderful exploit "the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon
      Adam," who surely must have been tired enough to fall into a good sound
      natural sleep, without a heavenly narcotic. While in this state one of his
      ribs was extracted for a purpose we shall presently refer to, and which he
      discovered when he awoke. This curious surgical operation involves a
      dilemma. If Adam was upright after it, he must have been lopsided before;
      if he was upright before it, he must have been lopsided after. In either
      case the poor man was very scurvily treated.
    </p>
    <p>
      It has been maintained that God provided Adam with another rib in place of
      the one extracted. But this is a mere conjecture. Besides, if the Lord had
      a spare rib in stock he might have made a woman of it, without cutting
      poor Adam open and making a <i>pre mortem</i> examination of his inside.
    </p>
    <p>
      The divine operator's purpose was a good one, whatever we may think of his
      means. He had discovered, what Omniscience would have foreknown, that it
      was not good for man to be alone, and had resolved to make him a
      help-meet. Adam's "spare rib" was the raw material of which his wife was
      manufactured. The Greenlanders believed that the first woman was fashioned
      out of the man's <i>thumb</i>. The woman was brought to Adam, who said&mdash;"This
      is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." Not a word did he say about
      "soul of my soul." Perhaps he suspected she had none, and with some truth,
      if we go no further than our English version. When the Lord God made man,
      he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
      soul," but apparently no such operation was performed on Eve. Indeed, it
      is very difficult to prove from the Bible that woman has a soul at all.
      Women should reflect on this. They should also reflect on the invidious
      fact that they were not included in the original scheme of things, but
      thrown in as a make-weight afterwards. Let them ponder this a while, and
      the churches and chapels in which this story is taught would soon be
      emptied. The majority of those who occupy seats in such places wear
      bonnets, and most of those who don't, go there for the sake of those who
      do.
    </p>
    <p>
      When Adam had thus accosted his bride he grew prophetical. "Therefore,"
      said he, "shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
      unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." In his desire to give the
      institution of marriage the highest sanction, the writer of this story
      perpetrated a gross anachronism. Adam had no parents, nor any experience
      of marriage. Unless, therefore, we credit him with superhuman prescience,
      it is absurd to make him talk in this way.
    </p>
    <p>
      Eve's name, no less than Adam's, betrays the mythological character of the
      story. It means the "mother of all," and was evidently applied to her by
      the Jewish writers in order to signify her supposed relationship to the
      human race.
    </p>
    <p>
      While God was engaged in the work of creation, why did he not make two
      human couples, instead of one? The arrangement he adopted involved the
      propagation of the human species through incest Adam and Eve's sons must
      have had children by their sisters. If two couples had been created, their
      families might have intermarried, and mankind would not then have sprang
      from the incestuous intercourse of the very first generation. Surely
      omnipotence might have obviated the necessity of a crime against which
      civilised consciences revolt with unspeakable disgust.
    </p>
    <p>
      Adam and Eve were placed by God in the Garden of Eden. "Eden," says
      Kalisch, "comprised that tract of land where the Euphrates and Tigris
      separate; from that spot the 'garden in Eden' cannot be distant. Let it
      suffice that we know its general position." Its exact position can never
      be ascertained. What a pity it is that Noah did not occupy some of his
      leisure time, during the centuries he lived after his exit from the ark,
      in writing a typography of the antediluvian world! The Greeks placed
      Paradise in the Islands of the Blessed, beyond the Pillars of Hercules in
      the western main. The Swede, Rudbeck, asserts that Paradise was in
      Scandinavia; some Russian writers supposed it to have been in Siberia; and
      the German writers, Hasse and Schulz, on the coast of Prussia. Eastern
      traditions place it in Ceylon, and regard the mountain of Rahoun as the
      spot where Adam was buried. Some old Christian writers hazarded the theory
      that Paradise was beyond the earth altogether, on the other side of the
      ocean which they conceived to encircle it, and that Noah was conveyed to
      our planet by the deluge. Kalisch gives a long list of ancient and modern
      authorities on the subject, who differ widely from each other as to the
      actual position of Eden, their only point of agreement being that it was
      <i>somewhere</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Creation Story of the Bible cannot be considered as anything but a
      Hebrew myth. Scholars have abundantly shown the absurdity of supposing
      that Moses wrote it. Doubtless, as a piece of traditional mythology, it is
      very ancient, but it cannot be traced back in its present literary form
      beyond the Babylonish captivity. Men of science without exception
      disbelieve it, not only with regard to the world in general, but also with
      regard to the human race. In his famous article on "The Method and Results
      of Ethnology," Professor Huxley made this declaration:&mdash;"There are
      those who represent the most numerous, respectable, and would-be orthodox
      of the public, and who may be called 'Adamites,' pure and simple. They
      believe that Adam was made out of earth somewhere in Asia, about six
      thousand years ago; that Eve was modelled from one of his ribs; and that
      the progeny of these two having been reduced to the eight persons who
      landed on the summit of Mount Ararat after an universal deluge, all the
      nations of the earth have proceeded from these last, have migrated to
      their present localities, and have become converted into negroes,
      Australians, Mongolians, etc., within that time. Five-sixths of the public
      are taught this Adamitic Monogenism as if it were an established truth,
      and believe it. I do not; and I am not acquainted with any man of science,
      or duly instructed person, who does." The clergy, then, who go on teaching
      this old Creation Story as true, are either unduly instructed or
      dishonest, ignorant or fraudulent, blind guides or base deceivers. It is
      not for us to determine to which class any priest or preacher belongs: let
      the conscience of each, as assuredly it will, decide that for himself. But
      ignorant or dishonest, we affirm, is every one of them who still teaches
      the Creation Story as a record of actual facts, or as anything but a
      Hebrew myth.
    </p>
    <p>
      The origin of the human race is far different from that recorded in
      Genesis. Man has undoubtedly been developed from a lower form of life. The
      rude remains of primitive men show that they were vastly inferior to the
      present civilised inhabitants of the world, and even inferior to the
      lowest savages with whom we are now acquainted. Their physical and mental
      condition was not far removed from that of the higher apes; and the
      general opinion of biologists is that they were descended from the Old
      World branch of the great Simian family. There is, indeed, no <i>absolute</i>
      proof of this, nor is it probable that there ever will be, as the fossil
      links between primitive man and his Simian progenitor, if they exist at
      all, are most likely buried in that sunken continent over which roll the
      waters of the South Pacific Ocean. But as the line of natural development
      can be carried back so far without break, there is no reason why it should
      not be carried farther. The evolution theory is now almost universally
      accepted by men of science, and few of them suppose that man can be
      exempted from the general laws of biology. At any rate, the Bible account
      of Creation is thoroughly exploded, and when that is gone there is nothing
      to hinder our complete acceptance of the only theory of man's origin which
      is consistent with the facts of his history, and explains the
      peculiarities of his physical structure.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      NOAH'S FLOOD.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES&mdash;2.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Bible story of the Deluge is at once the biggest and the most
      ridiculous in the whole volume. Any person who reads it with the eyes of
      common sense, and some slight knowledge of science, must admit that it is
      altogether incredible and absurd, and that the book which contains it
      cannot be the Word of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      About 1,656 years after God created Adam, and placed him in the garden of
      Eden, the world had become populous and extremely wicked; indeed, every
      thought and imagination of man's heart was evil continually. What was the
      cause of all this wickedness we are not informed; but we are told that the
      sons of God took unto them wives of the daughters of men because they were
      fair, and we are led to suppose that these matches produced giants and
      other incurably wicked offspring. No physiological reason is assigned for
      this Strange result, nor perhaps was there any present to the mind of the
      writer, who probably had witnessed unhappy marriages in his own family,
      and was anxious to warn his readers, however vaguely, against allowing
      their daughters to be inveigled into matrimonial bonds with pious
      sniffling fellows, who professed themselves peculiarly the children of
      their Father in heaven. However, the narrative is clear as to the fact
      itself: men had all gone irrecoverably astray, and God had repented that
      he ever made them. In such a case an earthly human father would naturally
      have attempted to improve his family; but the Almighty Father either was
      too indifferent to do so, or was too well aware of the impossibility of
      reforming his own wretched offspring; and therefore he determined to drown
      them all at one fell swoop, just as cat-loving old ladies dispose of a too
      numerous and embarrassing feline progeny. Bethinking him, however, God
      resolved to save alive one family to perpetuate the race: he was willing
      to give his creatures another chance, and then, if they persisted in going
      the wrong way, it would still be easy to drown the lot of them again, and
      that without any reservation. He had also resolved at first to destroy
      every living thing from off the face of the earth; but he afterwards
      decided to spare from destruction two of every species of unclean beasts,
      male and female, and fourteen, male and female, of all clean beasts and of
      all fowls of the air and of every creeping thing. Noah, his wife, his
      three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives (eight persons in all),
      were the only human beings to be preserved from the terrible fate of
      drowning.
    </p>
    <p>
      Noah was commanded by God to build an ark for the reception-of the
      precious living freight, the dimensions of which were to be, in English
      measure, 550 <i>feet long</i>, 93 <i>feet wide</i>, <i>and 55 feet deep</i>.
      Into this floating box they all got; the flood then came and covered the
      earth, and all besides were drowned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now this is a very strange, a very startling story; it seems more like a
      chapter from the "Arabian Nights" or the "Adventures of Baron Munchausen"
      than from the sacred Scriptures of any Religion. Carnal reason prompts us
      to ask many questions about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      1. How did Noah contrive to bring these beasts, birds, and insects all
      together in one spot? The task seems superhuman. Some species could be
      found only in very remote places&mdash;the kangaroo only in Australia, the
      sloth only in South America, the polar bear only in the Arctic regions.
      How could Noah, in those days of difficult locomotion, have journeyed in
      search of these across broad rivers, and over continents and oceans? Did
      he bring them singly to his dwelling-place in Asia, or did he travel
      hither and thither with his menagerie, and finish the collection before
      returning home? There are, according to Hugh Miller, 1,658 known species
      of mammalia, 6,266 of birds, 642 of reptiles, and 550,000 of insects; how
      <i>could</i> one man, or a hundred men, have collected specimens of these
      in those days, and in such &amp; brief space of time? The beasts, clean
      and unclean, male and female, might be got together by means of terrible
      exertion; but surely to assemble the birds and reptiles and insects must
      transcend human capacity. Some of the last class would of course not
      require much seeking; they visit us whether we desire their company or
      not; and the difficulty would not be how to get them into the ark, but how
      on earth to keep them out. Others, however, would give infinite trouble.
      Fancy Noah occupied in a <i>wild-goose</i> chase, or selecting specimens
      from a wasps' or hornets' nest, or giving assiduous chase to a vigilant
      and elusive bluebottle fly!
    </p>
    <p>
      But suppose Noah to have succeeded in his arduous enterprise, the question
      still remains, how did he keep his wonderful zoological collection alive?
      Some of them could live only in certain latitudes; the inhabitants of cold
      climates would melt away amidst the torrid heat of Central Asia. Then,
      again, there are some insects that live only a few hours, and some that
      live a few days at the utmost: what means were adopted for preserving
      these? Some animals, too, do not pair, but run in herds; many species of
      fish swim in shoals; sometimes males and sometimes females predominate, as
      in the case of deer, where one male heads and appropriates a whole herd of
      females, or in the case of bees, where many males are devoted to the queen
      of the hive. These could not have gone in pairs, or lived in pairs; their
      instincts pointed to another method of grouping. How did Noah provide for
      <i>their</i> due preservation? When these questions are answered others
      speedily arise; in fact, there is no end to the difficulties of this
      marvellous story.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. Whence and how did Noah procure the food for his huge menagerie? That
      he was obliged to do so, that the animals were not miraculously preserved
      without food, we are certain; for he was expressly commanded by God to
      gather food for himself and for them. "Take thou unto thee," it was said
      to him, "of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and
      it shall be for food for thee, and for them." What provision was made for
      the <i>carnivorous</i> animals, for lions, tigers, vultures, kites, and
      hawks? Some of these would require not simply meat, but <i>fresh</i> meat,
      which could not be provided for them unless superfluous animals were taken
      into the ark to be killed, or Noah had learned the art of potting flesh.
      Otters would require fish, chameleons flies, woodpeckers grubs,
      night-hawks moths, and humming-birds the honey of flowers. What vast
      quantities of water also would be consumed! In fact, the task of
      collecting food to last all the inmates of the ark, including the eight
      human beings, for more than a year, must have been greater even than that
      of bringing them together in the first place from every zone. The labors
      of Hercules were mere trifles compared with those of Noah. Poor old
      patriarch! He amply earned <i>his</i> salvation. Had he been possessed of
      one tithe of Jacob's cunning and business sagacity, he would have struck a
      better bargain with God, and have got into the ark on somewhat easier
      terms. Few men would have undertaken so much to gain so little.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. How were all the animals, with their food, got into the ark? The
      dimensions as given in the Bible would be insufficient to accommodate a
      tithe of them; the ark could not have contained them all, if they were
      packed together like herrings or sardines. Even if they were so packed,
      space would still be required for their food; and for what a vast
      quantity! An animal even with man's moderate appetite would consume in the
      course of twelve months solid matter to the extent of four or five times
      its own weight, and some animals are of course far more voracious. This
      difficulty as to stowing the animals and their food into the ark is quite
      insuperable; it is not to be obviated by any employment of miraculous
      intervention. Not even omnipotence can make a clock strike less than one,
      and God himself must fail to make two things occupy the same space at the
      same time.
    </p>
    <p>
      4. How where the inmates of this floating menagerie, supposing them got
      in, supplied with fresh air? According to the Bible narrative the ark was
      furnished with but one window of a cubit square, and one door which was
      shut by God himself, and it may be presumed, quite securely fastened. Talk
      about the Black-hole of Calcutta, why it was nothing to this! What a
      scramble there must have been for that solitary window and a mouthful of
      fresh air! Lions, tigers, jackals, hyaenas, boa-constrictors, kangaroos,
      eagles, owls, bees, wasps, bluebottles, with Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet,
      and their wives, all in one fierce melee. But the contention for the
      precious vital air must, however violent, have soon subsided: fifteen
      minutes would have settled them all. Yet curiously enough the choking
      animals-suffered no appreciable injury; by some occult means they were all
      preserved from harm; which furnishes another illustration of the
      mysterious ways of God. What powerful perfumes, too, must have arisen from
      all those animals! So powerful indeed that even the rancid flavor of foxes
      and skunks must have been undistinguishable from the blended scents of all
      their fellow passengers. Those who have visited Wombwell's menagerie, or
      stood in the monkey-house of the Zoological Gardens, doubtless retain a
      lively recollection of olfactory disgust, even although in those places
      the must scrupulous cleanliness is observed; but their experience of such
      smells would have been totally eclipsed if they could but for a moment
      have stood within Noah's ark amidst all its heterogeneous denizens.
      However the patriarch and his sons managed to cleanse this worse than
      Augean stable passes all understanding. And then what trampings they must
      have had up and down those flights of stairs communicating with the three
      storeys of the ark, in order to cast all the filth out of that one window.
      No wonder their children afterwards began to build a tower of Babel to
      reach unto heaven; it was quite natural that they should desire plenty of
      steps, to mount, so as to gratify fully the itch of climbing they had
      inherited from their parents.
    </p>
    <p>
      5. Where did all the water come from? According to the Bible story the
      waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days, and covered all
      the high hills and mountains under the whole heaven. Now mount Ararat
      itself, on which the Ark eventually rested, is seventeen thousand feet
      high, and the utmost peaks of Himalaya are nearly twice as high as that;
      and to cover the whole earth with water to such a tremendous height would
      require an immense quantity of water; in fact, about eight times as much
      as is contained in all the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans of our globe.
      Whence did all this water come? The Scripture explanation is sadly
      insufficient; the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the
      windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth for forty
      days and forty nights. The writer evidently thought that there were great
      fountains at the bottom of the sea, capable of supplying water in
      unlimited quantities from some central reservoir; but science knows
      nothing whatever about them; nay, science tells us that the internal
      reservoir, if there be one, must contain not water, but liquid fire. If <i>this</i>
      great reservoir poured its contents into the sea, the result would be
      similar to that frightful catastrophe imagined by the Yankee who wished to
      see Niagara Falls pour into Mount Vesuvius.
    </p>
    <p>
      The supply from that quarter thus failing, we are forced back upon the
      rain which descended from the windows of heaven, wherever they may be. It
      rained forty days and forty nights. Forty days and forty nights! Why forty
      million days and nights of rain would not have sufficed. The writer was
      evidently in total ignorance of the laws of hydrology. The rain which
      falls from the clouds originally comes from the waters of the earth, being
      absorbed into the atmosphere by the process of evaporation. The utmost
      quantity of water that can thus be held in suspense throughout the entire
      atmosphere is very small; in fact, if precipitated, it would only cover
      the ground to the depth of about five inches. After the first
      precipitation of rain, the process of evaporation would have to be
      repeated; that is, for every additional descent of rain a proportionate
      quantity of water would have to be extracted from the rivers, lakes, and
      seas below. Now, surely every sane man must perceive that this pretty
      juggle could not add one single drop to the previously existing amount of
      water, any more than a man could make himself rich by taking money out of
      one pocket and putting it into another. The fabled man who is reported to
      have occupied himself with dipping up water from one side of a boat and
      emptying it over on the other, hoping thereby to bale the ocean dry, must
      have been the real author of this story of Noah and his wonderful ark.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some Christian writers, such as Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Barry, and Hugh Miller,
      have contended that the author of the book of Genesis is describing not a
      universal but a partial deluge; not a flood which submerged the whole
      earth, out one that merely covered some particular part of the great
      Central Asian plains. But surely, apart from any consideration pertaining
      to the very emphatic language of the text, rational men must perceive that
      the difficulty is not obviated by this explanation, but rather increased.
      How could the waters ascend in one place to the height of seventeen
      thousand feet (the height of Mount Ararat) without overflowing the
      adjacent districts, and, indeed, the whole earth, in conformity to the law
      of gravitation? Delitzch is bold enough to assert that the flood of water
      was ejected with such force from the fountains beneath that it assumed
      quite naturally a conical shape. But then, even supposing that this
      explication were anything but sheer silliness, which it is not, how would
      the learned commentator account for the water retaining its conical shape
      for months after the force of upheaval had expended itself? These
      explanations are entirely fanciful and groundless. The language of the
      narrative is sufficiently explicit "And <i>all</i> flesh died that moved
      upon the earth;" "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life;" "and
      every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the
      ground;" and "Noah <i>only</i> remained alive and they that were with him
      in the ark." Such are the precise unmistakeable words of Scripture, which
      no sophistry can explain away. But even if the contention for a partial
      deluge could be made good, the fundamental difficulties would still
      remain. As Colenso observes, the flood, "whether it be regarded as a <i>universal</i>
      or a <i>partial</i> deluge, is equally incredible and impossible."
    </p>
    <p>
      Geology absolutely contradicts the possibility of any such catastrophe as
      the deluge within the historic period. According to Sir Charles Lyell, no
      devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of Ætna during
      the last twelve thousand years; and the volcanic cones of Auvergne, which
      enclose in their ashes the remains of extinct animals, and present an
      outline as perfect as that of Ætna, are deemed older still. Kalisch
      forcibly presents this aspect of the question: "Geology teaches the
      impossibility of a universal deluge since the last six thousand years, but
      does not exclude a partial destruction of the earth's surface within that
      period. The Biblical text, on the other hand, demands the supposition of a
      universal deluge, and absolutely excludes a partial flood."
    </p>
    <p>
      6. What became of all the fish? In such a deluge the rivers and seas must
      have mingled their waters, and this, in conjunction with the terrific
      outpour from the windows of heaven, must have made the water brackish, too
      salt for fresh-water fish, and too fresh for salt-water fish; and
      consequently the aquatic animals must all have perished, unless, indeed,
      they were miraculously preserved&mdash;a contingency which anyone is free
      to conjecture, out no one is at liberty to assert, seeing that the
      inspired writer never even hints such a possibility. Now there is no
      evidence whatever that Noah took and <i>fish</i> with him into the ark;
      under natural circumstances they must have perished outside; yet the seas
      and rivers still teem with life. When did the new creation of fish take
      place?
    </p>
    <p>
      7. What became of all the vegetation? Every particle of it must have
      rotted during such a long submergence. But even if mysteriously preserved
      from natural decay, it must still have been compressed into a mere pulp by
      the terrific weight of the super-incumbent water. Colenso estimates that
      the pressure of a column of water 17,000 feet high would be 474 tons upon
      each square foot of surface&mdash;a pressure which nothing could have
      resisted. Yet, wonderful to relate, just prior to the resting of the ark
      on Mount Ararat, the dove sent out therefrom returned with an olive leaf
      in her mouth <i>just pluckt off</i>. A fitting climax to this wonderful
      story.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finally the story relates how the ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat,
      whence its inmates descended to the plains below, which were then quite
      dry. Mount Ararat towers aloft three thousand feet above the region of
      eternal snow. How the poor animals, aye, even the polar bear, must have
      shivered! And what a curious sight it must have been to witness their
      descent from such a height Often have I speculated on the probable way in
      which the elephant got down, and after much careful thought I have
      concluded thus: either he had waxed so fat with being fed so long on
      miraculous food that he rolled pleasantly down like a ball, with no other
      injury than a few scratches; or he had become so very, very thin with
      living simply on expectations, in default of more substantial fare, that
      he gently floated down by virtue of levity, like a descending feather.
    </p>
    <p>
      And then what journeys some of the poor animals would have to make; the
      kangaroo back to Australia, the sloth to South America, the polar bear to
      the extreme north. How they lived on the road to their ultimate
      destinations the Lord only knows. There was no food for them; the deluge
      had destroyed all vegetation for the herbiverous animals, all flesh for
      the carniverous. Not even a nibble was left for the sheep.
    </p>
    <p>
      As for poor Noah, the first thing recorded of him after his watery
      expedition is that he drank heavily of wine and got into a state of
      beastly inebriation. And who can wonder that he did so? The poor old man
      had floated about on oceans of water for more than a year, and probably he
      was heartily sick of his watery prospect. The astonishing thing is that he
      did not get water on the brain. It was quite natural that he should swill
      deep potations of some stronger fluid on the first available opportunity.
      Surely he had water enough during that twelve months to last a lifetime;
      enough to justify his never touching the wretched fluid again.
    </p>
    <p>
      While Noah was dead drunk, his second son. Ham, saw "the nakedness of his
      father," and reported the fact to his two brethren, who took a garment
      and, walking backwards so that they might not see, covered the patriarch's
      nudity. On recovering from his drunken stupor, Noah discovered "what his
      younger son had done unto him," and proceeded at once to vigorous cursing.
      Ham was the offender, if there was any offence at all, which is not very
      clear; but punishment in the Bible is generally vicarious, and we read
      that the irate patriarch cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, for his father's
      misdemeanor. Flagitiously unjust as it is, this proceeding thoroughly
      accords with Jehovah's treatment of Adam's posterity after he and Eve had
      committed their first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before Noah got drunk he had received from God the assurance that the
      world should never more be destroyed by a flood. As a perpetual sign of
      this covenant the rainbow was set in the heavens. But the rainbow must
      have been a common sight for centuries before. This phenomenon of
      refraction is the result of natural causes which operated before the
      Flood, as well as after. The earth yielded its fruits for human
      sustenance, and therefore rain must have fallen. If rain fell before the
      Deluge, as we are bound to conclude, the rainbow must have been then as
      now. The usual practice of commentators is to explain this portion of the
      narrative by assuming that the rainbow was visible before the covenant
      with Noah, but only after the covenant had a special significance. But, as
      Colenso observes, the writer of the story supposes the rainbow was then
      first set in the clouds, and is evidently accounting for the <i>origin</i>
      of this beautiful phenomenon, which might well appear <i>super</i>natural
      to his uninstructed imagination.
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides the manifold absurdities of this story there are other aspects of
      it even more startling. What a picture it presents of fiendish cruelty and
      atrocious vindictiveness! What an appalling exhibition of divine
      malignity! God, the omnipotent and omniscient ruler of the universe, is
      represented as harboring and executing the most diabolical intentions. He
      ruthlessly exterminates all his children except a favored few, and
      includes in his vengeance the lower animals also, although they were
      innocent of offence against his laws. Every creature in whose nostrils was
      the breath of life, with the exception of those persevered in the ark, was
      drowned, and the earth was turned into a vast slaughter-house. How
      imagination pictures the terrible scene as the waters rise higher and
      higher, and the ravening waves speed after their prey! Here some wretched
      being, baffled and hopeless, drops supinely into the raging flood; there a
      stronger and stouter heart struggles to the last. Here selfish ones
      battling for their own preservation; there husbands and wives, parents and
      children, lovers and maidens, affording mutual aid, or at last, in utter
      despair, locked in a final embrace and meeting death together. And when
      the waters subside, what a sickening scene presents itself! Those plains,
      once decked with verdure, and lovely in the sun and breeze, are covered
      with the bones of a slaughtered world. How can the Christian dare to
      justify such awful cruelty? The God of the Pentateuch is not a beneficent
      universal father, but an almighty fiend.
    </p>
    <p>
      This story of Noah's Flood is believed still because people never examine
      what is taught them as the word of God. Every one who analyses the story
      must pronounce it the most extraordinary amalgam of immorality and
      absurdity ever palmed off on a credulous world.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EVE AND THE APPLE.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.-3.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      Christianity is based upon the story of the Fall. In Adam all sinned, as
      in Christ all must be sayed. Saint Paul gives to this doctrine the high
      sanction of his name, and we may disregard the puny whipsters of theology,
      who, without any claim to inspiration, endeavor to explain the Genesaic
      narrative as an allegory rather than a history. If Adam did not really
      fall he could not have been cursed for falling, and his posterity could
      not have become partakers either in a sin which was never committed or in
      a malediction which was never pronounced. Nor can Original Sin be a true
      dogma if our first parents did not transmit the germs of iniquity to their
      children. If Adam did not fall there was no need for Christ to save us; if
      he did not set God and man at variance there was no need for an atonement;
      and so the Christian scheme of salvation would be a <i>fiasco</i> from
      beginning to end. This will never do. No Garden of Eden, no Gethsemane! No
      Fall, no Redemption! No Adam, no Christ!
    </p>
    <p>
      Mother Eve's curiosity was the motive of the first transgression of God's
      commandments in the history of the world, and the whole human race was
      brought under the risk of eternal perdition because of her partiality to
      fruit. Millions of souls now writhe in hell because, six thousand years
      ago, she took a bite of an apple. What a tender and beautiful story! God
      made her to be Adam's helpmeet. She helped him to a slice of apple, and
      that soon helped them both outside Eden. The sour stuff disagreed with him
      as it did with her. It has disagreed, with all their posterity. In fact it
      was endowed with the marvellous power of transmitting spiritual
      stomach-ache through any number of generations.
    </p>
    <p>
      How do we know that it was an <i>apple</i> and not some other fruit? Why,
      on the best authority extant after the Holy Scriptures themselves, namely,
      our auxiliary Bible, "Paradise Lost;" in the tenth book whereof Satan
      makes the following boast to his infernal peers after his exploit in Eden:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
             "Him by fraud I have seduced
     From his Creator, and, the more to increase
     Your wonder, with an <i>apple</i>."
</pre>
    <p>
      Yet another authority is the profane author of "Don Juan," who, in the
      first stanza of the tenth canto, says of Newton:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
     Since Adam, with a fall, or with an <i>apple</i>."
</pre>
    <p>
      Milton, being very pious, was probably in the counsel of God. How else
      could he have given us an authentic version of the long colloquies that
      were carried on in heaven? Byron, being very profane, was probably in the
      counsel of Satan. And thus we have the most unimpeachable testimony of two
      opposite sources to the fact that it was an <i>apple</i>, and not a rarer
      fruit, which overcame the virtue of our first parents, and played the
      devil with their big family of children.
    </p>
    <p>
      This apple grew on the Tree of Knowledge, which God planted in the midst
      of the Garden of Eden, sternly enjoining Adam and Eve not to eat of its
      fruit under pain of death. Now the poor woman knew nothing of death and
      could not understand what a dreadful punishment it was; and there was the
      fruit dangling before her eyes every hour of the day. Is it any wonder
      that she brooded incessantly on the one thing forbidden, that her woman's
      curiosity was irresistably piqued by it, and that at last her longing grew
      so intense that she exclaimed, "Dear me! I can't refrain any longer. Let
      the consequences be what they will, I must have a bite." God made the
      woman; he knew her weakness; and he must have known that the plan he
      devised to test her obedience was the most certain trap that could be
      invented. Jehovah played with poor Eve just as a cat plays with a mouse.
      She had free-will, say the theologians. Yes, and so has the mouse a free
      run. But the cat knows she can catch it again, and finish it off when she
      is tired of playing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not only did God allow Eve's curiosity to urge her on to sin, he also
      permitted the serpent, "more subtil than any beast of the field," to
      supplement its action. This wily creature is popularly supposed to have
      been animated on the occasion by the Devil himself; although, as we shall
      explain in another <i>Romance</i> entitled "The Bible Devil," the book of
      Genesis makes not even the remotest allusion to such a personage. If,
      however, the tempter <i>was</i> the Devil, what chance had the poor woman
      against his seductive wiles? And even if he was only a serpent, he was
      very "subtil" as we are told, and able to talk like a book, and we know
      that these creatures have fatal powers of fascination. Surely Mother Eve
      was heavily handicapped. God might have given her fair play, and left her
      to fight the battle without furnishing auxiliaries to the strong side.
    </p>
    <p>
      The serpent, we have said, could converse in human speech. His
      conversation and his conduct will be dealt with in the <i>Romance</i> just
      referred to. Suffice it here to say that he plainly told the woman that
      God was a liar. "He," said the tempter, "has said ye shall surely die if
      ye touch the fruit of this tree. Don't believe it. I tell you, ye shall
      not surely die." What could poor Eve think? In addition to her native
      curiosity here was another incentive to disobedience. Which of these two
      spoke the truth? There was only one way of deciding. She stretched forth
      her hand, plucked an apple, and began to eat. And immediately, says
      Milton,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat,
     Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
     That all was lost."
</pre>
    <p>
      What a rumpus about a trifle! It reminds us of the story of a Jew who had
      a sneaking inclination for a certain meat prohibited by his creed. One day
      the temptation to partake was too strong; he slipped into a place of
      refreshment and ordered some sausages. The weather happened to be
      tempestuous, and just as he raised his knife and fork to attack the savory
      morsel, a violent clap of thunder nearly frightened him out of his senses.
      Gathering courage, he essayed a second time, but another thunderclap
      warned him to desist. A third attempt was foiled in the same way.
      Whereupon he threw down his knife and fork and made for the door,
      exclaiming "What a dreadful fuss about a little bit of pork."
    </p>
    <p>
      Eve's transgression, according to the learned Lightfoot, occurred "about
      <i>high noone</i>, the time of eating." The same authority informs us that
      she and Adam "did lie comfortlesse, till towards the cool of the day, or
      <i>three o'clock afternoon</i>." However that may be, it is most certain
      that the first woman speedily got the better of the first man. She told
      him the apple was nice and he took a bite also. Perhaps he had resolved to
      share her fortunes good or bad, and objected to be left alone with his
      menagerie. Lightfoot describes the wife as "the weaker vessell," but a
      lady friend of ours says that the Devil stormed the citadel first, knowing
      well that such a poor outpost as Adam could easily be carried afterwards.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having eaten of the fruit, and thus learned to distinguish between good
      and evil, Adam and Eve quickly discovered that they were naked. So they
      "sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." We are not told
      who gave them lessons in sewing. Perhaps they acquired the art through
      intuition. But the necessary implements could not have been gained in that
      way. Dr. Thomas Burnet, whose mind was greatly exercised by the astounding
      wonders of the Bible, very pertinently asked "Whence had they a needle,
      whence a thread, on the first day of their creation?" He, however, could
      give no answer to the question, nor can we, except we suppose that some of
      the female angels had attended a "garden party" in Eden and carelessly
      left their needles and thread behind them. Any reader who is dissatisfied
      with this explanation must inquire of the nearest parson, who, as he
      belongs to a class supposed to know almost everything, and believed to
      have access to the oracles of God, will doubtless be able to reveal the
      whole gospel truth on the subject.
    </p>
    <p>
      A little later, God himself, who is everywhere at once, came down from
      everywhere to the Garden of Eden, for the purpose of taking a "walk in the
      cool of the day." He had perhaps just visited the infernal regions to see
      that everything was ready for the reception of the miserable creatures he
      meant to damn, or to assure himself that the Devil was really not at home;
      and was anxious to cool himself before returning to his celestial abode,
      as well as to purify himself from the sulphurous taint which might else
      have sent a shudder through all the seraphic hosts. Apparently he was
      holding a soliloquy, for Adam and Eve "heard his voice." Colenso, however,
      renders this portion of the Romance differently from our authorised
      version&mdash;"And they heard the sound of Jehovah-Elohim walking in the
      garden in the breeze of the day." Delitzsch thinks they heard the sound of
      his footsteps, for God used to visit them in the form of a man! Could the
      force of folly farther go? Any devout Theist, who candidly thought over
      this petty fiction, would find its gross anthropomorphism inexpressibly
      shocking.
    </p>
    <p>
      Knowing that God was everywhere, Adam and Eve nevertheless "hid themselves
      from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." But
      they were soon dragged forth to the light. Adam, who seems to have been a
      silly fellow, explained that he had hidden himself because he was <i>naked</i>,
      as though the Lord had not seen him in that state before. "Naked!" said
      the Lord, "Who told thee that thou wast naked. Hast thou eaten of that
      tree, eh?" "O, Lord, yes," replied Adam; "just a little bit; but it wasn't
      my fault, <i>she</i> made me do it, O Lord! O Lord!" Whereupon God, who
      although he knows everything, even before it happens, was singularly
      ill-informed on this occasion, turned fiercely upon the woman, asking her
      what she had done. "Oh, if you please," whimpered poor Eve, "it <i>was</i>
      I who took the first bite; but the serpent beguiled me, and the fault you
      see is not mine but his. Oh dear! oh dear!" Then the Lord utterly lost his
      temper. He cursed the serpent, cursed the woman, cursed the man, and even
      cursed the ground beneath their feet Everything about at the time came in
      for a share of the malison. In fact, it was what the Yankees would call a
      good, all-round, level swear.
    </p>
    <p>
      The curse of the serpent is a subject we must reserve for our pamphlet on
      "The Bible Devil," The curse of the woman was that she should bring forth
      children in pain and sorrow, and that the man should rule over her. With
      her present physiological condition, woman must always have suffered
      during conception as she now does; and therefore Delitzsch infers that her
      structure must have undergone a change, although he cannot say in what
      respect He dwells also on the "subjection" of woman, which "the religion
      of Revelation" has made by degrees more endurable; probably forgetting
      that the Teutonic women of ancient times were regarded with veneration,
      long before Christianity originated. Besides, the subordination of the
      female is not peculiar to the human race, but is the general law
      throughout the animal world.
    </p>
    <p>
      Adam's curse was less severe. He was doomed to till the ground, and to
      earn his bread by the sweat of his face. Most of us would rather take part
      in the great strenuous battle of life, than loll about under the trees in
      the Garden of Eden, chewing the cud like contemplative cows. What men have
      had to complain of in all ages is, not that they have to earn their living
      by labour, but that when the sweat of their faces has been plenteously
      poured forth the "bread" has too often not accrued to them as the reward
      of their industry.
    </p>
    <p>
      Orthodox Christianity avers that all the posterity of Adam and Eve
      necessarily participate in their curse, and the doctrine of Original Sin
      is taught from all its pulpits. Only by baptism can the stains of our
      native guilt be effaced; and thus the unbaptized, even infants, perish
      everlastingly, and hell, to use the words of a Protestant divine, holds
      many a babe not a span long. A great Catholic divine says&mdash;"Hold thou
      most firmly, nor do thou in any respect doubt, that infants, whether in
      their mothers' wombs they begin to live and then die, or when, after their
      mothers have given birth to them, they pass from this life without the
      sacrament of holy baptism, will be punished with the everlasting
      punishment of eternal fire." Horror of horrors! These men call sceptics
      blasphemers, but they are the real blasphemers when they attribute to
      their God such supreme injustice and cruelty. What should we think of a
      legislator who proposed that the descendants of all thieves should be
      imprisoned, and the descendants of all murderers hung? We should think
      that he was bad or mad. Yet this is precisely analogous to the conduct
      ascribed to God, who should be infinitely wiser than the wisest man and
      infinitely better than the best.
    </p>
    <p>
      The crime of our first parents was indeed pregnant with the direst
      consequences. It not only induced the seeds of original sin, but it also
      brought death into the world. Milton sings&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "Of man's first disobedience,
     And the fruit Of that forbidden tree,
     Whose mortal taste
     <i>Brought death into the world</i>."
</pre>
    <p>
      And Saint Paul (Romans v., 12) writes "As by one man sin came into the
      world, and death by sin."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now this theory implies that before the Fall the inhabited portion of the
      world was the scene of perfect peace. Birds lived on seeds and eschewed
      worms, and the fierce carniverous animals grazed like oxen. The lion laid
      down with the lamb. "Waal," said the Yankee, "I don't doubt that, but I
      rayther guess the lamb was <i>inside</i>." The fact is that most of the
      carnivorous animals could not live on a vegetable drat; and therefore they
      must either have subsisted on flesh before the Fall, which of course
      involves <i>death</i>, or their natures must have undergone a radical
      change. The first supposition contradicts scripture, and the second
      contradicts science.
    </p>
    <p>
      Geology shows us that in the very earliest times living creatures died
      from the same causes which kill them now. Many were overwhelmed by floods
      and volcanoes, or engulphed by earthquakes; many died of old age or
      disease, for their bones are found distorted or carious, and their limbs
      twisted with pain; while the greater number were devoured, according to
      the general law of the struggle for existence. Death ruled universally
      before the human race made its appearance on the earth, and has absolutely
      nothing to do with Eve and her apple.
    </p>
    <p>
      Adam and Eve were warned by God that in the day they ate of the fruit of
      the Tree of Knowledge they should surely die. The serpent declared this to
      be rank nonsense, and the event proved his veracity. What age Eve attained
      to the Holy Bible saith not, for it never considers women of sufficient
      importance to have their longevities chronicled. But Adam lived to the
      remarkably good old age of nine hundred and thirty years. Like our Charles
      the Second he took "an unconscionable time a-dying." One of his
      descendants, the famous Methusaleh, lived thirty-nine years longer; while
      the more famous Melchizedek is not even dead yet, if any credence is to be
      placed in the words of holy Saint Paul.
    </p>
    <p>
      But all these are mere lambs, infants, or chicken, in comparison with the
      primeval patriarchs of India. Buckle tells us that, according to the
      Hindoos, common men in ancient times lived to the age of 80,000 years,
      some dying a little sooner and some a little later. Two of their kings,
      Yudhishther and Alarka, reigned respectively 27,000 and 66,000 years. Both
      these were cut off in their prime; for some of the early poets lived to be
      about half a million; while one king, the most virtuous as well as the
      most remarkable of all, was two million years old when he began to reign,
      and after reigning 6,800,000 years, he resigned his empire and lingered on
      for 100,000 years more. Adam is not in the hunt with that tough old
      fellow. On the principle that it is as well to be hung for a sheep as a
      lamb, faithful Christians should swallow him as well as Adam. When the
      throat of their credulity is once distended they may as well take in
      everything that comes. What followed the Curse clearly shows that man was
      not originally created immortal. Adam and Eve were expelled from the
      Garden of Eden expressly in order that they might not become so. God
      "drove them forth" lest they should "take also of the tree of life, and
      eat, and live for ever." Many orthodox writers, who have to maintain the
      doctrine of our natural immortality, preserve a discreet silence on this
      text. Our great Milton, who has so largely determined the Protestant
      theology of England, goes right in the face of Scripture when he makes God
      say of man,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "I at first with two fair gifts
     Created him endowed, with happiness
     And <i>immortality</i>."
</pre>
    <p>
      The fact is, the Book of Genesis never once alludes to any such thing, nor
      does it represent man as endowed with any other soul than that "breath of
      life" given to all animals. It is also certain that the <i>ancient</i>
      Jews were entirely ignorant of the doctrine of a life beyond the grave.
      The highest promise that Moses is said to have made in the Decalogue was
      that their "days should be long in the land." The Jews were a business
      people, and they wanted all promises fulfilled on this side of death.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nor is there any real <i>Fall</i> implied in this story. God himself says
      that "the man," having eaten of the forbidden fruit, "is become as one of
      us." That could scarcely be a fall which brought him nearer to God. Bishop
      South, indeed, in a very eloquent passage of his sermon on "Man Created in
      God's Image," celebrates the inconceivable perfection of the first man,
      and concludes by saying that "An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam,
      and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise." But a candid perusal of Genesis
      obliges us to dissent from this view, Adam and Eve were a very childish
      pair. Whatever intellect they possessed they carefully concealed. Not a
      scintillation of it has reached us. Shakespeare and Newton are an infinite
      improvement on Adam and Eve. One of the Gnostic sects, who played such
      havoc with the early Christian Church, utterly rejected the idea of a
      Fall. "The Ophites," says Didron, "considered the God of the Jews not only
      to be a most wicked but an unintelligent being.... According to their
      account, Jalda-baoth, the wicked demi-god adored by the Jews under the
      name of Jehovah, was jealous of man, and wished to prevent the progress of
      knowledge; but the serpent, the agent of superior wisdom, came to teach
      man what course he ought to pursue, and by what means he might regain the
      knowledge of good and evil. The Ophites consequently adored the serpent,
      and cursed the true God Jehovah."
    </p>
    <p>
      Before expelling Adam and Eve from Eden, the Lord took pity on their
      nakedness, and apparently seeing that their skill in needle-work did not
      go beyond aprons, he "made coats of skins, and clothed them." Jehovah was
      thus the first tailor, and the prototype of that imperishable class of
      workmen, of whom it was said that it takes nine of them to make a man. He
      was also the first butcher and the first tanner, for he must have slain
      the animals and dressed their skins.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lest they should return he "placed at the east of the Garden of Eden <i>Cherubims</i>,
      and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of
      life." As this guard seems never to have been relieved, profane wits have
      speculated whether the Flood drowned them, and quenched the flaming sword
      with a great hiss. Ezekiel describes the Cherubims with characteristic
      magnificence. These creatures with wings and wheels were "full of eyes
      round about." And "everyone had low faces: the first face was the face of
      a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the
      face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle." What monsters! No
      wonder they effectually frightened poor Adam and Eve from attempting a
      re-entrance into the Garden.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps the reader would like to know what became of the Tree of
      Knowledge. One legend of the Middle Ages relates that Eve along with the
      forbidden fruit broke off a branch which she carried with her from
      Paradise. Planted outside by her hand, it grew to a great tree, under
      which Abel was killed; at a later time it was used in building the most
      holy place of Solomon's temple; and finally it yielded the beams out of
      which the cross was made! Another legend says that, after the Fall, God
      rooted out the Tree of Knowledge, and flung it over the wall of Paradise.
      A thousand years after it was found by Abraham, none the worse for its
      long absence from the soil. He planted it in his garden, and while doing
      so he was informed by a voice from heaven that this was the tree on whose
      wood the Redeemer should be crucified.
    </p>
    <p>
      Space does not allow us to dwell at length on the Paradise Myths of other
      ancient peoples, which singularly resembled that of the Jews. Formerly it
      was alleged that these were all corruptions of the Genesaic story. But it
      is now known that most of them date long anterior to the very existence of
      the Jewish people. As Kalisch says, "they belonged to the common
      traditionary lore of the Asiatic nations." The Bible story of Paradise is
      derived almost entirely from the Persian myth. It was after contact with
      the reformed religion of Zoroaster, during their captivity, that the
      remnant of the Jews who returned to Palestine collated their ancient
      literature, and revised it in accordance with their new ideas. The story
      of Eve and her Apple is, as every scholar knows, an oriental myth slightly
      altered by the Jewish scribes to suit the national taste, and has
      absolutely no claims on our credence. And if this be so, the doctrine of
      the Fall collapses, and down comes the whole Christian structure which is
      erected upon it.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE BIBLE DEVIL.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;4.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Christian Godhead is usually spoken and written of as a Trinity,
      whereas it is in fact a Quaternion, consisting of God the Father, God the
      Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God the Devil. The Roman Catholics add yet
      another, Goddess the Virgin Mary. God the Devil, whom this <i>Romance</i>
      treats of so far as his history is contained in the Bible, is popularly
      supposed to be inferior to the other persons of the Godhead. In reality,
      however, he is vastly their superior both in wisdom and in power. For,
      whereas they made the world, he has appropriated it almost entirely to
      himself; and, whereas they who created all its inhabitants, have only been
      able to lay down a very narrow-gauge railway to the Kingdom of Heaven, he
      has contrived to lay down an exceedingly broad-gauge railway to the
      Kingdom of Hell. Few passengers travel by their route, and its terminus on
      this side is miserably small; but his route is almost universally
      patronised, its terminus is magnificent, and there is an extraordinary
      rush for tickets.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the Christian scheme, the Devil tempted Adam and Eve from
      their allegiance to God in the form of a serpent. He played the devil with
      Eve, she played the devil with Adam, and together they have played the
      Devil with the whole human race ever since.
    </p>
    <p>
      But let any unbiassed person read the Genesaic story of the Fall, and he
      will certainly discover no reference to the Devil A serpent is spoken of
      as "more subtle than any beast of the field;" it is throughout represented
      simply as a serpent; and nowhere is there the faintest indication of its
      possessing any supernatural endowments.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Story of the Fall contains clear relics of that Tree and Serpent
      worship which in ancient times prevailed so extensively over the East. The
      serpent was formerly regarded as the symbol of a beneficent God. In
      Hindustan, says Maurice, "the veneration of the serpent is evident in
      every page of their mythologic history, in which every fabulous personage
      of note is represented as grasping or as environed with a serpent."
      According to Lajard, the word which signifies "life" in the greater part
      of the Semitic languages signifies also "a serpent" And Jacob Bryant says
      that the word "Ab," which in Hebrew means Father, has also the same
      meaning as the Egyptian "Ob," or "Aub," and signifies "a serpent," thus
      etymologically uniting the two ideas. The Tree and the Serpent were
      frequently associated, although they were sometimes worshipped apart. The
      Aryan races of the Western world mostly worshipped the Tree alone. The
      Scandinavians had their great ash "Yggdrasill," whose triple root reaches
      to the depths of the universe, while its majestic stem overtops the
      heavens and its branches fill the world. The Grecian oracles were
      delivered from the oak of Dodona, and the priests set forth their decrees
      on its leaves. Nutpi or Neith, the goddess of divine life, was by the
      Egyptians represented as seated among the branches of the Tree of Life, in
      the paradise of Osiris. The "Hom," the sacred tree of the Persians, is
      spoken of in the Zendavesta as the "Word of Life," and, when consecrated,
      was partaken of as a sacrament. An oak was the sacred tree of the ancient
      Druids of Britain. We inherit their custom of gathering the sacred
      mistletoe at Yule-tide, while in our Christmas Tree we have a remnant of
      the old Norse tree-worship. During the Middle Ages the worship of trees
      was forbidden in France by the ecclesiastical councils, and in England by
      the laws of Canute. A learned antiquary remarks that "the English maypole
      decked with colored rags and tinsel, and the merry morice-dancers (the
      gaily decorated May sweeps) with the mysterious and now almost defunct
      personage, Jack-in-the-green, are all but worn-out remnants of the
      adoration of gods in trees that once were sacred in England."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now the serpent and the tree were originally both symbolic of the
      generative powers of nature, and they were interchangeable. Sometimes one
      was employed, sometimes the other, and sometimes both. But in that great
      religious reformation which took place in the faiths of the ancient world
      about 600 years before the time of Christ, the serpent was degraded, and
      made to stand as a symbol of Ahriman, the god of evil, who, in the Persic
      religion, waged incessant war against Ormuzd, the god of beneficence. The
      Persian myth of the Fall is thus rendered from the Zendavesta by Kalisch:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "The first couple, the parents of the human race, Meshia and Meshiane,
      lived originally in purity and innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised
      them by Ormuzd, the creator of every good gift, if they persevered in
      their virtue. But an evil demon (Dev) was sent to them by Ahriman, the
      representative of everything noxious and sinful. He appeared unexpectedly
      in the form of a serpent, and gave them the fruit of a wonderful tree,
      Hom, which imparted immortality and had the power of restoring the dead to
      life. Thus evil inclinations entered their hearts; all their moral
      excellence was destroyed. Ahriman himself appeared wider the form of the
      same reptile, and completed the work of seduction. They acknowledged him
      instead of Ormuzd as the creator of everything good; and the consequence
      was they forfeited for ever the eternal happiness for which they were
      destined."
    </p>
    <p>
      Every reader will at once perceive how similar this is to the Hebrew story
      of the Fall. The similarity is intelligible when we remember that all the
      literature of the ancient Jews was put into its present form by the
      learned scribes who returned with the remnant of the people from the
      Babylonish captivity, and who were full of the ideas that obtained in the
      Persian religion as reformed by the traditional Zoroaster.
    </p>
    <p>
      As we have said, the Hebrew story of the Fall contains clear relics of
      Tree and Serpent worship. There is also abundant proof that during the
      long ages in which the Jews oscillated between polytheism and monotheism
      this worship largely prevailed. Even up to the reign of Hezekiah, as we
      find in the Second Book of Kings, the serpent was worshipped in groves, to
      the great anger of the king, who cast out the idolatry from among his
      people.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having explained the subject thus, let us now assume with orthodox
      Christians that the serpent in Eden was animated by the Devil, or was
      indeed the Devil himself incarnate.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have already observed that the Devil excels his three rivals in wisdom
      and in power. While they were toiling so strenuously to create the world
      and all that therein is, he quietly stood or sat by as a spectator. "All
      right," he might have murmured, "work away as hard as you please. You've
      more strength than sense. My turn will soon come. When the job is finished
      we shall see to whom all this belongs." When the work was completed and
      they had pronounced all things good, in stepped the Devil, and in the
      twinkling of an eye rendered imperfect all that they had so labored to
      create perfect;'turning everything topsy-turvey, seducing the first pair
      of human beings, sowing the seeds of original sin, and at one stroke
      securing the wholesale damnation of our race. What were they about, to let
      him do all this with such consummate ease? Surely they must have slept
      like logs, and thus left the whole game in his hands. He made himself the
      "prince of this world," although they created it; and if those may laugh
      who win, he was entitled to roar out his mirth to the shaking of the
      spheres.
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides being the prince of this world and of the powers of darkness, the
      Devil is described as the father of lies. This, however, is a gross libel
      on his character. Throughout the contest with his rivals he played with
      perfect fairness. And from Genesis to Revelation there can be adduced no
      single instance in which he departs from the strict line of truth. On one
      occasion when Jehovah desired a lying spirit to go forth and prophesy
      falsely to his people, he found one ready to his hand in heaven and had no
      need to trouble Satan for a messenger. The Lord God had told Adam, "Of the
      tree of knowledge of good and evil, thow shalt not eat of it; for in the
      day that thou eatest thereof thow shalt surely die." Nay, said the Devil,
      when he began business "ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in
      the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
      gods, knowing good and evil." Every word of his speech was true. Instead
      of dying "in the day" that he ate of the fruit Adam lived to the fine old
      age of nine hundred and thirty years.
    </p>
    <p>
      And after the "fall" the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one
      of us, to know good and evil." The Devil's truthfulness is thus amply
      vindicated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Satan's visit to Eve was paid in the form of a serpent. She manifested no
      astonishment at being accosted by such a creature. It may be that the
      whole menagerie of Eden spoke in the human tongue, and that Balaam's ass
      was only what the biologists would call "a case of reversion" to the
      primitive type. Josephus and most of the Fathers conceived of the serpent
      as having had originally a human voice and legs; so that if he could not
      have walked about with Eve arm in arm, he might at least have accompanied
      her in a dance. Milton, however, discredits the legs, and represents the
      serpent thus:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "Not with indented wave,
     Prone on the ground, as since, but on his rear,
     Circular base of rising folds, that towered,
     Fold above fold, a surging maze, his head
     Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
     With burnish'd neck of verdant gold, erect
     Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
     Floated redundant."
</pre>
    <p>
      Very splendid! But the doctors differ, and who shall decide? What followed
      the eating of the forbidden fruit we have dealt with in "Eve and the
      Apple." We shall therefore at once come to the curse pronounced upon the
      serpent "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done
      this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
      field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days
      of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between
      thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
      heel."
    </p>
    <p>
      The final portion of this curse is flagrantly mythological Among the
      Hindoos, Krishna also, as the incarnation of Vishnu, is represented now as
      treading on the bruised head of a conquered serpent, and now as entwined
      by it, and stung in the heel. In Egyptian pictures and sculptures,
      likewise, the serpent is seen pierced through the head by the spear of the
      goddess Isis. The "enmity" between mankind and the serpent is, however,
      not universal Amongst the Zulus the snake is held in great veneration, as
      their dead ancestors are supposed to reappear in that form; and in ancient
      times, as we have already observed, serpents were actually worshipped.
    </p>
    <p>
      The middle portion of the curse has not yet been fulfilled. The serpent
      lives on more nutritious food than dust. In the Zoological Gardens the
      inmates of the serpent-house enjoy a more solid diet The fact is, we have
      here an oriental superstition. Kalisch points out that "the great
      scantiness of food? on which the serpent can subsist, gave rise to the
      belief, entertained by many Eastern nations, that they eat dust." This
      belief is referred to in Micah vii, 17, Isaiah lxv., 25, and elsewhere in
      the Bible. Among the Indians the serpent is believed to live on wind.
    </p>
    <p>
      That the serpent "goes" upon its "belly" is, of course, a fact. Before the
      curse it must have moved about in some other way. Milton's poetical
      solution of the difficulty we have already given. During the Middle Ages
      those seraphic doctors of theology, who gravely argued how many angels
      could dance on the point of a needle, speculated also on the serpent's
      method of locomotion before the "fall." Some thought the animal had legs,
      some that it undulated gracefully on its back, and others that it hopped
      about on its tail. The ever bold Delitzsch decides that "its mode of
      motion and its form were changed," but closes the controversy by adding,
      "of the original condition of the serpent it is, certainly, impossible to
      frame to ourselves a conjecture." All this is mere moonshine. Geology, as
      Colenso remarks, shows us that the serpent was the same kind of creature
      as it is now, in the ages long before man existed on the earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Why the serpent was cursed at all is a question which no Christian can
      answer. The poor animal was seized, mastered, occupied, and employed by
      the Devil, and was therefore absolutely irresponsible for what occurred.
      It had committed no offence, and consequently the curse upon it, according
      to Christian doctrine, was a most brutal and wanton outrage.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having done such a splendid stroke of business in Eden, the Devil retired,
      quite satisfied that the direction he had given to the affairs of this
      world was so strong and certain as to obviate the necessity of his
      personal supervision. Fifteen centuries later the human race had grown so
      corrupt that God (that is, the three persons in one) resolved to drown
      them all; preserving, however, eight live specimens to repeople the world.
      How the Devil must have laughed again! He knew that Noah and his family
      possessed the seeds of original sin, which they would assuredly transmit
      to their children, and thus prolong the corruption through all time.
      Short-sighted as ever, Jehovah refrained from completing the devastation,
      after which he might have started afresh. So sure was the Devil's grip on
      God's creation that, a few centuries after the Flood, there were not found
      ten righteous men in the whole city of Sodom, and no doubt other cities
      were almost as bad.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the Bible, the Devil's long spell of rest was broken in the
      reign of King David, the man after God's own heart, but a very great
      scoundrel nevertheless. The Second Book of Samuel (xxiv., 1) tells us that
      "Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved
      David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah." Now the First
      Book of Chronicles (xxi, 1) in relating the same incident says, "And Satan
      stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel" Who shall
      reconcile this discrepancy? Was it God, was it Satan, or was it both?
      Imagine David with the celestial and infernal powers whispering the same
      counsel into either ear! A Scotch minister once told us that this
      difficulty was only apparent. The Devil, said he, exercises only a
      delegated power, and acts only by the express or tacit permission of God;
      so that it matters not which is said to have provoked David. Yes, but what
      of the consequences? Because the king, despite all protests, took a census
      of his people, the Lord sent a destroying angel, who slew by pestilence
      seventy thousand of them. Where, in the whole history of religion, shall
      we find a viler sample of divine injustice?
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides, if the Devil acts in all cases only by God's permission, the
      latter is responsible for all the former's wrongdoing. The principal, and
      not the agent, must bear the guilt. And this suggests a curious problem.
      Readers of "Robinson Crusoe" will remember that when Man Friday was
      undergoing a course of theological instruction, he puzzled his master by
      asking why God did not convert the Devil. To his unsophisticated mind it
      was plain that the conversion of the Devil would annihilate sin. Robinson
      Crusoe changed the subject to avoid looking foolish, but Man Friday's
      question remains in full force. Why does not God convert the Devil? The
      great Thomas Aquinas is reported to have prayed for the Devil's conversion
      through a whole long night. Robert Burns concludes his "Address to the
      Deil" with a wish that he "wad tak a thought an' men'." And Sterne, in one
      of his wonderful strokes of pathos, makes Corporal Trim say of the Devil,
      "He is damned already, your honor;" whereupon, "I am sorry for it," quoth
      Uncle Toby. Why, oh why, we repeat, does not God convert the Devil, and
      thus put a stop for ever to the damnation of mankind? Why do not the
      clergy pray without cease for that one object? Because they dare not. The
      Devil is their best friend. Abolish him, and disestablish hell, and their
      occupation would be gone. They must stick to their dear Devil, as their
      most precious possession, their stock-in-trade, their talisman of power,
      without whom they were worse than nothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Devil's adventures in the Book of Job are very amusing. One day there
      was a drawing-room or <i>levée</i> held in heaven. The sons of God
      attended, and Satan came also among them. He seems to have so closely
      resembled the rest of the company that only God detected the difference.
      This is not surprising, for the world has seen some very godly sons of
      God, so very much like the Devil, that if he met one of them in a dark
      lane by night, he might almost suspect it to be his own ghost. God, who
      knows everything, as usual asked a number of questions. Where had Satan
      been, and what had he been doing? Satan replied, like a gentleman of
      independent means, that he had been going to and fro in the earth, and
      walking up and down in it. "Well," said the Lord, "have you observed my
      servant Job? What a good man! perfect and upright I'm proud of him." Oh
      yes, Satan had observed him. He keeps a sharp eye on all men. As old
      Bishop Latimer said, whatever parson is out of his parish the Devil is
      always in his. "Doth Job fear God for nought?" said Satan. "He is wealthy,
      prosperous, happy, and respected; you fence him about from evil; but just
      let trouble come upon him, and he will curse thee to thy face." This was a
      new view of the subject; the Lord had never seen it in this light before.
      So he determined to make an experiment. With God's sanction Satan went
      forth to afflict Job. He despoiled his substance, slaughtered his
      children, covered him with sore boils from head to foot, and then set on
      his wife to "nag" him. But Job triumphed; he did not curse God, and thus
      Satan was foiled. Subsequently Job became richer than ever and more
      renowned, while a fresh family grew up around his knees. "So," say the
      Christians, "all's well that ends well!" Not so, however; for there
      remains uneffaced the murder of Job's children, who were hurriedly
      despatched out of the world in the very midst of their festivity. When the
      celestial and infernal powers play at conundrums, it is a great pity that
      they do not solve them up above or down below, and leave the poor denizens
      of this world free from the havoc of their contention.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the New Testament, as in the Old, the Devil appears early on the scene.
      After his baptism in Jordan, Jesus was "led up of the spirit in the
      wilderness to be tempted of the Devil." When he had fasted forty days and
      nights he "was afterward hungered." Doctor Tanner overlooked this. The
      hunger of Jesus only began on the forty-first day. The Devil requests
      Jesus to change the stones into bread, but he declines to do so. Then he
      sets him "on a pinnacle of the temple" in Jerusalem, and desires him to
      throw himself down. Jesus must have been exceedingly <i>sharp set</i> in
      that position. Meanwhile, where was the Devil posted? He could scarcely
      have craned his neck up so as to hold a confabulation with Jesus from the
      streets, and we must therefore suppose that he was sharp set on another
      pinnacle. A pretty sight they must have been for the Jews down below! That
      temptation failing, the Devil takes Jesus "up into an exceeding high
      mountain, and showeth him <i>all</i> the kingdoms of the world, and the
      glory of them." This is remarkably like seeing round a corner, for however
      high we go we cannot possibly see the whole surface of a globe at once.
      "All these things," says Satan, "will I give thee if thou wilt fall down
      and worship me." What a generous Devil! They already belonged to Jesus,
      for doth not Scripture say the earth is the Lord's and the fulness
      thereof?&mdash;a text which should now read "the earth is the landlords'
      and the emptiness thereof." This temptation also fails, and the Devil
      retires in disgust.
    </p>
    <p>
      What a pretty farce! Our burlesques and pantomimes are nothing to it.
      Satan knew Jesus, and Jesus knew Satan. Jesus knew that Satan would tempt
      him, and Satan knew that Jesus knew it. Jesus knew that Satan could not
      succeed, and Satan knew so too. Yet they kept the farce up night and day,
      for no one knows how long; and our great Milton in his "Paradise Regained"
      represents this precious pair arguing all day long, Satan retiring after
      sunset, and Jesus lying down hungry, cold and wet, and rising in the
      morning with damp clothes to renew the discussion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after Jesus went into the country of the Gergesenes, where he met two
      fierce men possessed with devils whom he determined to exorcise, The
      devils (for <i>the</i> Devil had grown numerous by then), not liking to be
      turned adrift on the world, without home or shelter, besought Jesus to let
      them enter the bodies of an herd of swine feeding by. This he graciously
      permitted. The devils left the men and entered the swine; whereupon the
      poor pigs, experiencing a novel sensation, never having had devils inside
      them before, "ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished
      in the waters." Whether the devils were drowned with the pigs this
      veracious history saith not. But the pigs themselves were not paid for.
      Jesus wrought the miracle at other people's expense. And the inhabitants
      of that part took precisely this view of the case. For "the whole city
      came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he
      would depart out of their coasts." No doubt they reflected that if he
      remained working miracles of that kind, at the end of a week not a single
      pig would be left alive in the district. Entering in Genesis, the Devil
      appropriately makes his exit in Revelation. The twelfth chapter of that
      holy nightmare describes him as "a great red dragon, having seven heads,
      and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads; and his tail drew the
      third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." What a
      tail! The writer's ideas of size were very chaotic. Bringing a third part
      of the stars of heaven to this earth, is much like trying to lodge a few
      thousand cannon-balls on the surface of a bullet.
    </p>
    <p>
      Finally the Devil is to be "bound for a thousand years" in hell. Let us
      hope the chain will be strong; for if it should break, the pit has no
      bottom, and the Devil would go right through, coming out on the other side
      to renew his old tricks.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such is the Romance of the Bible Devil. Was ever a more ludicrous story
      palmed off on a credulous world? The very clergy are growing ashamed of
      it. But there it is, inextricably interwoven with the rest of the "sacred"
      narrative, so that no skill can remove it without destroying the whole
      fabric. The Devil has been the Church's best friend, but he is doomed, and
      as their fraternal bond cannot be broken, he will drag it down to
      irretrievable perdition.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE TEN PLAGUES;
    </h2>
    <h3>
      Or, HOW MOSES HARRIED EGYPT.
    </h3>
    <p>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;5.
    </p>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      If a man who had never read the Bible before wished to amuse himself
      during a spare hour among its pages, we should recommend him to try the
      first fourteen chapters of Exodus. A more entertaining narrative was never
      penned. Even the fascinating Arabian Nights affords nothing better,
      provided we read it with the eyes of common sense, and without that
      prejudice which so often blinds us to the absurdities of "God's Word." At
      the end of the fourteenth chapter aforesaid, let the book be closed, and
      then let the reader ask himself whether he ever met with a more comical
      story. We have no doubt as to his answer; and we feel assured that he will
      agree with the poet Cowper in thinking that God <i>does</i> "move in a
      mysterious way his wonders to perform." Two hundred and fifteen years
      after the arrival of Israel in Egypt, God's chosen people had fallen into
      slavery. Yet they were exceedingly prolific, so that "the land was filled
      with them." Afraid of their growing numbers, Pharaoh "spake to the Hebrew
      midwives" and told them to kill all their male children at birth and leave
      only the daughters alive. This injunction the midwives very, properly
      disobeyed, excusing themselves on the ground that "the Hebrew women were
      lively and were delivered ere the midwives came in unto them." Had they
      obeyed Pharaoh, the Jewish race would have been extinguished, and Judaism
      and Christianity been never heard of.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the comical fact as to these midwives is that there were only two of
      them, Shiphrah and Puah. What a busy pair they must have been! What
      patterns of ubiquitous industry! When the Jews quitted Egypt soon after
      they mustered six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. Now,
      supposing all these were collected together in one city, its size would
      equal that of London. How could two midwives possibly attend to all the
      confinements among such a population? And how much more difficult would
      their task be if the population were scattered over a wide area, as was
      undoubtedly the case with the Jews! Words fail us to praise the miraculous
      activity of these two ladies. Like the peace of God, it passes all
      understanding.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the male children born under the iron rule of Pharaoh was Moses,
      the son of Amram and Jochebed. The incidents of his eventful life will be
      fully recorded in our series of "Bible Heroes." Suffice it here to say
      that he was adopted and brought up by Pharaoh's daughter; that he became
      skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians; that he privily slew an
      Egyptian who-had maltreated a Hebrew, and was obliged therefore to flee to
      the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah, a daughter of Jethro the
      priest. At this time Moses was getting on to his eightieth year.
      Now-a-days a man of that age sees only the grave before him, and has
      pretty nearly closed his account with the world. But in those days it was
      different. At the age of eighty Moses was just beginning his career. He
      was indeed a very astonishing old boy.
    </p>
    <p>
      One day Moses was keeping his father-in-law's flock near Mount Horeb, when
      lo! a strange vision greeted his eyes. The "angel of the Lord appeared
      unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush," which burned
      without consuming. By "angel" we are to understand a vision or appearance
      only, for the being within the bush was God Almighty himself; and
      throughout the rest of the narrative the word "angel" is entirely dropped,
      only Lord or God being used. Moses approached this wonderful sight; but
      the Lord called out to him, "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from
      off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."
      Thereupon Moses hid his face "for he was afraid to look upon God." Could
      anything be more ludicrous! Fancy God, the infinite spirit of the
      universe, secreting himself in a bush and setting it on fire, just to make
      a little display for the benefit of Moses! Our wonder, however, is
      presently lessened; for this God turns out to be only Jehovah "the Lord
      God of the Hebrews," a mere local deity, who cared only for his own
      people, and was quite ready to slaughter any number of the inhabitants of
      adjacent countries, besides being bitterly jealous of their gods. The
      utmost claimed for him is that he is the biggest God extant, and quite
      capable of thrashing all the other gods with one hand tied behind his
      back. He had heard the cries of his people and had determined to rescue
      them from bondage. He had also resolved to give Pharaoh and the Egyptians
      a taste of his quality, so that they might be forced to-admit his
      superiority to their gods. "I will let them know," said he to Moses, "who
      I am, and you shall be my agent. We'll confound their impudence before
      we've done with them. But don't let us be in a hurry, for the little drama
      I have devised requires a good deal of time. You go to Egypt and ask
      Pharaoh to let my people go. But don't suppose he will consent. That
      wouldn't suit my plans at all. I have decided to set you two playing at
      the little game of 'pull Moses, pull Pharaoh,' and I shall harden his
      heart against your demands so that there may be a fierce tussle. But don't
      be afraid. I am on your side, and just at the end of the game I'll join in
      and pull Pharaoh clean over. And mind you tell him all along that it is my
      power and not yours which works all the wonders I mean you to perform, for
      you are only my instrument, and I want all the glory myself. Play fair,
      Moses, play fair!" Moses was not unwilling to engage in this enterprise,
      but like a prudent Jew he required certain assurances of success. He
      therefore first raised an objection as to his own insignificance&mdash;"Who
      am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?" To which God replied, "Certainly I
      will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent
      thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve
      God upon this mountain." Moses, however, required a much less remote token
      than this; so he again objected that nobody would believe him. Thereupon
      the Lord bade him cast his rod on the ground, and lo! it became a serpent
      Moses very naturally fled before it, till the Lord told him not to run
      away but to take it by the tail. He did so, and it became again a rod in
      his hand. Then the Lord bade him put his hand in his bosom, and on taking
      it out he found it was "leprous as snow." Again he put it in his bosom,
      and when he plucked it out it was once more sound and well. "There," said
      the Lord, "those signs will do in Egypt. When you evince them nobody will
      doubt you." Still hesitant, Moses objected that he was very slow of
      speech. So he frankly desired the Lord to send someone else. No wonder the
      Lord grew angry at this persistent reluctance; nevertheless he restrained
      himself, and informed Moses that his brother Aaron, who was a good
      speaker, should accompany him. The prudent prophet seems to have been at
      length satisfied. At any rate he made no further objection, but after a
      little further conversation with the Lord, who was very talkative, he set
      forth on his journey to Egypt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Singular to relate, the Lord met Moses at an inn on the road, and, instead
      of wishing him good-speed, sought to kill him. What a strange God, to be
      sure! Why did he want to kill his own messenger? And why, if he wanted to
      kill him, did he not succeed in doing it? Truly the ways of God are past
      finding out. The only reason discoverable for this queer conduct is that
      Moses' boy was uncircumcised. Zipporah, his wife, took a sharp stone and
      performed the rite of circumcision herself, casting the amputated morsel
      at the feet of the boy's father, with the remark that he was "a bloody
      husband." The Lord's anger was thereby appeased, and the text naively says
      that he then let Moses go.
    </p>
    <p>
      Prompted by the Lord, Aaron went out into the wilderness to meet Moses,
      and they soon appeared together before "all the elders of the children of
      Israel," who readily believed in their mission when they heard Aaron's
      account of the Lord's conversation with Moses, and saw the wonderful
      signs. Afterwards the two brothers visited Pharaoh, but God had hardened
      his heart; so he denied all knowledge of the Lord, and refused to let
      Israel go. On the contrary, he commanded the taskmaskers to be even more
      rigorous with them, and, instead of giving them straw to make bricks, as
      theretofore, to make them gather straw for themselves. And when they
      complained, Pharaoh replied that they were an idle lot, and only wanted to
      go out and sacrifice to the Lord in order to avoid work. Whereupon they
      remonstrated with Moses for his interference, and he, in turn,
      remonstrated with God in very plain and disrespectful language.
      "Nonsense!" said the Lord, "now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh."
    </p>
    <p>
      Again Pharaoh was visited by the two brothers, who this time commenced to
      work the miracle. Aaron cast down his rod, and it became a serpent. But
      the magicians of Egypt, who were present by invitation of the King, were
      in nowise astonished. "Oh," said they, "is that all you can do?" Saying
      which, every man of them threw down his rod, and it also became a serpent.
      That was indeed an age of miracles! The magicians of Egypt wrought this
      wonder without any help from the Lord, and solely "with their
      enchantments." Here, then, was a pretty fix! So far, neither side had any
      advantage. Presently, however, Aaron's serpent&mdash;which thus proved
      itself a truly Jewish one&mdash;created a diversion by swallowing all the
      others up. We must suppose that it afterwards disgorged them, or else that
      Aaron's, rod was exceedingly stout when he got it back.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pharaoh's heart remained obdurate, notwithstanding this sign, and he still
      refused to let the people go. And then the plagues commenced.
    </p>
    <p>
      The first was a plague of blood. Aaron stretched forth his rod, and <i>all</i>
      the waters of Egypt, the streams, the rivers, the ponds, and the pools
      became blood. Even the water in vessels of stone and wood was ensanguined.
      The fish all died, and the river stank; and "there was blood throughout
      all the land of Egypt." This was a good start, but the magicians of Egypt
      beat it hollow; for, after Aaron had turned <i>all</i> the water of Egypt
      into blood, they turned the <i>rest</i> into blood. No wonder that
      Pharaoh's heart remained hardened! He quietly walked into his house and
      let the subject drop.
    </p>
    <p>
      Seven days later Moses went again to Pharaoh and said, "Thus saith the
      Lord, let my people go." And Pharaoh said, "I won't." "Won't you?"
      answered Moses, "we shall see." Forthwith Aaron stretched forth his rod
      over the streams, rivers, and ponds, and brought on the second plague in
      the shape of frogs, which swarmed all over the land. They entered the
      houses, penetrated to the bedrooms, mounted the beds, slipped into the
      kneading-troughs, and even got into the ovens, although one would expect
      frogs to give such hot places a very wide berth. What a squelching of
      frogs there must have been! The Egyptians could not have stood absolutely
      still, and the land was covered with them. Still unfoiled, the magicians,
      "with their enchantments, followed suit, and brought up frogs too." Yet,
      as the land was already covered with frogs, it is difficult to see how the
      new comers found room, unless they got on the backs of the others, and
      went hopping about in couples. Pharaoh now relented. He called for Moses,
      and said, "Intreat your Lord to take away these nasty frogs, and I will
      let the people go." "That will I," said Moses, "and you shall know that
      there is none like unto the Lord our God." The next day the frogs died out
      of the houses, villages, and fields, and were gathered into heaps, so that
      again "the land stank." But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he
      hardened his heart again, "as the Lord had said."
    </p>
    <p>
      The third act of this tragi-comedy was decisive in one sense, for in it
      the magicians of Egypt were obliged to retire from the competition. Aaron
      stretched forth his rod again and smote the dust of the earth, all of
      which instantly became <i>lice</i>, in man and in beast. Before this dirty
      miracle the magicians of Egypt shrank dismayed. They made a feeble and
      altogether unsuccessful attempt to imitate Aaron's performance, and then
      drew back, declining to continue the contest. The lice settled them.
      "This," said they, "is the finger of God." But Pharaoh still refused to
      knuckle under. Even against the force of this supreme wonder his heart was
      steeled.
    </p>
    <p>
      So the fourth plague came. A grievous swarm of flies descended on Egypt,
      so that "the land was corrupted by reason of them. But not a single fly
      crossed over into the land of Goshe" where the Jews dwelt. Thereupon
      Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and told them he was willing to let
      their people go and sacrifice to the Lord for three days, but not outside
      Egypt. Moses reiterated his demand for a three days' journey into the
      wilderness. Whereto Pharaoh replied that they might go, but "not too far."
      Moses then undertook to banish the flies. And he was as good as his word;
      for there was made such a clean sweep of them that "not one remained."
      This precious narrative always runs to extremes. Egypt without a fly in it
      would be in a very abnormal condition. At ordinary times the land is
      infested with flies; so much so, indeed, that large numbers of the people
      suffer from diseased eyes, in consequence of these insects incessantly
      fastening on the sores caused by the irritating sand which fills the air.
      It was absurd for this Hebrew story-teller to scotch the last fly; he
      should have left sufficient to maintain the character of the country.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and when the flies were banished he
      refused to "let the people go." So the fifth plague came. A "very grievous
      murrain," which spared the cattle of Israel, broke out on the cattle of
      Egypt, and with such virulence that they all died. Pharaoh found on
      inquiry that there was "not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead," yet
      for all that his heart was hardened, and he would not let the people go.
    </p>
    <p>
      So the sixth plague came. Aaron took "handfuls of ashes of the furnace,"
      which Moses sprinkled towards heaven, and "it became a boil breaking forth
      with blains upon man and <i>upon beast</i>." Even the magicians were
      afflicted. Now the readers will bear in mind that <i>all</i> the cattle of
      Egypt were killed by the fifth, plague. What beasts, then, were these
      tortured with boils? Were they dead carcasses, or were they live cattle
      miraculously created in the interim? Surely this is a thing which "no
      fellah can understand." From the serpent of Eden to Jonah's whale, the
      animals of the Bible are a queer lot.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pharaoh's heart remaining still hardened, God commanded Moses to make a
      special appeal to him, and to get up early in the morning for that
      purpose. So Moses stood before Pharaoh and said, "Thus saith the Lord God
      of the Hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me. If you refuse I
      shall plague you and your people worse than ever, and so teach you that
      there is none like me in all the earth. Don't puff yourself up with
      conceit, for you were made what you are only in order that through you my
      power might be manifested. You had better cave in at once." But Pharaoh
      would not harken. He tacitly declared that the Lord God of the Hebrews
      might go to Jericho.
    </p>
    <p>
      So the seventh plague came. A fierce hail, accompanied by fire that ran
      along the ground, smote all that was in the field, both man and beast. It
      smote also <i>every</i> herb of the field and brake <i>every</i> tree of
      the field. Only those were saved who "feared the Lord" and stayed in doors
      with their servants and cattle. Fortunately the wheat and the rice were
      spared, as they were not grown up; or there would have been a famine in
      Egypt compared with which the seven years of scarcity in Joseph's time had
      sunk into insignificance. Pharaoh now relented and repented. "I have
      sinned this time," he said, "the Lord is righteous, and I and my people
      are wicked." And Moses, seeing that the king had recognised Jehovah as the
      true cock of the theological walk, procured a cessation of the thunder and
      the hail. But lo! when Pharaoh perceived this, he hardened his heart
      again, and "sinned yet more." The obduracy of this potentate, under the
      manipulation of God, is really becoming monotonous. So the eighth plague
      came. After a day and a night of east wind, a prodigious swarm of locusts
      went up over the land of Egypt, covering the face of the whole earth, and
      darkening the ground. They "did eat every herb of the land, and all the
      fruit of the trees which the hail had spared." But we were told that the
      hail smote <i>every</i> herb, and brake <i>every</i> tree. What then was
      left for the locusts to eat? The writer of this narrative had a very short
      memory, or else a stupendous power of belief.
    </p>
    <p>
      Again Pharaoh confessed that he had sinned. The locusts were cleared away,
      and so effectually that "not one remained." But "the Lord hardened
      Pharaoh's heart" for the eighth time, and he refused to let the people go.
      Whereupon Moses brought darkness over the land of Egypt, a thick darkness
      that might be felt. This thick darkness lasted in Egypt for three days,
      during which time the people "saw not one another, neither rose any from
      his place." We presume, therefore, that they all starved for that time.
      Poor devils! What had they done to be treated thus? All the children of
      Israel, however, had light in their dwellings. Why then did they not avail
      themselves of such a fine opportunity to escape? It was a splendid chance,
      yet they let it slip. Perhaps Moses did not give the word, and they were
      like a flock of sheep without him. Perhaps they wished to stay and see the
      rest of the fun. For more was coming, although it was anything but fun to
      the poor Egyptians.
    </p>
    <p>
      To them indeed it was an awful tragedy such as we lack words to describe.
      Moses commanded the Jews to take a male lamb for each household, to kill
      it, and to daub its blood over the two side-posts and on the upper
      door-posts of their houses. The flesh they were to eat in the night,
      roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the inauguration of
      the Passover. The Lord meant to pass through the land in the dark, and
      slay all the firstborn in Egypt; and lest he should make some mistakes he
      required the Jews' houses to be marked with blood so that he might
      distinguish them. We should expect God to dispense with such "aids to
      memory." What followed must be told in the language of Scripture: "At
      midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the
      firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on the throne unto the firstborn of the
      captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And
      Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the
      Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house
      where there was not one dead." The reader's imagination will picture the
      horror of this scene. That "great cry in Egypt" arose from a people who
      were the first victims of God's hatred of all who stood in the way of his
      chosen "set of leprous slaves." And in this case the tragedy was the more
      awful, and the more inexcusably atrocious, because God deliberately
      planned it. He could easily have softened Pharaoh's heart, but he chose to
      harden it. He could have brought his people out of Egypt in peace, but he
      preferred that they should start amidst wailings of agony, and leave
      behind them a track of blood.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet in the tragedy there is a touch of comedy. Those beasts that were
      first killed by the murrian and afterwards plagued by the boil, at last
      lose their firstborn by the tenth plague. Besides, there is a touch of the
      ludicrous in the statement that <i>every</i> house had one dead. All the
      firstborn of such a large population could not have been present at that
      time. Some might have left Egypt for purposes of trade, and others would
      certainly have been cut off before by death. The story of the tenth
      plague, like the other nine, requires to be taken with a very large grain
      of salt.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pharaoh and the Egyptians were now anxious to get rid of the Jews. So
      God's people departed in haste. They took good care, however, not to go
      empty-handed. They "borrowed" of the Egyptians, without the remotest
      intention of ever paying them back, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and
      raiment. In fact they "spoiled the Egyptians." In recent times the modern
      Egyptians have wiped off that old score by spoiling a few Jewish
      moneylenders, and so returned tit for tat.
    </p>
    <p>
      God led his people past instead of through the land of the Philistines,
      lest they should be frightened by war, and wish to return to Egypt. He
      does not seem to have known their character. Considering the delight with
      which they subsequently warred against their enemies, and the joy they
      took in wholesale massacre, we are inclined to think that they would have
      just liked to get their hands into the business of fighting by trying
      conclusions with the Philistines. Moses carried off the bones of Joseph,
      which must have been rather stale by that time. And God went before the
      huge host of six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children,
      and a mixed multitude of followers; by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead
      them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, until
      at length they found themselves encamped before the Red Sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the meanwhile God had again hardened Pharaoh's heart, for the express
      purpose of killing some more Egyptians and getting more honor to himself.
      The Israelites soon heard that Pharaoh was pursuing them with an army, and
      they remembered his dreadful war chariots. They found themselves literally
      between the devil and the deep sea. Whereupon they murmured against Moses
      for bringing them out into the wilderness to die. But he, disregarding
      them, stretched forth his miraculous rod over the sea, and lo! the waters
      parted, forming a wall on either side of a safe passage, through which the
      Jews travelled with dry feet. Pharaoh and his host, however, attempting
      the same feat, were overwhelmed by the down-rushing sea-ramparts, and all
      drowned. There remained, says <i>Exodus</i>, not so much as one of them.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have heard a different account of this affair. A negro preacher once
      explained that the Red Sea, just at that time, was "a little bit frozen
      over," and the Jews, carrying only what they had borrowed "frum the
      Gyptians," crossed the ice safely; but when Pharaoh came with his
      thundering war-chariots, the ice broke, and "dey all was drown'd." But a
      nigger in the audience objected that the Red Sea is "in de quator," and is
      never frozen over. "War did you larn dat?" asked the preacher. "In de
      jografy," was the reply. "Ah," was the ready retort, "dat's war you made
      de mistake; dis was a very long time ago, and dere was no jografy and no
      quator den." That nigger preacher's explanation seems quite as good as the
      one given by "Moses."
    </p>
    <p>
      We leave the Jews with their Lord God on the safe side of the Red Sea,
      where Moses heads the men in singing a joyful song of praise, and Miriam
      the prophetess heads the women with timbrel and with dance. Jehovah has
      ended his plaguing of the Egyptians, after more than decimating them. He
      has covered his name with terrible splendour, and proved "that there is
      none like him" to a world which is very happy to be assured of the fact.
      Two such monsters would make earth a hell. Reader! did you ever meet with
      a more extraordinary story than this of the Ten Plagues? and can you
      regard the book which contains it as God's Word?
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      JONAH AND THE WHALE.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;6.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have often wondered whether Shakespeare had the story of Jonah in his
      mind when he wrote that brief dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius, which
      immediately precedes the famous closet-scene in the Master's greatest play&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Hamlet.&mdash;Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
  Polonius.&mdash;By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
  Hamlet.&mdash;Methinks it is like a weasel.
  Polonius.&mdash;It is backed like a weasel.
  Hamlet.&mdash;Or like a whale?
  Polonius.&mdash;Very like a whale.
</pre>
    <p>
      Having, however, no means whereby to decide this question, we must content
      ourselves with broaching it, and leave the reader to form his own
      conclusion. Yet we cannot refrain from expressing our opinion that the
      story of the strange adventures of the prophet Jonah is "very like a
      whale."
    </p>
    <p>
      In another of Shakespeare's plays, namely "The Tempest," we find a phrase
      which exactly applies to the romance of Jonah. When Trinculo discovers
      Caliban lying on the ground, he proceeds to investigate the monster.
      "What," quoth he, "have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish:
      he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell." Now that is a
      most admirable description of the Book of Jonah. It has "a very ancient
      and fish-like smell." In fact, it is about the fishiest of all the fishy
      stories ever told.
    </p>
    <p>
      Sailors' "yarns" have become proverbial for their audacious and delicious
      disregard of truth, and the Book of Jonah is "briny" from beginning to
      end. It contains only forty-eight verses, but its brevity is no defect. On
      the contrary, that is one of its greatest charms. The mind takes in the
      whole story at once, and enjoys it undiluted; as it were a goblet of the
      fine generous wine of romance. Varying the expression, the Book of Jonah
      may be called the perfect cameo of Bible fiction.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the Book of Jonah was written no one precisely knows, nor is it
      discoverable who wrote it. According to Matthew Arnold some unknown man of
      genius gave to Christendom the fourth gospel, and with sublime
      self-abnegation allowed his name to perish. A similar remark must be made
      concerning the unknown author who gave to the world this racy story of
      Jonah and the whale. We heartily wish his name had been preserved for
      remembrance and praise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our marginal Bibles date the Book of Jonah b.c. cir. 862. Other
      authorities give, the more recent date of b.c. 880 as that of the events
      recorded in it. This chronology will suggest an important reflection later
      on.
    </p>
    <p>
      The wonderful story of Jonah and the whale begins in this wise:&mdash;"Now
      the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise,
      go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness
      is come up before me."
    </p>
    <p>
      Who Amittai was, and whether man or woman, is a problem still unsolved;
      but it is reasonable to suppose the name was that of Jonah's father, as
      the ancient Jews paid no superfluous attentions to women, and generally
      traced descent from the paternal stem alone. Amittai belonged to a place
      called Gathhepher, "the village of the Cow's tail," or, as otherwise
      interpreted, "the Heifer's trough." Jonah's tomb is said to have been long
      shown on a rocky hill near the town; but whether the old gentleman was
      ever buried there no man can say. According to Mr. Bradlaugh, the word
      Jonah means a dove, and is by some derived from an Arabic root, signifying
      to be weak or gentle. Another interpretation, by Gesenius, is a feeble,
      gentle bird. This refractory prophet was singularly ill-named. If his
      cognomen was bestowed on him by his parents, they must have been greatly
      deceived as to his character. The proverb says that it is a wise son that
      knows his own father; and with the history of Jonah before us, we may add
      that it is a wise father who rightly knows his own son.
    </p>
    <p>
      The solicitude of "the Lord God of the Hebrews" for the welfare of the
      Ninevites is to the sceptical mind an extraordinary phenomenon. It is one
      of the very few cases in which he shows the slightest concern for any
      other people than the Jews. His ordinary practice was to slaughter them
      wholesale by pestilence or the sword; and it is therefore very refreshing
      to meet with such an instance of his merciful care. For once he remembers
      that the rest of Adam's posterity are his children, and possess a claim on
      his attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jonah, however, did not share this benign sentiment; and disrelishing the
      missionary enterprise assigned him, he "rose up to flee unto Tarshish from
      the presence of the Lord." Jehovah does not seem to have been omnipresent
      then; that attribute attaches to him only since the beginning of the
      Christian era, when he assumed universal sway. Long before the time of
      Jonah, another man, the first ever born in this world, namely Cain, also
      "went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod;"
      probably so called because the Lord was not quite awake in that locality.
      No one knows were Nod was situated, nor can the most learned
      archaeologists denote the actual position of Tarshish. These two places
      would be well worth study. A careful examination of them would to some
      extent reveal what went on in those parts of the world to which God's
      presence did not extend; and we should be able to compare their geological
      and other records with those of the rest of the world. No doubt some
      striking differences would be perceptible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jonah determined to voyage by the Joppa and Tarshish line. So he went to
      the former port and embarked in one of the Company's ships, after paying
      his fare like a man.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having a perfectly untroubled conscience, and no apprehension of his
      coming troubles, Jonah no doubt felt highly elated at having done the Lord
      so neatly. Perhaps it was this elation of spirits which safe-guarded him
      from sea-sickness. At any rate he went "down into the sides of the ship,"
      and there slept the sleep of the just. So profound was his slumber, that
      it was "quite unbroken" by the horrible tempest that ensued. The Lord had
      his eye on Jonah, for the prophet had not yet reached the safe refuge of
      Tarshish; and he "sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a
      mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was likely to be broken." The
      mariners "cast forth the wares that were in the ship" to lighten her, and
      toiled hard to keep afloat; but their efforts were apparently fruitless,
      and nothing lay before them but the certain prospect of a watery grave.
      The reader will be able to imagine the tumult of the scene; the dash of
      ravening waves, the fierce howling of the wind, the creaking of masts and
      the straining of cordage, the rolling and pitching of the good ship and
      the shifting of her cargo, the captain's hoarse shouts of command and the
      sailors' loud replies, alternated with frenzied appeals to their gods for
      help. Yet amidst all the uproar Jonah still slept, as though the vessel
      were gaily skimming the waters before a pleasant breeze.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us pause here to interpose a question. Did the "great wind sent out
      into the sea" by the Lord confine its attentions to the immediate vicinity
      of Jonah's ship, or did it cause a general tempest and perhaps send some
      other vessels to Davy Jones's locker? As no restrictions are mentioned, we
      presume that the tempest was general, and that the Lord's wind, like the
      Lord's rain referred to by Jesus, fell alike upon the just and the unjust.
      This circumstance very naturally heightens our previous conception of his
      righteousness.
    </p>
    <p>
      That the Lord, or some other supernatural power, caused the tempest, the
      mariners of Jonah's ship and their captain never once doubted. Living as
      they did, and as we do not, under a miraculous dispensation, they
      attributed every unusual, and especially every unpleasant, occurrence to
      the agency of a god. The idea of predicting storms, with which the
      civilised world is now familiar, they would doubtless have regarded as
      blasphemous and absurd. It is, therefore, by no means wonderful that every
      man on board (except Jonah, who was fast asleep) "called unto his god."
      Ignorant of what god was afflicting them, they appealed impartially all
      round, in the hope of hitting the right one. But the circle of their
      deities did not include the one which sent the wind; so the tempest
      continued to prevail, despite their prayers.
    </p>
    <p>
      In this extremity a happy thought occurred to the "ship-master." It struck
      him that the strange passenger down below might know something about the
      tempest, and that his god might have caused it. Forthwith there dawned
      within him a recollection of words which Jonah had uttered on embarking.
      Had he not told them "that he fled from the presence of the Lord?" "Dear
      me," the captain probably said to himself, "what a fool I was not to think
      of this before. That chap down below is the occasion of all these
      troubles; I'll go and hunt him up, confound him!" Thereupon he doubtless
      slapped his thigh, as is the wont of sailors when they solve a difficulty
      or hit on a brilliant idea; after which he descended "into the sides of
      the ship," whither Jonah had gone. There he found the prophet slumbering
      as peacefully as a weanling child, with a smile of satisfaction playing
      over his Hebrew features. We can imagine the captain's profound disgust in
      presence of this scene. He and his men had been toiling and praying, and,
      alas! pitching the cargo overboard, in order to save their skins; and all
      the while the occasion of their trouble had been lying fast asleep!
      Preserving an outward decorum, however, he accosted Jonah in very mild
      terms. "What meanest thou, O sleeper?" said he, "Arise, call upon thy God,
      if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not."
    </p>
    <p>
      What exquisite simplicity! It reminds us of the childlike and bland Sir
      Henry Drummond Wolff, when he opposed Mr. Brad-laugh's entry to the House
      of Commons. That honorable champion of Almighty God objected to Mr.
      Bradlaugh on the ground that he acknowledged no God, and was thus vastly
      different from the other members of the House, all of whom "believed in
      some kind of deity or other." You must have a god to be a legislator, it
      seems, even if that god is, as the Americans say, only a little tin Jesus.
      So the captain of this tempest-tost ship desired Jonah to call upon his
      god. He made no inquiry into the character of the god, any more than did
      Sir Henry Drummond Wolff on a later occasion. It was enough to know that
      Jonah had "some kind of deity or other." Any god would do.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now comes the most remarkable episode in this wonderful story. The captain
      and the crew were aware that Jonah had "fled from the presence of the
      Lord," because he had told them; they had, therefore, every reason to
      believe that Jonah's god had caused the tempest. Yet, curiously enough,
      instead of at once proceeding on this belief, they said, everyone to his
      fellow, "Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this
      evil is upon us." This wholly superfluous procedure may, perhaps, be
      attributed to their exceptional love of justice. They wished to make
      assurance doubly sure before they "went for" Jonah. And with sweet
      simplicity they had recourse to the casting of lots, in which their wills
      would be inoperative, and the whole responsibility of deciding be thrown
      on the gods, who alone possessed the requisite information.
    </p>
    <p>
      The lot of course fell upon Jonah. Any other result would have spoiled the
      story. "Then," continues our narrative, "said they unto him, Tell us, we
      pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us? What is thine occupation?
      and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?
      And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of
      heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men
      exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the
      men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told
      them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea
      may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said
      unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be
      calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon
      you."
    </p>
    <p>
      We are almost dumb with astonishment before this act of self-sacrifice on
      the part of Jonah, for which his previous history left us quite
      unprepared. Who would have thought him capable of such disinterested
      conduct? His self-abnegation was assuredly heroic, and may even be called
      sublime. No doubt the captain and crew of the ship were as much astonished
      as we are, and their opinion of Jonah went up several hundred per cent.
      They resolved to make a last supreme effort before turning him into a
      fish-bait. But all their gallant endeavors were discovered to be futile
      and a mere waste of time. So the men, more in sorrow than in anger,
      finally took Jonah up and threw him overboard. They had done their best
      for him, and now, finding that they could do no more except at too great a
      risk, they sadly left him to do the rest for himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately, we are told, "the sea ceased from her raging." Jonah was oil
      upon the troubled waters. What an invaluable recipe does this furnish us
      against the dangers of the deep sea! The surest method of allaying a storm
      is to throw a prophet overboard. Every ship should carry a missionary in
      case of need. It would, indeed, be well if the law made this compulsory.
      The cost of maintaining the missionary would be more than covered by the
      saving effected in insurance. Here is a splendid field for Christian
      self-sacrifice! Hundreds of gentlemen who are now engaged in very doubtful
      labor among the heathen, might engage in this new enterprise with the
      absolute certainty of a beneficent result; for poor ungodly mariners would
      thus be spared a hasty dispatch from this world without time to repent and
      obtain forgiveness, and be allowed ample leisure to secure salvation.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the men saw that "the sea ceased from her raging" on Jonah's being
      cast into her depths, "they feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a
      sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows." To the sceptical mind it would
      seem that they had much more reason to "fear" the Lord during the
      continuance of the tempest than after it had subsided. It also seems
      strange that they should have the means wherewith to offer a sacrifice.
      Perhaps they had a billy-goat on board, and made him do duty, in default
      of anything better. Or failing even a billy-goat, as the Lord God of the
      Hebrews could only be propitiated by the shedding of blood, they perhaps
      caught and immolated a stray rat. The nature of their "vows" is not
      recorded, but it is not unreasonable to assume that they swore never again
      to take on board a passenger fleeing "from the presence of the Lord."
    </p>
    <p>
      Meanwhile, what had become of poor Jonah? Most men would be effectually
      settled if thrown overboard in a storm. But there are some people who were
      not born to be drowned, and Jonah was one of them. He was destined to
      another fate. The Lord, it appears, "had prepared a great fish to swallow
      up Jonah," and the feat was of course duly performed. Our narrative does
      not describe the character of this "great fish," but light is cast on the
      subject by another passage of Scripture. In the twelfth chapter of St.
      Matthew, and the fortieth verse, Jesus is represented as saying, "For as
      Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the
      Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." The
      great fish was then a whale. Jesus said so, and there can be no higher
      authority. Sharks and such ravenous fish have an unpleasant habit of
      "chawing" their victims pretty considerably before swallowing them; so, on
      the whole, we prefer to believe that it was a whale. Yet the Levant is a
      curious place for a whale to be lurking in. The creature must have been
      miraculously led there to go through its appointed performance. It must
      also have been "prepared," to use the language of the Bible, in a very
      remarkable way, for the gullet of a whale is not large enough to allow of
      the passage of an object exceeding the size of an ordinary herring.
      Swallowing Jonah must have been a tough job after the utmost preparation.
      With a frightfully distended throat, however, the whale did its best, and
      by dint of hard striving at last got Jonah down.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having properly taken Jonah in out of the wet, the poor whale doubtless
      surmised that its troubles had ended. But alas they had only just begun!
      Swallowing a prophet is one thing; digesting him is another. For three
      days and three nights the whale struggled desperately to digest Jonah, and
      for three days and nights Jonah obstinately refused to <i>be</i> digested.
      Never in the entire course of its life had it experienced such a
      difficulty. During the whole of that period, too, Jonah carried on a kind
      of prayer meeting, and the strange rumbling in its belly must have greatly
      added to the poor animal's discomfort At last it grew heartily sick of
      Jonah, and vomited him up on dry land. We have no doubt that it swam away
      into deep waters, a sadder but wiser whale; and that ever afterwards,
      instead of bolting its food, it narrowly scrutinised every morsel before
      swallowing it, to make sure it wasn't another prophet. According to its
      experience, prophets were decidedly the most unprofitable articles of
      consumption.
    </p>
    <p>
      We are of course aware that the narrative states that "the Lord spake unto
      the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry land." But this we conceive to
      be a mere pleasantry on the part of the unknown author. The idea of the
      Lord whispering into a whale's ear is ineffably ludicrous: besides, the
      whale had a very natural inclination to rid itself of Jonah, and needed no
      divine prompting.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jonah's prayer "unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly" is very
      amusing. There is not a sentence in it which bears any reference to the
      prophet's circumstances. It is a kind of Psalm, after the manner of those
      ascribed to David. Our belief is that the author found it floating about,
      and thinking it would do for Jonah, inserted it in his narrative, without
      even taking the trouble to furbish it into decent keeping with the
      situation.
    </p>
    <p>
      The word of the Lord came unto Jonah a second time, and presuming no more
      to disobey, he went to Nineveh. It is to be supposed, however, that he
      first well-lined his poor stomach, for both he and the whale had fasted
      for three days and nights, and must have been sadly in want of victuals.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nineveh, according to our author, was a stupendous city of "three days'
      journey." This means its diameter and not its circumference, for we are
      told that Jonah "entered into the city a day's journey." If we allow
      twenty miles as a moderate days' walk, Nineveh was sixty miles through
      from wall to wall, or about twenty times as large as London; and if
      densely populated like our metropolis, it must have contained more than
      eighty million inhabitants. This is too great a stretch even for a
      sailor's yarn. Our author did not take pains to clear his narrative of
      discrepancy. In his last verse he informs us that the city contained "more
      than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right
      hand and their left." If this number is correct Nineveh was a large place,
      but its dimensions were very much less than those stated in the Book of
      Jonah.
    </p>
    <p>
      Jonah obeyed the Lord this time and began to preach. "Yet forty days,"
      cried he, "and Nineveh shall be overthrown." How the prophet made himself
      understood is an open question! Either the Lord taught him their language,
      or he miraculously enabled them to understand Hebrew. Further, they
      worshipped Baal, and Jonah preached to them in the name of his foreign
      God. According to ancient, and to a large extent modern custom, we should
      expect them in such a case to kill the presumptuous prophet, or at least
      to shut him up as a madman. Yet they did nothing of the kind. On the
      contrary, "the people of Nineveh believed God." Even the king was
      converted. He covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He also
      decreed that neither man nor beast in the city should eat or drink
      anything; but, said he, "let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and
      cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way."
      What an enormous consumption of sackcloth there must have been! The
      merchants who sold it did a surprising business, and no doubt quotations
      went up immensely. We wonder, indeed, how they managed to supply such a
      sudden and universal demand. And what a sight was presented by the whole
      population of the city! Men, women, and children, high and low, rich and
      poor, were all arrayed in the same dingy garments. Even the horses, cows,
      pigs and sheep, were similarly attired. What a queer figure they must have
      cut! And what an astonishing chorus of prayer ascended to heaven!
      According to the text, the beasts had to "cry mightily" as well as the
      men. Since the confusion of tongues at Babel, neither history nor
      tradition records such a frightful hubbub.
    </p>
    <p>
      Their supplications prevailed. God "saw their works, that they had turned
      from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that
      he would do unto them; and he did it not." Immutable God changes his mind,
      infallible God repents!
    </p>
    <p>
      God spared Nineveh, but only for a brief while, for it was destroyed a few
      years later by Arbaces, the Mede. The merciful respite was thus not of
      long continuance. Yet it "displeased Jonah exceedingly." He had been
      suspicious from the first, and he only fulfilled God's mission under
      constraint. And now his worst suspicions were confirmed. After he had told
      the Ninevites that their city would be overthrown in forty days, God had
      relented, and utterly ruined Jonah's reputation as a prophet. So he made
      himself a booth outside the city, and sat in its shadow, to watch what
      would happen, with a deep feeling, which he plainly expressed to the
      Almighty, that now his reputation was gone he might as well die. The Lord
      considerately "prepared a gourd," which grew up over Jonah's head to
      protect him from the heat; at which the sulky prophet was "exceedingly
      glad," although it would naturally be thought that the booth would afford
      ample protection. He, however, soon found himself sold; for the Lord
      prepared a worm to destroy the gourd, and when the sun arose he sent "a
      vehement east wind" which beat upon poor Jonah's head, and made him so
      faint that he once more asked God to despatch him out of his misery.
      Whereupon the Lord said coaxingly, "Doest thou well to be angry?" And
      Jonah pettishly answered, "Yes, I do." Then the Lord, with a wonderful
      access of pathos, altogether foreign to his general character, twitted
      Jonah with having pity for the gourd and none for the inhabitants of "that
      great city." With this the story concludes. We are unable to say whether
      the poor prophet, so wretchedly sold, ever recovered from his spleen, or
      whether it shortened his days and brought him to an untimely grave.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Book of Jonah is as true as Gospel, for Jesus endorsed it. The Bible
      contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So without
      expressing any sceptical sentiments, we will end by repeating Byron's
      words, "Truth is strange&mdash;stranger than fiction."
    </p>
    <p>
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    <h2>
      THE WANDERING JEWS.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.-VII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Middle Ages had a legend of the Wandering Jew. This person was
      supposed to have been doomed, for the crime of mocking Jesus at the
      crucifixion, to wander over the earth until his second coming. No one
      believes this now. The true Wandering Jews were those slaves whom Jehovah
      rescued from Egyptian bondage, with a promise that he would lead them to a
      land flowing with milk and honey, but whom he compelled to roam the
      deserts instead for forty years, until all of them except two had
      perished. Of all the multitude who escaped from Egypt, only Joshua and
      Caleb entered the promised land. Even Moses had to die in sight of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      These poor Wandering Jews demand our pity. They were guilty of many crimes
      against humanity, but they scarcely deserved such treatment as they
      received. Their God was worse than they. He was quick-tempered,
      unreasonable, cruel, revengeful, and dishonest. Few of his promises to
      them were performed. They worshipped a bankrupt deity. The land of promise
      was a Tantalus cup ever held to their lips, and ever mocking them when
      they essayed to drink. God was their greatest enemy instead of their best
      friend. Their tortuous path across the wilderness was marked by a track of
      bleaching bones. All the evils which imagination can conceive fell on
      their devoted heads. Bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, cursed with
      famine and drought, swallowed by earthquake, slain by war, and robbed by
      priests, they found Jehovah a harder despot than Pharaoh. Death was to
      them a happy release, and only the grave a shelter from the savagery of
      God.
    </p>
    <p>
      Commentators explain that the Jews who left Egypt were unfit for the
      promised land. If so, they were unfit to be the chosen people of God. Why
      were they not allowed to remain in Egypt until they grew better, or why
      was not some other nation selected to inherit Canaan?
    </p>
    <p>
      At the end of our number on "The Ten Plagues" we left the Jews on the safe
      side of the Red Sea. We must now ask a few questions which we had no space
      for then.
    </p>
    <p>
      How, in a period of two hundred and fifteen years, did the seventy males
      of Jacob's house multiply into a nation of over two millions? Experience
      does not warrant belief in such a rapid increase. The Jewish chroniclers
      were fond of drawing the long bow. In the book of Judges, for instance, we
      are told that the Gileadites, under, Jephthah, slew 42,000 Ephriamites;
      and that the Benjamites slew 40,000 Israelites, after which the Israelites
      killed 43,000 Benjamites, all of these being "men of valor" that "drew the
      sword." The book of Samuel says that the Philistines had 30,000 war
      chariots, and that they slew 30,000 footmen of Israel. The second book of
      Chronicles says that Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Judah in one day
      120,000 "sons of valor," and carried away 200,000 captives; that Abijah's
      force consisted of 400,000, and Jeroboam's of 800,000, 500,000 of whom
      were killed! At the battle of Waterloo the total number of men killed on
      our side was 4,172. The statistics of slaughter in the Bible were clearly
      developed from the inner consciousness of the Jewish scribes; and no doubt
      the same holds good with respect to the statistics of the flight from
      Egypt.
    </p>
    <p>
      This view is corroborated by a singular statement in the third chapter of
      Numbers. We are there informed that when the census was taken "All the
      first-born males, from a month old and upwards of those that were
      numbered, were twenty and two thousand two hundred and three score and
      thirteen." Now as there were about 900,000 males altogether, it follows
      that every Jewish mother must have had on an average <i>forty-two sons</i>,
      to say nothing of daughters! Such extraordinary fecundity is unknown to
      the rest of the world, except in the reign of romance. The Jews bragged a
      great deal about Jehovah, and they appear to have obtained some
      compensation by bragging a great deal about themselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      How did the Jews manage to quit Egypt in one night? There were 600,000 men
      on foot, besides women and children, not to mention "the mixed multitude
      that went up also with them." The entire population must have numbered
      more than two millions, and some commentators estimate it at nearly three.
      They had to come in from all parts of Goshen to Rameses, bringing with
      them the sick and infirm, the very old and the very young. Among such a
      large population there could not have been less than two hundred births a
      day. Many of the Jewish women, therefore, must have been just confined.
      How could they and their new-born children have started off in such a
      summary manner? Many more women must have been at the point of confinement
      How could these have been hurried off at all? Yet we are told that not a
      single person was left behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      How were the flocks and herds driven out in such haste? There were about
      two million sheep and two hundred thousand oxen. The sheep alone would
      have required grazing-land as extensive as the whole county of Bedford,
      besides what would have been needed for the oxen. Is it credible that all
      these animals were collected together from such a wide area, and driven
      out of Egypt in one night? Yet we are told that not a single hoof was left
      behind!
    </p>
    <p>
      How did the huge multitude of people march? If they travelled fifty men
      abreast, as is supposed to have been the practice in the Hebrew armies,
      the able-bodied warriors alone would have filled up the road for about <i>seven
      miles</i>, and the whole multitude would have formed a dense column <i>twenty-two
      miles long</i>. The front rank would have been two days' journey in
      advance of the rear.
    </p>
    <p>
      How did the sheep and cattle march? How was it possible for them to keep
      pace with their human fellow-travellers? They would naturally not march in
      a compact array, and the vast drove must therefore have spread widely and
      lengthened out for miles.
    </p>
    <p>
      What did the drove live upon during the journey from Barneses to Succoth,
      and from Succoth to Etham, and from Etham to the Red Sea? Such grass as
      there was, even if the sheep and cattle went before the men, women, and
      children, could not have been of much avail; for what was not eaten by the
      front ranks must have been trodden under foot at once, and rendered
      useless to those that followed. After they "encamped by the Red Sea," on
      the third day, there was no vegetation at all. The journey was over a
      desert, the surface of which was composed of hard gravel intermixed with
      pebbles. After crossing the Red Sea, their road lay over a desert region,
      covered with sand, gravel, and stone, for about nine miles; after which
      they entered a boundless desert plain, called <i>El Ati</i> white and
      painfully glaring to the eye; and beyond this the ground was broken by
      sand-hills. How were the two million sheep and two hundred thousand oxen
      provisioned during this journey?
    </p>
    <p>
      What did the Jews themselves live on? The desert afforded them no
      sustenance until God miraculously sent manna. They must, therefore, have
      taken a month's provisions for every man, woman, and child. How could they
      possibly have provided themselves with so much food on so short a notice?
      And how could they have carried it, seeing that they were already burdened
      with kneading-troughs and other necessaries for domestic use, besides the
      treasures they "borrowed" of the Egyptians.
    </p>
    <p>
      How did they provide themselves with tents? Allowing ten persons for each
      tent, they must have required two hundred thousand. Were these carefully
      got ready in expectation? In the land of Goshen they lived in houses with
      "lintels" and "side-posts." And how were the tents carried? The Jews
      themselves were already well loaded. Of course the oxen remain, but, as
      Colenso observes, they were not trained to carry t goods on their backs,
      and were sure to prove refractory under such a burden.
    </p>
    <p>
      Whence did the Jews obtain their arms? According to Exodus (xiii, 18) "the
      children of Israel went up <i>harnessed</i> out of the land of Egypt." The
      Hebrew word which is rendered "harnessed" appears to mean "armed" or "in
      battle array" in all the other passages where it occurs, and is so
      translated. Some commentators, scenting a difficulty in this rendering,
      urge that the true meaning is "by five in a rank." But if 600,000 men
      marched out of Egypt "five in a rank," they must have formed a column
      sixty-eight miles long, and it would have taken several days to start them
      all off, whereas they went out altogether "that self-same day." Besides,
      the Jews had arms in the desert, and how could they have possessed them
      there unless they obtained them in Egypt? If they went out of Egypt
      "armed," why did they cry out "sore afraid" when Pharaoh pursued them?
    </p>
    <p>
      According to Herodotus, the Egyptian army, which formed a distinct caste,
      never exceeded 160,000 men. Why were the Jews so appalled by less than a
      third of their own number? Must we suppose, with Kalisch, that their
      bondage in Egypt had crushed all valor and manhood out of their breasts?
      Josephus gives a different explanation. He says that the day after
      Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, "Moses gathered together the
      weapons of the Egyptians, which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by
      the current of the sea and the force of the wind assisting it. And he
      conjectured that this also happened by Divine Providence, that so they
      might not be destitute of weapons." But, as Colenso observes, though
      body-armor <i>might</i> have been obtained in this way, swords, spears and
      shields <i>could not</i> in any number. The Bible, too, says nothing about
      such an occurrence. We must therefore assume that 600,000 well-armed Jews
      were such utter cowards that they could not strike a blow for their wives
      and children and their own liberty against the smaller army of Pharaoh,
      but could only whimper and sigh after their old bondage. Yet a month later
      they fought bravely with the Amalekites, and ever afterwards they were as
      eager for battle as any Irishman at Donnybrook: fair. How can this
      difference be accounted for? Could a nation of hereditary cowards become
      stubborn warriors in the short space of a month?
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us now follow the Wandering Jews through the Desert, which they should
      have crossed in a week or two, but which they travelled up and down for
      forty years. People who want to make an expeditious journey had better do
      without a divine guide.
    </p>
    <p>
      Coming to Marah, they found only bitter water to drink, at which they
      began to murmur. But the Lord showed Moses a certain tree, which when cast
      into the water made it sweet. It must have been a wonderful tree to
      sweeten water for two millions of people. Bitter water, also, quenches
      thirst more readily than sweet, and it stimulates the appetite, which
      would be highly desirable under a fierce relaxing sun.
    </p>
    <p>
      A month after they left Egypt they came to the wilderness of Sin. There
      they began to murmur again. Finding themselves without food, they
      remembered "the flesh pots" of Egypt, and reproached Moses with having
      brought them into the desert to die of hunger. Both Moses and the Lord
      seem to have thought it unreasonable on their part to ask for something to
      eat. Oliver Twist was stared at when he asked for more, but the Jews
      surprised God by asking for something to begin with. Yet reflecting,
      perhaps, that they were after all unable to live without food, the Lord
      rained down manna from heaven. After the dew evaporated in the morning,
      they found this heavenly diet lying on the ground. It was "like a
      coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with
      honey." No doubt the angels subsist on it in paradise. Moses preserved a
      pot of it for the instruction of future generations. The pot has, however,
      not been discovered up to the present day. Some future explorers may light
      upon it "in the fulness of time," and so-help to prove the historical
      character of the Pentateuch.
    </p>
    <p>
      The manna, as might be expected, had some peculiarities. No matter how
      much or how little he gathered, every man found on measuring that he had
      exactly an omer of it. Although it fell regularly every week day, none
      fell on Sunday. A double quantity had, therefore, to be gathered on
      Saturday. It melted in the sun, but could nevertheless be baked and
      seethed. Any of it left overnight stank in the morning and bred worms.
    </p>
    <p>
      For forty years "the children of Israel did eat manna." But more than once
      their gorge rose against it. Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna
      for dinner, manna for tea, and manna for supper, was a little more than
      they could stand, The monotony of their diet became intolerable.
      Accordingly, we read in the twenty-first chapter of <i>Numbers</i>, that
      they complained of it and asked for a slight change in the bill of fare.
      "There is no bread," said they, "neither is there any water; and our soul
      loatheth this light food." This small request so incensed the Lord that he
      sent a lot of fiery serpents among them, which bit them so that "much
      people of Israel died." Like Oliver Twist, the Jews quickly repented their
      presumption. They humbled themselves before Moses, and he interceded with
      God for them. The prophet then made a brass serpent and set it on a pole,
      and on looking at it all who had been bitten recovered.
    </p>
    <p>
      On another occasion, as we read in the eleventh of <i>Numbers</i>, they
      were guilty of a similar offence. This time it was the more surprising, as
      God had just burnt a lot of them up with raging fire for 'complaining.'
      They remembered "the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the
      cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the
      garlick." "Now," said they, "there is nothing at all, besides this manna,
      before our eyes-Who shall give us flesh to eat?" The Egyptian bill of fare
      was certainly enough to make their mouths water, and it proves that if
      Pharaoh made them work hard he did not starve them, as Jehovah very nearly
      succeeded in doing. They were so affected by their recollection of the
      luscious victuals they enjoyed in Egypt, that they actually cried with
      sorrow at their loss. Moses heard them weeping, "every man in the door of
      his tent." This put the Lord in a very bad temper; and Moses, who seems to
      have been much less irascible than Jehovah, "also was displeased." God
      determined to give them a surfeit. "Ye shall," said he, "not eat flesh one
      day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days; but
      even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and be loathsome
      unto you." Thereupon the Lord sent a wind which brought quails from the
      sea. They were so plentiful that they fell in heaps two cubits high for
      about twenty miles around the camp. That worthy commentator, the Rev.
      Alexander Cruden, says that the miracle of this occurrence consisted, not
      in the great number of quails, but in their being "brought so seasonably"
      to the Jewish camp. The quantity did not trouble his credulous mind. "Some
      authors," says he, "affirm that in those eastern and southern countries,
      quails are innumerable, so that in one part of Italy within the compass of
      five miles, there were taken about an hundred thousand of them every day
      for a month together; and that sometimes they fly so thick over the sea,
      that being weary they fall into ships, sometimes in such numbers, that
      they sink them with their weight." The good man's easy reliance on 'some
      authors.' and his ready acceptance of such fables, show what credulity is
      engendered by belief in the Bible.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Jews gathered quails for two days and a night, and joyfully carried
      them home. But "while the flesh was yet between their teeth," the Lord
      smote them with a very great plague, so that multitudes of them died. Poor
      devils! They were always in hot water.
    </p>
    <p>
      How the sheep and cattle were provisioned the Bible does not inform us.
      There was scarcely a nibble of grass to be had in the desert, and as they
      could not very well have lived on sand and pebbles, they must have been
      supported miraculously. Perhaps the authors of the Pentateuch forgot all
      about this.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not only were the Jews, like their flocks and herds, miraculously
      supported; they were also miraculously found in clothes. For forty years
      their garments and shoes did not wear out. How was this miracle wrought?
      When matter rubs against matter, particles are lost by abrasion. Did the
      Lord stop this process, or did he collect all the particles that were worn
      off during the day and replace them by night, on the soles of shoes, on
      the elbows of coats, and on the knees of pantaloons? If the clothes never
      wore out, it is fair to suppose that they remained absolutely unchanged.
      Imagine a toddling urchin, two years old at the exodus from Egypt, wearing
      the same rig when he grew up to manhood! Justin, however, says that the
      clothes grew with their growth. Some Jewish rabbis hold that angels acted
      as tailors in the wilderness, and so the garments were all kept straight.
      But Augustine, Chrysostom, and other Fathers abide by the literal
      interpretation that, through the blessing of God, the clothes and shoes
      never wore out, so that those who grew to manhood were able to hand them
      over, as good as new, to the rising generation. According to this theory,
      <i>everybody</i> must have had a poor fit, unless there was a transference
      of garments every twelve months or so.
    </p>
    <p>
      The history of the Wandering Jews is full of miracles and wonders. It says
      that all the congregation of Israel, numbering over two millions,
      assembled at the door of the Tabernacle. As the whole width of the
      Tabernacle was eighteen feet, only nine men could have stood in front of
      it; and therefore the warriors of Israel alone, to say nothing of the rest
      of the population, if we allow eighteen inches between each rank of nine
      men, would have formed a column nearly <i>twenty miles</i> long! We find
      also that Moses, and Joshua after him, addressed not only the whole
      congregation of Israel, including men, women, and children, but the "mixed
      multitude" of strangers as well. Their voices were distinctly heard by a
      crowded mass of people as large as the entire population of London. They
      must have had stentorian lungs, or the people must have had a wonderful
      sense of hearing.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the Jews were encamped, according to Scott's estimate, they lived in
      a sort of "moveable city, <i>twelve miles square</i>," nearly as large as
      London. The people had to go outside this vast camp every day to bring in
      a supply of water and fuel, after cutting the latter down where they could
      find it! All their rubbish had to be carried out in like manner, for
      Jehovah used sometimes to take a walk among them, and he was highly
      displeased at seeing dirt. Every man, woman, and child, including the old,
      the sick, and the infirm, had to go outside the camp to attend to the
      necessities of nature! All the refuse of their multitudinous. sacrifices
      had to be lugged out of the camp by the three priests, Aaron, Eleazer, and
      Itharnar. Colenso reckons that the sacrifices alone, allowing less than
      three minutes for each, would have occupied them incessantly during the
      whole twenty-four hours of every day. The pigeons brought to them daily as
      sin offer-ings must have numbered about 264, and as these had to be
      consumed by the three priests, each of them had to eat 88 pigeons a day,
      besides heaps of roast beef and other victuals!
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after the first fall of manna, the Jews murmured again because they
      had no water. Whereupon Moses smote a rock with his magical rod, and water
      gushed from it. The precious fluid came just in time to refresh them for
      their fight with the Amalekites. These people were very obstinate foes,
      and it required a miracle to defeat them. Moses ascended a hill and held
      up his hand. While he did so the Israelites prevailed, but when he let
      down his hand the Amalekites prevailed. To ensure victory, Aaron and Hur
      stood on either side of him, and held up his hands until the sun set. By
      this means Joshua discomfited the Amalekites with great slaughter. Moses
      built an altar to celebrate the event, and God swore that he would "have
      war with Amelek from generation to generation." As Jehovah's vengeance was
      so lasting, it is no wonder that his worshipers carried on their wars ever
      afterwards on the most hellish principles.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we read that 12,000 Israelites
      warred against Midian. The brag of the chronicler is evident in this
      number or in those which follow. This little army polished off all the
      kings of Midian, burnt all their cities and castles, slew 48,000 men, and
      carried off 100,000 captives, besides, 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and
      61,000 asses. What prodigious spoil there was in those days! Of the
      captives Moses ordered 48,000 women and 20,000 boys to be massacred in
      cold blood; while the remaining 32,000 "women that had not known man by
      lying with him" were reserved for another fate. The Lord's share of these
      was thirty-two! They were of course handed over to the priests as his
      representatives. Parsons, who rail against the immorality of scepticism,
      say that this is all true.
    </p>
    <p>
      These Midianites were a tough lot; for although they were <i>all killed</i>
      on this occasion, and their cities and castles burnt, we find them a
      powerful nation again in the sixth of <i>Judges</i>, and able to prevail
      against the Jews for seven years.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another people badly punished by the Jews were the inhabitants of Bashan.
      All their cities were destroyed to the number of sixty. Their king, Og,
      was a gigantic fellow, and slept on an iron bed twelve feet long. The
      cities of Heshbon were destroyed in the same way. All the men, women, and
      children, were slaughtered. Not one was spared.
    </p>
    <p>
      We shall hereafter follow the Jews under Joshua. For the present we must
      content ourselves with a last reference to their wanderings under Moses.
      While they were encamped round Mount Sinai, their leader received an
      invitation to go up and visit God who had been staying there for six days.
      They had much to talk about, and the interview lasted forty days and forty
      nights. At the end of it Moses descended, carrying with him the Ten
      Commandments, written by the finger of God on two tables of stone. In his
      absence the Wandering Jews had given him up as lost, and had induced Aaron
      to make them a god, in the shape of a golden calf, to go before them. This
      image they were worshipping as Moses approached the camp, and his anger
      waxed so not that he threw down the tables and broke all the Ten
      Commandments at once. He then burnt the calf in fire and ground it to
      powder, mixed it with water and made them drink it. He also sent the
      Levites among them, who put three thousand men to the edge of the sword.
      God wanted to destroy them altogether, but Moses held him back. "Let me
      alone," said the Lord. "No, no," said Moses, "just think what the
      Egyptians will say; they'll laugh at you after all as a poor sort of a
      god; and remember, too, that you are bound by an oath to multiply your
      people and to let them inherit the land of promise." So the Lord cooled
      down, and wrote out the Decalogue again on two fresh tables of stone. This
      Decalogue is supposed to be the foundation of morality. But long before
      the time of Moses moral laws were known and observed in Egypt, in India,
      and among all the peoples that ever lived. Moral laws are the permanent
      conditions of social health, and the fundamental ones must be observed
      wherever any form of society exists. Their ground and guarantee are to be
      found in human nature, and do not depend on a fabulous episode in the
      history of the Wandering Jews.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE TOWER OF BABEL.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;VIII.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Bible, it is frequently asserted, was never meant to teach us science,
      but to instruct us in religion and morality; and therefore we must not
      look to it for a faithful account of what happened in the external world,
      but only for a record of the inner experiences of mankind. Astronomy will
      inform us how the heavenly bodies came into existence, and by what laws
      their motions are governed; Geology will acquaint us with the way in which
      the earth's crust was formed, and with the length of time occupied by the
      various stages of the process; and Biology will tell us all about the
      origin and development of living things. God has given us reason, by
      exercising which we may gather knowledge and establish sciences, so as to
      explain the past, illustrate the present, and predict the future; and as
      reason is sufficient for all this, there is no need of a divine revelation
      in such matters. But as reason is insufficient to teach the will of God
      and the laws of morality, a divine revelation of these is necessary, and
      the Bible contains it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This plausible contention cannot, however, be maintained. The Bible is not
      silent with respect to astronomy, geology, or biology. It makes frequent
      and precise statements concerning them, and in nearly every instance it
      contradicts scientific truth as we have amply proved in previous numbers
      of this series.
    </p>
    <p>
      The eleventh chapter of Genesis gives an explanation of the diversity of
      languages on the earth. It does this in the truest spirit of romance.
      Philologists like Max Müller and Whitney must regard the story of the
      Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, as a capital joke. A great
      many parsons may still believe it, but they are not expected to know much.
    </p>
    <p>
      One fact alone is enough to put the philology of Genesis out of court. The
      native languages of America are all closely related to each other, but
      they have no affinity with any language of the Old World. It is therefore
      clear that they could not have been imported into the New World by
      emigrants from the plains of Central Asia. The Genesaic theory is thus
      proved to be not of universal application, and consequently invalid.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us come to the Bible story. Some time after the Flood, and before the
      birth of Abraham, "the whole earth was of one language and one speech;"
      or, as Colenso translates the original, "of one lip, and of one language."
      This primitive tongue must have been Hebrew. God spoke it in Eden when he
      conversed with our first parents, and probably it is spoken in heaven to
      this day. For all we know it may be spoken in hell too. It probably is,
      for the Devil and his angels lived in heaven before they were turned into
      hell, and we may conclude that they took their native language with them.
      It was spoken by Adam when he named his wife in Paradise; by Eve, after
      the expulsion when she gave names to her sons, Cain and Seth; by Lamech,
      shortly before the Flood, when he explained the name of Noah; and indeed,
      as Colenso observes, "it is obvious that the names of the whole series of
      Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and from Noah onwards, are in almost every
      instance pure Hebrew names." Delitzsch, however, thinks it comparatively
      more probable that the Syriac or Nabataan tongue, preserved after the
      dispersion at Babylon, was the one originally spoken. Yet he dismisses the
      possibility of demonstrating it. He supposes that the names of Adam and
      the other patriarchs have been altered, but not so as to lose any of their
      original meaning; in other words, that they have been, by God's grace,
      translated with perfect accuracy from the primeval speech. But Colenso
      very justly remarks that the original documents do not allude to a process
      of translation, and that we have no right to assume it. He also adds that
      "if the authority of Scripture is sufficient to prove the fact of a
      primeval language, it must also prove that this language was Hebrew."
    </p>
    <p>
      Yet the Bible is wrong, for Hebrew could not have been the primitive
      speech. It is only a Semitic dialect, a branch of the Semitic stem.
      Sanscrit is another stem, equally ancient; and according to Max Müller and
      Bunsen, both are modifications of an earlier and simpler language. Neither
      has the least affinity with Chinese, which again, like them, differs
      radically from the native dialects of America. As Hosea Biglow sings,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     "John P. Robinson, he
     Says they didn't know everything down in Judee."
</pre>
    <p>
      And most certainly they did not know the true origin and development of
      the various languages spoken by the nations of the earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      The people who dwelt on the earth after the Deluge, and all spoke one
      language, journeyed from the east, found a plain in, the land of Shinar,
      and dwelt there. Shinar is another name for Babylon. After dwelling there
      no one knows exactly how long, "they said one to another, Go to, let us
      make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and
      slime had they for morter." The writer of this story was very fond of
      short cuts. It took men a long time to learn the art of making bricks; and
      the idea of their suddenly saying to each other "let us make brick," and
      at once proceeding to do so, is a wild absurdity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having made a lot of bricks, they naturally wished to do something with
      them. So "they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top
      may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered
      abroad upon the face of the whole earth." How could making a name, for the
      information of nobody but themselves, prevent their dispersion? And how
      could they resolve to build a "city," when they had never seen one, and
      had no knowledge of what it was like? Cities are not built in this manner.
      "Rome wasn't built in a day" is a proverb which applies to all other
      places as well. London, Paris, and Rome, are the growth of centuries, and
      the same must have been true of ancient capitals.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reason assigned by Scripture for the work of these primitive builders
      is plainly inadequate. A more probable reason is that they mistrusted
      God's promise never again to destroy the earth with a flood, and therefore
      determined to build a high tower, so that, if another deluge came, they
      might ascend above the waters, or, if need be step clean into heaven
      itself. Their lack of faith is not surprising. We find the same
      characteristic on the part of believers in our own day. They believe in
      God's promises only so far as it suits their interest and convenience.
      Scripture says, "Whoso giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord." Yet
      there are thousands of rich Christians who seem to mistrust the security.
    </p>
    <p>
      How high did these primitive builders think heaven was? According to
      Colenso, they said, "Come, let us build for us a city, and a tower <i>with
      its head in heaven</i>." Did they really think they would ever succeed in
      building so high? Perhaps they did, for their Natural Philosophy was
      extremely limited. They doubtless imagined the blue vault of heaven as a
      solid thing, in which were stuck the sun, moon, and stars, and no higher
      than the sailing clouds.
    </p>
    <p>
      Their simple ignorance is intelligible, but how can we explain the
      ignorance of God? Their project alarmed him. He actually "came down to see
      the city and the tower which the children of men builded." Heaven was too
      distant for him to see from with accuracy, and telescopes were not then
      invented. A close inspection led him to believe that his ambitious
      children would succeed in their enterprise. They thought they might build
      into heaven, and he thought so too. What was to be done? If they once got
      into heaven, it might be very difficult to turn them out again. It took
      several days' hard fighting to expel Satan and the rebellious angels on a
      previous occasion, and these newcomers might be still more obstinate. In
      this dangerous extremity, "the Lord said [unto whom is unknown], Behold,
      the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to
      do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined
      to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they
      may not understand one another's speech."
    </p>
    <p>
      Why did the Lord resolve to take all this trouble? Had he forgotten the
      law of gravitation and the principles of architecture? Was he, who made
      the heaven and the earth, ignorant of the distance between them? He had
      only to let the people go on building, and they would eventually confound
      themselves; for, after reaching a certain height, the tower would tumble
      about their ears. Gravitation would defeat the cohesion of morter Why did
      not God leave them alone? Why did he take so much unnecessary trouble? The
      answer is that this "Lord" was only "Jehovah" of the Jews, a tribal god,
      who naturally knew no more about the facts and laws of science than his
      worshippers who made him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lord carried out his resolution. He "confounded their language," so
      that no man could understand his neighbors. Probably this judgment was
      executed in the night; and when they awoke in the morning, instead of
      using the old familiar tongue, one man spoke Chinese, another Sanscrit,
      another Coptic, another American, another Dutch, another Double Dutch, and
      so on to the end of the chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the Bible, this is the true philology. No language on the
      earth is more than four thousand years old, and every one was miraculously
      originated at Babel. Is there a single philologist living who believes
      this? We do not know one.
    </p>
    <p>
      The result of this confusion of tongues was that the people "left off to
      build the city," and were "scattered, abroad on the face of all the
      earth." But why did they disperse? Their common weakness should have kept
      them together. Society is founded upon our wants. Our necessity, and not
      our self-sufficience, causes association and mutual helpfulness. Had these
      people kept company for a short time, they would have understood each
      other again. A few common words would have come into general use, and the
      building of the tower might have been resumed.
    </p>
    <p>
      How was their language "confounded?" Did God destroy their verbal memory?
      Did he paralyse a part of their brain, so that, although they remembered
      the words, they could not speak them? Did he affect the organs of
      articulation, so that the sounds of the primeval language could not be
      reproduced? Will some theologian kindly explain this mystery? Language is
      not a gift, but a growth. Different tribes and nations have had different
      experiences, different wants, and different surroundings, and the result
      is a difference in their languages, as well as in their religious ideas,
      political organisations, and social customs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before we leave this portion of the subject, we beg to introduce Milton
      again. In the last Book of "Paradise Lost" he adds from his fertile
      imagination to the Bible story, and supplies a few deficiencies about
      which the mind is naturally curious. He makes the Archangel Michael tell
      poor Adam and Eve, as part of his panoramic description of future times,
      that a mighty hunter shall arise, claiming dominion over his fellows, and
      gather under him a band of adherents. This is clearly Nimrod. Milton
      separates him and his subjects from the rest of mankind, and represents
      them as the people who settled on "the plain in the land of Shinar."
    </p>
    <p>
      According to our great poet, therefore, the confusion of tongues applied
      only to them, and the other inhabitants of the earth retained the primeval
      language in all its original purity. This detachment, says Michael&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
     The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge,
     Boils out from underground, the mouth of Hell:
     Of brick, and of that stuff they cast to build
     A city and a tower, whose top may reach to Heaven;
     And get themselves a name, lest, far dispersed
     In foreign lands, their memory be lost,
     Regardless whether good or evil fame.
     But God, who oft descends to visit men
     Unseen, and through their habitations walks
     To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
     Comes down to see their city, ere the tower
     Obstruct Heav'n-tow'rs, and in derision sets
     Upon their tongue a various spirit to rase
     Quite out their native language, and instead
     To sow a jangling noise of words unknown.
     Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud
     Among the builders; each to other calls
     Not understood, till hoarse, and all in rage,
     As mock'd, they storm: great laughter was in Heaven,
     And looking down, to see the hubbub strange
     And hear the din; thus was the building left
     Ridiculous, and the work Confusion named.
</pre>
    <p>
      If the Tower of Babel was built over the mouth of Hell it would be wise to
      explore its site and make proper excavations, so as to settle the
      geography and physical character of the bottomless-pit. The Churches are
      sadly in want of a little information about hell, and here is an
      opportunity for them to acquire it, We hope the explorers will all be
      selected for their extreme piety, so that they may be as fire-proof as
      Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and happily escape cremation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Because the Lord "did there confound their language" the place was "called
      Babel." The Hebrew root, <i>balal</i> to confound, is not, however, that
      from which the word "Babel" is derived, It is a compound of "Bel," and may
      mean the "House of Bel," "Court of Bel," or "Gate of Bel." Some, including
      Professor Rawlinson, suppose it be a compound of "El" or "il," in which
      case "Bab-El" means the "Gate of God."
    </p>
    <p>
      It is evident that the story of the Tower of Babal was borrowed by the
      Jehovist author of this part of Genesis from the tradition of the famous
      unfinished Temple of Belus, one of the wonders of antiquity. "Birs
      Nimroud" is thus described by Kalisch:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "The huge heap, in which bricks, stone, marble, and basalt, are
      irregularly mixed, covers a surface of 49,000 feet; while the chief mound
      is nearly 300 feet high, and from 200 to 400 feet in width, commanding an
      extensive view over a country of utter desolation. The Tower consisted of
      seven distinct stages or square platforms, built of kiln-burnt bricks,
      each about twenty feet high, gradually diminishing in diameter. The upper
      part of the brickwork has a vitrefied appearance; for it is supposed that
      the Babylonians, in order to render their edifices more durable, submitted
      them to the heat of the furnace; and large fragments of such vitrefied and
      calcined materials are also intermixed with the rubbish at the base. This
      circumstance may have given rise to, or at least countenanced, the legend
      of the destruction of the Tower by heavenly fire, still extensively
      adopted among the Arabians. The terraces were devoted to the planets, and
      were differently colored in accordance with the notions of Sabæan
      astrology&mdash;the lowest, Saturn's, <i>black</i>; the second, Jupiter's,
      <i>orange</i>; the third, Mars, <i>red</i>; the fourth, the Sun's, <i>yellow</i>;
      the fifth, Venus's, <i>white</i>; the sixth, Mercury's, <i>blue</i>; the
      seventh, the Moon's, <i>green</i>. Merodach-adan-akhi is stated to have
      begun it B.C. 1100. It was finished five centuries afterwards by
      Nebuchadnezzar, who left a part of its history on two cylinders, which
      have lately been excavated on the spot, and thus deciphered by Rawlinson.
      'The building, named the Planisphere, which was the wonder of Babylon, I
      have made and finished. With bricks, enriched with lapis lazuli, I have
      exalted its head. Behold now the building, named "The Stages of the Seven
      Spheres," which was the wonder of Borsippa, had been built by a former
      king. He had completed forty-two cubits of height: but he did not finish
      the head. From the lapse of time it became ruined. They had not taken care
      of the exit of the waters; so the rain and wet had penetrated into the
      brickwork. The casing of burnt brick lay scattered in heaps. Then
      Merodach, my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did
      not change its site, nor did I destroy its foundation-platform. But, in a
      fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, I undertook the building of
      the raw-brick terrace and the burnt-brick casing of the Temple. I
      strengthened its foundation, and I placed a titular record on the part
      which I had rebuilt. I set my hand to build it up, and to exalt its
      summit. As it had been in ancient times, so I built up its structure. As
      it had been in former days, thus I exalted its head.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      Professor Rawlinson assigns B.C. 2300 as the date of the building of the
      Temple. But as Colenso remarks, his reasoning is very loose. His date,
      however, is <i>antecedent</i> to the supposed time of the building of
      Babel, and according to his own chronology the latter <i>may</i> have been
      a tradition of the former. Add to this that the ruins of <i>Birs Nimroud</i>
      are extant, while there is no vestige of the ruins of Babel. According to
      Kalisch's chronology, <i>Birs Nimroud</i> was built long after the
      supposed time of Moses; and if <i>he</i> wrote the Pentateuch our position
      cannot be maintained. But he did not write the Pentateuch or any portion
      of it. The writer of the Jehovist portion of Genesis, which contains the
      story of the Tower of Babel, certainly did not flourish before the time of
      Solomon, about b.c. 1015&mdash;975. Here, then, is an interval of a
      century. That is a short period for the growth of a legend. Yet, as
      Colenso observes, "as the <i>tower</i> was apparently an observatory, and
      the fact of its being dedicated to the seven ancient planets shows that
      astronomical observations had made considerable progress among the
      Chaldeans at the time when it was built, the traditions connected with it
      may have embodied stories of a much earlier date, to which the new
      building gave fresh currency."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Temple of Jupiter Belus with its tower was partially destroyed by
      Xerxes b.c. 490; upon which, says Kalisch, "the fraudulent priests
      appropriated to themselves the lands and enormous revenues attached to it,
      and seem, from this reason, to have been averse to its restoration." A
      part of the edifice still existed more than five centuries later, and was
      mentioned by Pliny. But the other part was, in the time of Alexander the
      Great, a vast heap of ruins. He determined to rebuild it, but desisted
      from the enterprise, when he found that ten thousand workmen could not
      remove the rubbish in two months. Benjamin of Tudela described it in the
      twelfth century, after which, for more than six hundred years, it remained
      unnoticed and unknown. The ruins were rediscovered by Niebuhr in 1756;
      subsequent explorers more accurately described them; and they were
      thoroughly examined, and their monumental records deciphered, about thirty
      years ago.
    </p>
    <p>
      The myth attaching to it is not unique. As Kalisch observes, "most of the
      ancient nations possessed myths concerning impious giants, who attempted
      to storm heaven, either to share it with the immortal gods, or to expel
      them from it." And even the orthodox Delitzsch allows that "the Mexicans
      have a legend of a tower-building, as well as of a Flood. Xelhua, one of
      the seven giants rescued in the flood, built the great pyramid of Cholula,
      in order to reach heaven, until the gods, angry at his audacity, threw
      fire upon the building, and broke it down, whereupon every separate family
      received a language of its own." To lessen the force of this, Delitzsch
      says that the Mexican legend has been much colored by its narrators,
      chiefly Dominicans and Jesuits; but he is obliged to admit that there is
      great significance in the fact that the Mexican terrace-pyramid closely
      resembles the construction of the Temple of Belus. No argument can vitiate
      the conclusion that as similar myths to that of Genesis abounded in
      ancient times, it is highly illogical to attach particular importance to
      any one of them. If one is historic, all are historic. We are justified in
      holding that the Jewish story of the Tower of Babel is only a modification
      of the older story of the Temple of Belus.
    </p>
    <p>
      We will conclude this Number by mentioning a few facts, not speculations,
      which are exceedingly curious, and which present grave difficulty to the
      orthodox believer.
    </p>
    <p>
      According to the Bible, in Abraham's time, not four centuries after the
      Deluge, the descendants of Noah's three sons had multiplied into the four
      great kingdoms of <i>Shinar</i> (Babylon), <i>Elam</i>, <i>Egypt</i>, and
      <i>Gerar</i>, besides a multitude of smaller nations. Does any instructed
      man believe in the possibility of such multiplication? It is altogether
      incredible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some of these nations had reached a high degree of civilisation. Indeed,
      the temples, tombs, pyramids, manners, customs, and arts of Egypt betoken
      a <i>full-grown</i> nation. The sculptures of the Fourth Dynasty, the
      earliest extant, and which must be assigned to the date of about 3500
      b.c., are almost as perfect as those of her Augustan age, two thousand
      years later. Professor Rawlinson seeks to obviate this difficulty by
      appealing to the version of the Seventy instead of to the Hebrew text, by
      which he obtains the remote antiquity of 8159 B.C., instead of 2848, for
      the Deluge. But this chronology does not reach within four hundred years
      of the civilisation denoted by the sculptures referred to! And there must
      have been milleniums of silent progress in Egypt before that period.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the ancient monuments of Egypt the negro head, face, hair, form, and
      color, are the same as we observe in our own day. Consequently, the
      orthodox believer must hold that, in a few generations, the human family
      branched out into strongly marked varieties. History discountenances this
      assumption, and Biology plainly disproves it. Archdeacon Pratt supposes
      that Shem, Ham, and Japheth "had in them elements differing as widely as
      the Asiatic, the African, and the European, differ from each other." He
      forgets that they were brothers, sons of the same father and presumably of
      the same mother! Such extraordinary evolution throws Darwinism into the
      shade.
    </p>
    <p>
      Noah lived fifty-eight years after the birth of Abraham. Shem lived a
      hundred and ten years after the birth of Isaac, and fifty years after the
      birth of Jacob. How was it that neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob knew
      either of them. They were the most interesting and important men alive at
      the time. They had seen the world before the Flood. One of them had seen
      people who knew Adam. They had lived through the confusion of tongues at
      Babel, and were well acquainted with the whole history of the world. Yet
      they are never once mentioned in Scripture during all the centuries they
      survived their exit from the ark. Why is this? Noah before his death was
      the most venerable man existing. He was five hundred years older than any
      other man. He must have been an object of universal regard. Yet we have no
      record of the second half of his career; no account is given of his
      burial; no monument was erected to his memory. Who will explain this
      astounding neglect? The Bible is a strange book, and they are strange
      people who believe it.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      BALAAM'S ASS.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;IX.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      The ass has figured extensively in romance. His long ears and peculiar
      bray are explained by a story which goes back to the Flood. On that
      occasion, it is said, the male donkey was inadvertently left outside the
      ark, but being a good swimmer, he nevertheless managed to preserve his
      life. After many desperate efforts he at last succeeded in calling out the
      patriarch's name, as nearly as the vocal organs of a jackass would allow.
      "No-ah, No-ah," cried the forlorn beast. Noah's attention was at last
      aroused, and on looking out of window to see who was calling, he perceived
      the poor jackass almost spent and faintly battling with the waves. Quickly
      opening the window, he caught Neddy by the two ears and hauled him in.
      This he did with such vigor that Neddy's aural appendages were
      considerably elongated; and ever since donkeys have had long ears, and
      brayed "No-ah, No-ah" at the approach of wet weather. For the sake of
      Christians who are not well acquainted with God's Word, we add that this
      story is not in the Bible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Classical scholars and students of modern literature know how the ass has
      been treated by poets and romancers. The stolid animal has generally been
      made the subject of comedy. Drunken and impotent Silenus, in the Pagan
      mythology, joins in the professions of Bacchus on a sober ass, and the
      patient animal staggers beneath the heavy burden of a fat-paunched tipsy
      god. Apulius and Lucian transform the hero of their common story into an
      ass, and in that shape he encounters the most surprising experiences.
      Voltaire makes an ass play a wonderful part in his "Pucelle." And in all
      these cases it is worth noticing how the profane wits remember the ass's
      relation to Priapian mysteries, from his fabled interruption of the
      garden-god's attempt on the nymph Lotis downwards, and assign to him
      marvellous amatory adventures. Erasmus, in his "Praise of Folly," does not
      forget the ass, with whom he compares the majority of men for stupidity,
      obstinacy, and lubricity; nor is the noble animal forgotten by Rabelais,
      who cracks many a joke and points many a witticism at his expense.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our own genial humorist, Charles Lamb, confesses however to a deep
      tenderness for Neddy, and dwells with delight on the protection which his
      thick hide affords against the cruel usuage of man. He has, says Lamb, "a
      tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. The malice of a child or a weak
      hand can make feeble impressions on him. His back offers no mark to a puny
      foeman. To a common whip or switch his hide presents an
      absolute-insensibility. You might as well pretend to scourge a schoolboy
      with a tough pair of leather breeches on." Lamb also quotes the following
      passage from a tract printed in 1595, entitled "The Noblenesse of the
      Asse; a Work Rare, Learned, and Excellent": "He refuseth no burden; he
      goes whither he is sent, without any contradiction. He lifts not his foote
      against any one; he bytes not; he is no fugitive, nor malicious affected.
      He doth all-things in good sort, and to his liking that hath cause to
      employ him. If strokes be given him, he cares not for them." True, the ass
      is not much given to kicking or biting, but he has an awkward knack of
      quietly lying down when he is indisposed to work, and of rolling over with
      equal quietude if a rider happens to be on his back. But the old author is
      so enchanted with the "asse" that he does not stay to notice this scurvy
      trick. He even goes on to express his liking for the ass's bray, calling
      Neddy "a rare musitian," and saying that "to heare the musicke of five or
      six voices changed to so many of asses is amongst them to heare a song of
      world without end."
    </p>
    <p>
      Sterne, in his "Sentimental Journey," has a chapter entitled "The Dead
      Ass," wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere of pathos. And lastly,
      Coleridge has some very pious musings on an ass, wherein the animal is
      lifted into the sphere of religion.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, dear reader, you begin to see the drift of this long exordium,
      although my purpose was indeed twofold. First, I wished, after the example
      of my betters in literature, to give you a slight glimpse of the immense
      extent of my learning. Secondly, I wished to lead you through the various
      stages of literary treatment of the ass, from the comic to the pathetic,
      and finally to-the religious, in order that you might approach in a proper
      frame of mind the consideration of Balaam's ass, who is the most
      remarkable of all the four-legged asses mentioned in the Bible. There were
      others. Asses were being sought by Saul, the son of Kish, when he found a
      kingdom of subjects instead. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass, and also
      apparently on a colt, having probably one leg over each. With the jawbone
      of an ass Samson slew a thousand Philistines; and if the rest of the
      animal accorded with that particular bone, he must have been a tough ass
      indeed. But all these are of little interest or importance beside the
      wonderful ass of the prophet Balaam, whose history is contained, with that
      of his master, in the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth
      chapters of the Book of Numbers.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after the Wandering Jews in the desert were plagued by "fiery
      serpents" for asking Moses to give them a slight change in their
      monotonous bill of fare, they warred against the Amorites and pretty
      nearly exterminated them. Whereupon Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab,
      grew "sore afraid." He called together the "elders of Midian" with those
      of Moab, and said that in his opinion the Jews would lick them all up as
      the ox licked up the grass of the field.
    </p>
    <p>
      Against such a ferocious gang as the Jews, with a bloody God of Battles to
      help them, human valor promised little success; so Balak resolved to
      solicit supernatural aid. Accordingly he sent messengers unto Balaam the
      son of Beor, a renowned and potent soothsayer, desiring him to come and
      curse the people of Israel.
    </p>
    <p>
      The King had implicit confidence in Balaam. "Whom thou blessest," said he,
      "is blessed, and whom thou cursest is cursed." This great prophet must
      have wrought prodigious wonders in his time to gain so magnificent a
      reputation; and if the king's panegyric on him was true, he must have been
      a dangerous person to those who annoyed him and made him swear.
    </p>
    <p>
      The "elders of Moab and the elders of Midian," who were Balak's
      messengers, went to Pethor, where Balaam resided. As the reader might
      expect, they did not go empty-handed, but took with them "the rewards of
      divination." What these were we are not told. No doubt they were very
      handsome. The prophetical business requires large profits to compensate
      for the absence of quick returns; and in any case it is not to be supposed
      that a man who can do what no one else can, will begin work without a
      heavy retaining fee. We conclude that Balaam, like nearly every prophet
      mentioned in history, had a good eye for the main chance, and did not
      trust very much in the bounty of the gods. He was never hard up for bread
      and cheese while other people were hard up for divine assistance, and as
      that was an ignorant and credulous age, we presume that his larder was
      well-stocked. He must, indeed, have had a fine time, for he was the
      biggest pot in his own line of business in all that district.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam knew his business well. It would never do for a prophet, a
      soothsayer, a wizard, or a diviner, to give prompt answers to his
      applicants, or even to make his answers plain when he does give them. That
      would render the profession cheap and rob it of mystery. So Balaam,
      therefore, said to the messengers, "Lodge here this night, and I will
      bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto me."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now this reference to <i>the Lord</i> is very surprising. The Moabites
      worshipped Baal, and no doubt they had the utmost contempt for Jehovah.
      Yet Balaam, who was a prophet of their religion, tells them that he will
      consult the god of Israel on the subject of their visit! This is one of
      the self-contradictions with which the Bible abounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      The next incident of the story is no less remarkable. God, the infinite
      spirit of the universe, paid Balaam a visit; and although he knows
      everything, past, present, and to come, he asked the prophet "What men are
      these with thee?" Balaam gave a straightforward reply, for he doubtless
      knew that prevarication and subterfuge were useless with God. Said he,
      "Balak the son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold
      there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth:
      come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and
      drive them out." The precision of Balaam's language is admirable, and so
      is its accuracy. He neither desired to keep the Lord in suspense, nor to
      leave him in ignorance of necessary details. God's answer was equally
      brief and perspicuous: "Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse
      the people: for they are blessed."
    </p>
    <p>
      This interview between God and Balaam, like the following ones, occurred
      in the night. The Lord seems to have been always afraid of daylight, or
      else to have had a peculiar fondness for the dark. Perhaps he thought that
      during the night there was less chance of the conversation being
      interrupted, and it is well known that the Lord loves privacy and does not
      like conversing with more than one at a time. He agrees with us that
      "two's company and three's none."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the morning Balaam got out of bed and told Balak's messengers to return
      and say that the Lord would not let him come; and they at once set out for
      the capital.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balak, however, was not to be so easily put off. He seems to have regarded
      the prophet's talk about the Lord's prohibition as "all my eye."
      "Perhaps," said he to himself, "my messengers were small fry in the sight
      of Balaam, and he is therefore displeased. My presents also may have been
      too small I should have recollected that Balaam has a very exalted opinion
      of himself, and is renowned for his avarice. What a stupid I was, to-be
      sure. However, I'll try again. This time I'll send a deputation of big
      guns, and promise him great wealth and high position in the state. He
      can't refuse such a tempting offer." Straight-way he "sent yet again
      princes, more and more honorable" than those who went before, and
      commanded them to urge Balaam to let nothing hinder him from coming.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam slightly resented this treatment. He told the messengers-that if
      Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go
      beyond the word of the Lord, to do more or less. Yet he apparently deemed
      it politic to make another trial. He was, of course, quite aware that God
      is unchangeable, but somehow he thought the Lord might alter his mind. So
      he bade the messengers to tarry there that night while he consulted God
      afresh.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam's expectation was realised. The Lord did change his mind. He "came
      unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee,
      rise up and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee,
      that shalt thou do." So the prophet rose up in the morning, saddled and
      mounted his wonderful ass, and went off with the princes of Moab.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor Balaam, however, did not reflect that as the Lord had changed his
      mind once he might change it twice, and the omission very nearly cost him
      his life. He was unfortunately ignorant of what happened to Moses on a
      similar occasion. After the Lord had dispatched the Jewish prophet to
      Egypt to rescue his people from bondage, he met him at an inn, where
      perhaps they both put up for the night, and sought to kill him. The same
      thing happened now. No sooner had Balaam set out on his journey than
      "God's anger was kindled against him because he went." This Jehovah is a
      queer God and dreadfully hard to please. If you don't obey his orders you
      run the risk of being damned, and if you do you stand a good chance of
      being murdered. The only safe course is to get out of his way and have
      nothing to do with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The "angel of the Lord" stood in Balaam's path, with a drawn sword in his
      hand, ready to kill the prophet whose only crime was having done exactly
      what he was told. But neither Balaam nor his two servants saw him. The
      ass, however, had better eyesight. Being only an ass, and not a man, he
      had a greater aptitude for seeing angels. Not liking the look of this
      formidable stranger, Neddy bolted from the pathway into a field. Balaam,
      who saw no reason for such behavior except sheer perverseness, began to
      whack his ass and tried to turn him * into the right road. Neddy succumbed
      to this forcible argument and jogged on again. The angel of the Lord had
      apparently, in the meantime, made himself invisible even to a jackass. His
      intention was ultimately to kill Balaam, but he delayed the fatal stroke
      in order to make the most of the comedy which he foresaw. Going a little
      in front, he "stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side,
      and a wall on that" Neddy caught sight of the angel again, and being
      unable this time to bolt into the field, he lurched against the wall, and
      gave Balaam's foot a good scrunching. Still the prophet suspected nothing
      out of the common, for that was an ordinary trick of refractory asses.
      Poor Neddy, therefore, got another thrashing. Then the angel of the Lord
      went on further, and "stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to
      turn either to the right hand or to the left." Neddy estimated the certain
      penalty of refusing to proceed and the probable penalty of going forward.
      After comparing them he decided to stop where he was, and then quietly
      laid down. Balaam's anger was once more kindled by this stupid obstinacy,
      and he whacked the ass again with his staff.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     * Balaam's ass was a "she," but the sex is immaterial, and
     as we commenced with the masculine gender we will continue
     with it.
</pre>
    <p>
      Then the Lord intervened, and brought about the most extraordinary
      incident of this wonderful story. He "opened the mouth of the ass," and
      lo! instead of braying Neddy spoke. Without a note of preparation he began
      to upbraid his master in good Moabitish. "What have I done," said he,
      "that thou hast smitten me these three times."
    </p>
    <p>
      Singular to relate, Balaam was not in the least astonished at hearing an
      ass speak. He took it as quite an ordinary occurrence. One is almost
      inclined to think that the prophet and his donkey had held many a
      conversation before. In the Bible no one ever is astonished at anything,
      however wonderful. When the serpent accosted Eve in the garden of Eden,
      she was not at all surprised, but went on with the colloquy as though
      talking serpents were common things. If a dumb animal were nowadays to
      address a man with "How d'ye do?" he would certainly be very much
      startled; but when the same thing occurred in the old Bible days, the man
      at once replied "Very well, thank you, how are you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam promptly answered the ass's question. "Because," said he, "thou
      hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I
      kill thee." Then the ass rejoined, "Am not I thine ass, upon which thou
      hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so
      unto thee?" This was a poser. Balaam scratched his head and reflected, but
      at last he was obliged to say "Nay."
    </p>
    <p>
      Neddy had so far the best of the argument. But Balaam had the practical
      argument of the stick left, and no doubt he was about to convince the
      donkey with it. All arguments, practical or otherwise, would however have
      left the dispute exactly where it stood. Neddy saw the angel, and that was
      enough for him. Balaam did not see the angel, but only Neddy's obstinate
      stupidity. In short, they reasoned from different premises, and could not
      therefore arrive at the same conclusion. They might have argued till
      doomsday had not the Lord again intervened. He "opened Balaam's eyes," so
      that he also "saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword
      drawn in his hand." Then Balaam "bowed his head, and fell flat on his
      face," and there he and Neddy laid side by side, two asses together.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, dear reader, you will observe that the ass, being indeed an ass, saw
      the angel first, and that Balaam, who was a wise man, did not see the
      angel until his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking donkey.
      Does this not bear out great Bacon's remark that "in all superstition,
      wise men follow fools"? And may we not say, that if asses did not see
      angels first, wise men would never see them after?
    </p>
    <p>
      The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, while he remained flat on his face,
      "Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went
      out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me: and the ass
      saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from
      me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive." The moral of
      this is that asses stand the best chance of salvation, and that wise men
      run a frightful risk of damnation until they lose their wits.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam recognised the awful mess he was in, and being by this time as limp
      as a wet rag, he made the most abject apology. "I have sinned," he said,
      "for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me." This strange
      reasoning shows still more clearly how the poor prophet had taken leave of
      his senses. He had not sinned at all, for he was strictly obeying God's
      commands; nor was it his fault that the angel remained so long invisible.
      When the Lord "opened his eyes," and made his vision like unto the vision
      of an ass, he saw the angel plainly enough; and how could he possibly have
      done so before?
    </p>
    <p>
      "I'll go back," added Balaam, thinking that if he sinned so greatly in
      going forward, he had better return home. But the angel of the Lord, who
      had intended to kill him for advancing, now told him to "go with the men."
      And Balaam went with them, keeping his weather eye open during the rest of
      the journey.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balak was heartily glad to see Balaam. The prophet had been a long time
      coming, but better late than never. The next day they went "up into the
      high places of Baal," from which they could see the utmost part of the
      people of Israel. "There they are," said Balak, "confound them! leprous
      slaves out of Egypt, bent on stealing other people's lands, and sticking
      to all they can lay hands on; bloodthirsty vagabonds, who fight people
      with whom they have no quarrel, and kill men, women, and children when
      they are victorious. Now, Balaam, do your duty. Curse them, and lay it on
      thick."
    </p>
    <p>
      Seven altars were built, and seven oxen and seven rams sacrificed on them.
      But all this good meat was wasted, for when Balaam "went to an high
      place," God met him, according to agreement, and told him what to say. And
      lo! when the prophet returned to the king, he blessed the Jews instead of
      cursing them.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hullo, Balaam, what's this?" cried the king. "I asked you to curse my
      enemies and you've gone and blessed them. What d'ye mean?" "True,"
      answered Balaam, "but I told you that I could only speak what the Lord put
      into my mouth."
    </p>
    <p>
      Balak appears to have been just as sceptical as Pharaoh about the God of
      the Jews. He attributed his disappointment to a freak of the prophet, and
      not being easily baffled he resolved to try again. So he took Balaam up
      another high place, and built seven fresh altars, and sacrificed on them
      seven more bullocks and rams; after which he repeated his invitation.
      Again Balaam went farther to consult the Lord, whom he found waiting for
      him, and received his instructions. And lo! when he returned to Balak he
      again blessed the Jews instead of cursing them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balak resolved to try again. He took Balaam to another high place, built
      seven more altars, and sacrificed seven more bullocks and seven more rams.
      But again the prophet blessed Israel, and a third time the king was sold.
      Then he gave it up, and Balaam and his ass went home.
    </p>
    <p>
      What became of the ass is unknown. Perhaps he went into the prophetical
      business himself, and eventually retired on a very handsome fortune.
      Perhaps he went about as a preacher of the gospel as it was then
      understood; in which case, judging from the rule of success in later ages,
      we have no doubt that he attracted large audiences and delighted all who
      were fortunate enough to sit under him. And when he died all the
      two-legged asses in Moab probably wept and refused to be comforted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Balaam's end was tragic. The thirteenth chapter of <i>Joshua</i> informs
      us that he was eventually slain by the very people he had thrice blessed.
      After an account of one of the bloody wars of Jehovah's bandits we read
      that "Balaam also the son of Beor, the sooth-sayer, did the children of
      Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them." The angel
      of the Lord spared him, but God's butchers cut his throat at last. On the
      whole he might as well have cursed the Jews up and down to Balak's
      satisfaction, and taken the handsome rewards which were offered him on
      such easy terms.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here endeth the story of Balaam's Ass. I hope my reader still believes it,
      for if not, he will be reprobate while he lives and damned when he dies.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      GOD'S THIEVES IN CANAAN.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;X.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some years ago the righteous indignation of England was roused by the
      daily record of atrocities perpetrated in Bulgaria by the Turkish
      bashi-bazouks. Men were wantonly massacred, pregnant women ripped up, and
      maidens outraged by brutal lust. Our greatest statesman uttered a
      clarion-cry which pealed through the whole nation, and the friends of the
      Turk in high places shrank abashed and dismayed before the stern response
      of the people. Many clergymen attended public meetings, and denounced not
      only the Turks, but also their Mohammedanism. They alleged that the Koran
      sanctioned, even if it did not command, the horrors which had been wrought
      in Eastern Europe, and they declared that there was no hope for a country
      which derived its maxims of state from such an accursed book. Those
      denunciations did honor to their hearts, but very little to their heads.
      For every brutal injunction in the Koran, twenty might be found in the
      Bible. Before the clergy cry out against the Scriptures of Islam, they
      should purge their own of those horrid features which are an insult to man
      and a blasphemy against God. Mohammed gave savage counsels to his
      followers with respect to waging war, but these sink into insignificance
      beside the counsels given to the Jews by Moses in the name of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bible Romances are generally comic, but this one is infinitely tragic. The
      whole range of history affords no worse instances of cold-blooded cruelty
      than those which God's thieves, the Jews, perpetrated in Canaan, when they
      took forcible possession of cities they had not built and fields they had
      never ploughed. "How that red rain will make the harvest grow!" exclaims
      Byron of the blood shed at Waterloo; and surely the first harvests reaped
      by the Jews in Canaan must have been luxuriantly rich, for the ground had
      been drenched with the blood of the slain.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before Moses died, according to the Bible, he delivered an elaborate code
      of laws to his people in the name of God. The portions referring to war
      are contained in the twentieth chapter of <i>Deuteronomy</i>. Here they
      stand in all their naked hideous-ness:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim
      peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open
      unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein
      shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will
      make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt
      besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands,
      thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the
      women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city,
      even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt
      eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
      Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee,
      which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these
      people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou
      shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy
      them."
    </p>
    <p>
      Such were the fiendish commands of Jehovah, the bloody maxims of inspired
      war. Let us see how the Jews carried them out.
    </p>
    <p>
      During the lifetime of Moses they made a good beginning; for in their war
      against Midian they slew 48,000 men, 48,000 women, and 20,000 boys, and
      took as spoil 32,000 virgins. But they did much better under Joshua.
    </p>
    <p>
      After God had dispatched Moses and secretly buried him, so that nobody
      should ever discover his sepulchre, Joshua was appointed leader in his
      stead. He was "full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands
      upon him." Then, as now, religious superiors transmitted holiness to their
      inferiors through the skull. God accepted the nomination of Moses and
      instructed Joshua in his duties. He told him to be above all "strong and
      very courageous," and to fight the enemy according to the law of Moses.
      Joshua was not the man to neglect such advice.
    </p>
    <p>
      Joshua was soon ordered to cross the river Jordan and begin the holy war.
      But before doing so, he dispatched two spies to reconnoitre Jericho, the
      first place to be attacked. They reached the city by night, and of course
      required lodgings. Instinct led them to the house of Rahab, the harlot.
      She proved a very good friend; for when messengers came from the king in
      the morning to inquire about them, she said that they had gone, and
      advised the messengers to go after them, which they did. Meanwhile she hid
      the spies under some flax on the roof of her house, and at night "let them
      down by a cord through the window, for she dwelt on the town wall." Before
      they left, however, she made a covenant with them. Like many other ladies
      of easy virtue, or no virtue at all, Rahab was piously inclined. She had
      conceived a great respect for Jehovah, and was assured that his people
      would overcome all their enemies. But she had also a great respect for her
      own skin; so she made the two spies promise on behalf of the Jews that
      when they took Jericho they would spare her and all her relatives; and
      they were to recognise her house by the "line of scarlet thread in the
      window." They got back safe to Joshua and told him it was all right; the
      people were in a dreadful funk, and all the land would soon be theirs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Joshua got up early the next morning and told the Jews that the Lord was
      going to do wonders. They wanted to get "on the other side of Jordan." and
      the Lord meant to ferry them across in his own style. Twelve men were
      selected, one from each tribe, to follow the priests who bore the ark in
      front, and all the Jewish host came after them. As it was harvest time,
      the river had overflowed its banks. When the priests' feet "were dipped in
      the brim of the water," the river parted in twain; on one side the waters
      "stood and rose up upon an heap," while on the other side they "failed and
      were cut off." As no miracle was worked further up the river to stop the
      supplies, the "heap" must have been a pretty big one before the play
      ended. A clear passage having been made, the Jews all crossed on dry
      ground. They seem to have done this in less than a day, but three millions
      of people could not march past one spot in less than a week. Perhaps the
      Lord gave them a shove behind.
    </p>
    <p>
      The twelve selected Jews, one from each tribe, took twelve big stones out
      of the bed of the river, which were "pitched in Gilgal" as "a memorial
      unto the children of Israel for ever." For ever is a long time and is not
      yet ended. Those stones should be there now. Why don't the clergy try to
      discover them? If brought to London and set up on the Thames embankment
      they would throw Cleopatra's needle into the shade.
    </p>
    <p>
      When God had ferried the Jews across, and picked out the twelve big stones
      as aids to memory, the "heap" of water tumbled down and overflowed the
      banks of the river. Joshua and his people then encamped near Jericho, in
      readiness for greater wonders to come.
    </p>
    <p>
      Three days afterwards the manna ceased. Jehovah's fighting cocks wanted a
      more invigorating diet. This time they did not ask for a change, but the
      Lord vouchsafed it spontaneously.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the males, too, were circumcised by God's orders. This Jewish rite had
      been neglected during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, but it
      was now resumed. From the text it seems that Joshua circumcised all the
      males himself. As they numbered about a million and a half it must have
      been a long job. Allowing a minute for each amputation, it would in the
      natural course of things have taken him about three years to do them all;
      but being divinely aided, he finished his task in a single day. Samson's
      jaw-bone was nothing to Joshua's knife.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after Joshua, being near Jericho, like Balaam's ass saw an angel with
      a drawn sword in his hand. When he had made obeisance, by falling flat and
      taking off his shoes, he received from this heavenly messenger precise
      instructions as to the capture of the doomed city. The Lord's way of
      storming fortresses is unique in military literature. Said he to Joshua&mdash;"Ye
      shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city
      once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the
      ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass
      the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpet? And it
      shall come to pass that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn,
      and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet all the people shall shout with
      a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the
      people shall ascend up every man straight before him."
    </p>
    <p>
      Did ever another general receive such extraordinary instructions from his
      commander-in-chief? God's soldiers need no cannon, or battering rams, or
      bombshells; all they require is a few rams' horns and good lungs for
      shouting.
    </p>
    <p>
      God's orders were obeyed. Six days in succession did the Jews march round
      the walls of Jericho, no doubt to the great bewilderment of its
      inhabitants, who probably wondered why they didn't come on, and felt that
      there was something uncanny in this roundabout siege. On the seventh day
      they went round the city seven times. How tired they must have been!
      Jericho, being a capital city, could not have been less than several miles
      in circumference. The priests blew with the trumpets, the people shouted
      with a great shout, and the walls of Jericho fell flat&mdash;as flat as
      the simpletons who believe it.
    </p>
    <p>
      A scene of horror ensued. The Jews "utterly destroyed all there was in the
      city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with
      the edge of the sword." Only Rahab and her relatives were spared. The
      silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, were put into
      the Lord's treasury&mdash;that is, handed over to the priests; and then
      the city was burnt with fire. God commanded this, and his chosen people
      executed it Could Jericho have been treated worse if the Devil himself had
      planned the fight, and the vilest fiends from hell had conducted it?
    </p>
    <p>
      Rahab the harlot, being saved with all her relatives, who were perhaps as
      bad as she, dwelt with the Jews ever afterwards. Whether she continued in
      her old profession we are unable to say. But it is certain that the Jews
      soon after grew very corrupt, and the Lord's anger was kindled against
      them. The first result of God's displeasure was that the Jews became
      demoralised as warriors. Three thousand of them, who went up against Ai,
      were routed, and thirty-six of them were slain. This seems a very small
      number, but, as we have already observed, the Jewish chroniclers were much
      given to bragging. Their losses were always very small, and the enemy's
      very great.
    </p>
    <p>
      After this rebuff the Jews funked; their hearts "melted and became as
      water." Joshua rent his clothes, fell upon his face before the ark, and
      remained there until the evening. The elders of Israel did likewise, and
      they all put dust on their heads. To conclude the performance Joshua
      expostulated with God, asked him whether he had brought his people over
      Jordan only to betray them to their enemies, and expressed a hearty wish
      that they had never crossed the river at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lord told Joshua to get up, as it was no use lying there. Israel had
      sinned, and God had determined not to help them until they had purged
      themselves. Some one, in fact, had stolen a portion of the spoil of
      Jericho, all of which belonged to the Lord, that is to the priests, who
      evidently helped to concoct this pretty story. Joshua forthwith proceeded
      to hunt the sinner out. His method was very singular. He resolved to go
      through the twelve tribes until the culprit was found. The tribe of Judah
      was examined first, and luckily in the very first family "Achan was
      taken," although we are not told how he was spotted. Achan confessed that
      he had appropriated of the spoil a "goodly Babylonish garment, and two
      hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight,"
      which he had hidden under his tent. His doom was swift and terrible; he
      was stoned to death, and his body burnt with fire. We may think his
      punishment severe, but we cannot deny his guilt. He, however, was not the
      only sufferer. Jehovah was not to be satisfied with a small quantity of
      blood. Achans's sons and daughters were stoned with him, and their bodies
      were burnt like his. His very oxen, asses, and sheep were served in the
      same manner. A great heap of stones was raised over their cinders, and
      then "the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger." Jehovah acted
      just like the savage old chieftain of a savage tribe. As irascible tempers
      do not improve with age, we presume that he is still as peppery as ever.
      Yet we are asked to love, venerate, and worship this brutal being, as the
      ideal of all that is merciful, just, and pure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately after Joshua sent thirty thousand men against Ai, which they
      took with great ease. All its inhabitants, from the oldest man to the
      youngest babe, were massacred. The city itself was burnt into a desolate
      heap. The King of Ai was reserved to furnish the Jews with a little extra
      sport, by way of dessert to the bloody feast. He was hanged on a tree
      until eventide, when his carcass was taken down and "buried under a heap
      of stones." Joshua "then built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel in
      mount Ebal," who appears to have been mightily well pleased with the whole
      business.
    </p>
    <p>
      Joshua's next exploit was indeed miraculous. He gathered all the Jews
      together, men, women, children, and even the strangers, and read to them
      all the laws of Moses, without omitting a single word. It must have been a
      long job, and Joshua's throat must have been rather dry at the end. But
      the greatest wonder is how he made himself heard to three millions of
      people at once. No other orator ever addressed so big an audience. Either
      their ears were very sharp, or his voice was terribly loud. The people in
      the front rank must have been nearly stunned with the sound. Joshua could
      outroar Bottom the weaver by two or three miles.
    </p>
    <p>
      The people of Gibeon, by means of messengers who palmed themselves off on
      Joshua as strangers from a distant country, contrived to obtain a league
      whereby their lives were spared. When their craft was detected they were
      sentenced to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the Jews; in
      other words, their slaves.
    </p>
    <p>
      Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem; Hoham, king of Hebron; Piram, king of
      Jamuth; Japhia, king of Lachish; and Debir, king of Eglon; banded
      themselves together to punish Gibeon for making peace with the Jews.
      Joshua went with all his army to their relief. He fell upon the armies of
      the five kings, discomfitted them with great slaughter, and chased them
      along the way to Beth-horon. As they fled the Lord joined in the hunt. He
      "cast down great stones from heaven upon them" and killed a huge number,
      even "more than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword."
    </p>
    <p>
      When we read that Pan fought with the Greeks against the Persians at
      Marathon, we must regard it as a fable; but when we read that Jehovah
      fought with the Jews against the five kings at Gibeon, we must regard it
      as historical truth, and if we doubt it we shall be eternally damned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Not only did the Lord join in the war-hunt, but Joshua wrought the
      greatest miracle on record by causing a stationary body to stand still. He
      stopped the sun from "going down" and lengthened out the day for about
      twelve hours, in order that the Jews might see to pursue and kill the
      flying foe. "The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people
      had avenged themselves upon their enemies." What Joshua really stopped, if
      he stopped anything, was the earth, for its revolution, and not the motion
      of the sun, causes the phenomena of day and night. Science tells us that
      the arrest of the earth's motion would generate a frightful quantity of
      heat, enough to cause a general conflagration. Yet nothing of the kind
      happened. How is it, too, that no other ancient people has preserved any
      record of this marvellous occurrence? The Egyptians, for instance,
      carefully noted eclipses and such events, but they jotted down no
      memorandum of Joshua's supreme miracle. Why is this? How can Christians
      explain it?
    </p>
    <p>
      When Jupiter personated Amphytrion, and visited his bride Alcmena, the
      amorous god lengthened out the night in order to prolong his enjoyment.
      Why may we not believe this? Is it not as credible, and quite as moral, as
      the Bible story of Jehovah's lengthening out the day to prolong a
      massacre? Were the Greeks any bigger liars than the Jews?
    </p>
    <p>
      It has been suggested that Joshua was so elated with the victory that he
      drank more than was good for him, and got in such a state that in the
      evening he saw two moons instead of one. Nobody liked to contradict him,
      but the elders of Israel, to harmonise their leader's vision, declared
      that it comprised the sun and the moon, instead of two moons, which were
      clearly absurd. The court poet improved on this explanation, and composed
      the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the Jewish
      chronicler, who asks "Is not this written in the book of Jasher?" The
      waggish laureate Jasher is supposed by some profane speculators to have
      got up the whole miracle himself.
    </p>
    <p>
      The five kings fled with their armies and "hid themselves in a cave at
      Makkedah." Joshua ordered the mouth to be closed with big stones until the
      pursuit was ended. At last they were brought out and treated with great
      ignominy. Their necks were made footstools of by the captains of Israel,
      and they were afterwards hung on trees until the evening, when their
      carcasses were flung into the cave. After this highly civilised treatment
      of their captives, the Jews took all the capital cities of these five
      kings and slew all the inhabitants. Then they desolated the hills and
      vales. Joshua "left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that
      breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded." Hazor and many other
      places were also treated in the same way, "there was not any left to
      breathe."
    </p>
    <p>
      Jehovah was not, however, able to execute his intentions completely. The
      children of Judah could not drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem; nor
      could the children of Manasseh entirely drive out the Canaanites from
      their cities. After Joshua's death, as we read in the book of <i>Judges</i>,
      "the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the
      mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because
      they had chariots of iron." Iron chariots were too strong for the
      Almighty! Yet he managed to take off the wheels of Pharaoh's chariots at
      the Red Sea. Why could he not do the same on this occasion? Were the
      linch-pins too tight or the wheels too heavy?
    </p>
    <p>
      Joshua died at the ripe old age of a hundred and ten. Whatever else he may
      have been, he was certainly one of the gamest fighting cocks that ever
      lived. Jehovah never found a better instrument for his bloody purposes.
      They buried him at Timnath-serah. Joseph's old bones, which Moses brought
      out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem. Had they been kept much longer some
      Hebrew "old-clo' man" might have carried them off and made an honest penny
      by them.
    </p>
    <p>
      After Joshua's death, the tribe of Judah fought against Adoni-bezek. When
      they caught him they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. He acknowledged
      the justice of his punishment, and admitted that God had served him just
      as he had himself served seventy kings, whose great toes he had cut off,
      and made them eat under his table. Kings must have been very plentiful in
      those days.
    </p>
    <p>
      During Joshua's lifetime the Jews served God, and they kept pretty
      straight during the lifetime of the elders who had known him. But directly
      these died they went astray; "they forsook the Lord and worshipped Baal
      and Ashtaroth." God punished them by letting their enemies oppress them.
      "Nevertheless," says the story, "the Lord raised up judges, which
      delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they
      would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other
      gods, and bowed themselves unto them; and they turned quickly out of the
      way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the Lord;
      but they did not so..... And it came to pass, when the judge was dead,
      that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in
      following other Gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased
      not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way."
    </p>
    <p>
      God's selection of the Jews as his favorite people does not seem to
      reflect much credit on his sagacity. All who came out of Egypt, except two
      persons, turned out so badly that they were pronounced unfit to enter the
      promised land, and doomed to die in the wilderness. The new generation who
      entered Canaan, after being circumcised to make them holy; after seeing
      the miracles of Jordan and the valley of Ajalon; after having gained a
      home by God's assistance in a land flowing with milk and honey; this very
      generation proved worse than their fathers. The original inhabitants of
      Canaan, whom they dispossessed, could hardly have surpassed them in sin
      against Jehovah; and therefore the ruthless slaughter of their conquest
      was as unreasonable as it was inhuman. So much for "God's Thieves in
      Canaan."
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CAIN AND ABEL.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;11.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      God completed the immense labors described in the first chapter of Genesis
      by creating man "in his own image," after which he serenely contemplated
      "everything that he had made, and; behold, it was very good." Yet the
      first woman deceived her husband, the first man was duped, and their first
      son was a murderer. God could not have looked very far ahead when he
      pronounced everything "very good." It is clear that the original pair of
      human beings were very badly made. As the Lord was obliged to take a rest
      on the seventh day, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he was pretty
      tired on the sixth, and scamped the work. All the sin and suffering in
      this world is the consequence of man having been the fag-end of creation.
      If the Lord had rested on the sixth day and created man on the seventh,
      how different things might have been! The Devil would probably have done
      no business in this world, and the population of hell would be no more now
      than it was six thousand years ago.
    </p>
    <p>
      After leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, having no fear of Malthus
      in their hearts, began to "multiply and replenish the earth." When their
      first child was born, Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," poor
      Adam's share in the youngster's advent being quietly ignored. She
      christened him Cain, a name which comes from a Hebrew root signifying to
      <i>acquire</i>. Cain was regarded as an <i>acquisition</i>, and his mother
      was very proud of him. The time came when she wished he had never been
      born.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some time after, but how long is unknown, Eve gave birth to a second son,
      called Abel. Josephus explains this name as meaning <i>grief</i>, but
      Hebrew scholars at present explain it as meaning <i>nothingness, vanity,
      frailty</i>. The etymology of Abel's name shows conclusively that the
      story is a myth. Why should Eve give her second boy so sinister a name?
      How could she have so clearly anticipated his sad fate? Cain's name has,
      too, another significance besides that of "acquisition," for, as Kalisch
      points out, it also belongs to the Hebrew verb to <i>strike</i>, and
      "signifies either the man of violence and the sire of murderers, or the
      ancestor of the inventors of iron instruments and of weapons of
      destruction."
    </p>
    <p>
      Cain and Abel had to get their own living. Being born after the Fall, they
      were of course debarred from the felicities of Eden, and were compelled to
      earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, in accordance with God's
      wide-reaching curse. Both, so to speak, were forced to deal in provisions.
      Abel went in for meat, and Cain for vegetables. This was an admirable
      division of labor, and they ought to have got on very well together; one
      finding beef and mutton for dinner, and the other potatoes and greens.
      They might even have paid each other handsome compliments across the
      table. Abel might have said "My dear Cain, these vegetables are
      first-rate," and Cain might have replied, "My dear Abel, I never tasted a
      better cut."
    </p>
    <p>
      Delitzsch, whose criticisms are huge jokes, frowns on this picture of
      fraternal peace. He opines that Cain and Abel were vegetarians and never
      enjoyed a beef-steak or a mutton-chop. Abel kept only small domestic
      cattle, such as sheep and goats, whose woolly skin might be used to cover
      "their sinful nakedness." The utmost Delitzsch allows is that they perhaps
      drank milk, which, although animal nutriment, is not obtained through the
      destruction of animal life. But, as Colenso observes, animals were slain
      for sacrifices, and they may have been killed also for eating. Besides,
      even a vegetable diet involves infinite destruction of minute animal life.
      On the whole we prefer to disregard Delitzsch in this matter, and to stand
      by our pleasant picture of the two first brothers at dinner.
    </p>
    <p>
      Their admirable arrangement, however, brought mischief in the end. It was
      right enough so far as they were concerned, but it worked badly in
      relation to God. They liked a mixed diet, but the Lord was purely
      carnivorous and liked all meat. He devoured Abel's provisions with great
      relish, but turned up his nose at Cain's vegetables. The mealiest
      potatoes, the tenderest green peas, had no charm for him; and even the
      leeks, the garlic, the onions, and the cucumbers, which were afterwards so
      beloved by his Jewish favorites, were quite unattractive. In the language
      of Scripture, "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto
      the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of
      the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
      But unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect" Elsewhere in the
      Bible we read "God is no respecter of persons," but Scripture is full of
      contradictions, and such things present no difficulty to the spirit of
      faith, which, like hope, "believeth all things."
    </p>
    <p>
      Why was Cain's offering slighted? The Bible does not tell us, but many
      reasons have been advanced by commentators. The Talmud supposes that Cain
      did not offer his <i>best</i> produce, but only the inferior kinds, thus
      giving God what he did not require himself, and treating the holy rite of
      sacrifice as a means of working off his refuse vegetables. Kalisch waives
      this theory, and thinks it probable that Cain's sin was primarily not
      against God, but against man. "The supposition," he says, "is obvious that
      envy and jealousy had long filled the heart of Cain, when he contrasted
      his laborious and toilsome life with the pleasant and easy existence of
      his brother Abel. With incessant exertion, tormented by anxiety, and
      helplessly dependent on the uncertainty of the skies, he forced a scanty
      subsistence out of the womb of the repugnant soil; whilst his brother
      enjoyed a life of security and abundance, in the midst of rich valleys,
      beautiful hills, and charming rural scenes. And while he envied Abel's
      prosperity, he despised his idleness, which was indebted for the
      necessaries of life to the liberality of nature, rather than to personal
      exertions. This hatred and jealousy took root in Cain's heart. He beheld
      the happiness of his brother with the feelings-of an enemy. The joy at the
      success of his own labors was embittered by the aspect of his brother's
      greater affluence. How could God look with delight upon an offering which
      the offerer himself did not regard with unalloyed satisfaction? How could
      he encourage by his applause a man whose heart was poisoned by the mean
      and miserable passion of envy?"
    </p>
    <p>
      But all this is gratuitous and far-fetched. Cain was not afflicted with so
      laborious an occupation. Adam supported himself and Eve, and all Cain had
      to do was to provide himself, and perhaps Abel, with vegetables. Nor could
      Abel's occupation have been light, for flocks and herds require a good
      deal of attendance, and in those early days they needed vigilant
      protection against the ravages of wild beasts. Abel's task must have been
      quite as heavy as Cain's. Our opinion is that the Lord showed his usual
      caprice, hating whom he would and loving whom he would. Jehovah acted like
      the savage hero of Mr. Browning's "Caliban on Setebos," who sprawls on the
      shore watching a line of crabs make for the sea, and squashes the
      twentieth for mere variety and sport. If Jehovah is requested to explain
      his loves and hates, he answers with Shylock, "it is my whim." It was his
      whim to love Jacob and hate Esau, and it was no doubt his whim to accept
      Abel's offering and reject Cain's.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mythologically the acceptance of Abel's offering and the rejection of
      Cain's are easily intelligible. The principle of sacrifice was deeply
      imbedded in Judaism. Without shedding of blood there could be no remission
      of sin. Under the Levitical law the duties of the priesthood chiefly
      consisted in burning the sin offerings of the people. It is, therefore,
      not difficult to understand how the Jewish scribes who wrote or revised
      the Pentateuch after the Babylonish captivity should give this coloring to
      the narrative of Genesis; nor is it hard to conceive that for centuries
      before that date the popular tradition had already, under priestly
      direction, taken such a color, so as to give the oldest and deepest
      sanction to the doctrine of animal sacrifice.
    </p>
    <p>
      It must also be noticed that Abel, who found favor with God, was "a keeper
      of sheep," while Cain, whose offering was contemned, was "a tiller of the
      ground." This accords with the strongest traditional instincts of the
      Jews. The Persian religion decidedly favors agriculture, which it regards
      as a kind of divine service. Brahminism and Buddhism countenance it still
      more decidedly, and even go to the length of absolutely prohibiting the
      slaughter of animals. The Jews, on the other hand, esteemed the pastoral
      life as the noblest, and the Hebrew historian very naturally represented
      it as protected and consecrated by the blessing of Jehovah, while
      agriculture was declared to have been imposed on man as a <i>punishment</i>.
      The nomadic origin of the Jews accounts for their antipathy to that
      pursuit, which survived and manifested itself, long after they settled in
      Palestine, devoted themselves to the cultivation of the soil, and enacted
      agrarian laws. They always esteemed agriculturalists as inferior to
      shepherds; men of superior attainments in their histories and legends rose
      from pastoral life; and kings kept their flocks. David, the man after
      God's own heart, and the national hero of the Jews, was a shepherd, and
      the Lord came to him while he was keeping his father's sheep. Moses was
      keeping his father-in-law's sheep when God appeared to him in the burning
      bush at Mount Horeb; Jacob kept his uncle Laban's sheep when he fled from
      Esau; and Abraham, the father of the faithful, was rich in flocks and
      herds.
    </p>
    <p>
      To recur to our story. Abel probably enjoyed the conspicuous mark of
      divine favors conferred on him. Cain, however, experienced very different
      feelings. He "was very wroth, and his countenance fell." Whereupon the
      Lord somewhat facetiously asked him what was the matter. "Why," said he,
      "art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well,
      shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the
      door." This was all very well, but as a matter of fact Cain's offering had
      already been <i>rejected</i>, and according to the Bible he had done
      nothing to deserve such harsh treatment.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lord's final words on this occasion read thus in our English Bible:
      "And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." These
      words are construed as applying to Cain's mastery over Abel, as the elder
      brother; but they seem quite unmeaning in that connexion; for Abel left no
      offspring, and the prophecy, if such it were, was never fulfilled. Kalisch
      throws light on this obscure passage. The Lord, he says, was referring not
      to Abel but to Cain's secret sin, and the passage should read "And to thee
      is <i>its</i> desire, but thou shalt rule over it."
    </p>
    <p>
      Cain then "talked with Abel his brother." Gesenius supposes that he
      communicated to him the words of God, and treats this as the first step
      towards a reconciliation. However that may be, we hear nothing more of it,
      for the very next words relate the murder of the younger brother by the
      elder. "And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose
      up against Abel his brother, and slew him."
    </p>
    <p>
      This abrupt narrative certainly requires explanation. Kalisch seems to
      think that Cain went about his work, after the interview with God, in a
      better frame of mind; but while he toiled hard "in the field" he became
      incensed at the sight of Abel loafing under a fine umbrageous tree and
      calmly watching his flock. Forgetting the divine admonitions, and
      listening only to the voice of passion, he madly killed his only brother,
      and made himself the first murderer. The Talmud gives several legends
      about the hatred between the two brothers. One imputes the difference to
      Cain's avarice, another to his ambition, another to his innate sinfulness,
      and another to his envy and jealousy on account of Abel's wife. The last
      of all seems the truest; namely, that they differed "in their views
      regarding Providence, the moral government of the world, and the efficacy
      of virtuous deeds for happiness." This idea informs Byron's tragedy on the
      subject. In "Cain" the younger, brother's offering is burnt up with
      supernatural fire, while the elder's altar remains unkindled; whereupon
      Cain inveighs against God's partiality, and denounces the bloody sacrifice
      which finds greater favor than his own peaceful tribute of fruit and
      flowers. He then advances to scatter the relics of Abel's offering from
      the altar, but is thwarted by his brother who resists the sacrilege. Abel
      is felled in the struggle, and Cain, who had no intention of killing him,
      finds himself an actual murderer before his brother's corpse.
    </p>
    <p>
      We are bound to conclude that the first quarrel in the world, like
      nine-tenths of those that have occurred since, was about religion. Cain
      thought God should be worshiped in one way, Abel thought he should be
      worshiped in another; and they settled the question, after the manner of
      religious disputants in all ages, by the stronger knocking the weaker on
      the head. In religion there is no certitude on this side of the grave; if
      we are ever destined to know the truth on that subject, we must die to
      find it out. We may therefore argue fruitlessly until the day of judgment.
      The only effectual way of settling a religious problem is to settle your
      opponents.
    </p>
    <p>
      After the murder the Lord paid Cain another visit, and asked him where
      Abel was. Cain replied that he was not his brother's keeper and didn't
      know. He does not appear to have thought God a particularly well informed
      person. Then the Lord said that Abel's blood cried unto him from the
      ground. "And now," he continued, "art thou cursed from the earth, which
      hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; when
      thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her
      strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth. And Cain
      said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou
      hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face
      shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and
      it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And
      the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall
      be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest any
      finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the
      Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."
    </p>
    <p>
      Now let us examine this story. Why was Cain so solicitous about his
      safety? Why did he fear that everybody would try to kill him? He had slain
      his brother, and his father and mother were the only people in the world
      besides himself and perhaps his sisters (? who knew). Kalisch suggests
      that he apprehended the future vengeance of mankind when the world grew
      more populous. But how, in that case, could a distinctive mark be any
      protection? It would publish his identity to all beholders. Besides, one
      would suppose that Cain, the first man ever born into the world, would
      always be well known without carrying about a brand like a special wine or
      a patent edible. And what was the mark? Kalisch thinks it was only a
      villainous expression. Others think it was the Mongolian type impressed
      upon the features of Cain, who became the founder of that great division
      of the human race. A negro preacher started a different theory. When the
      Lord called out in a loud voice "Cain, where is thy brother Abel," Cain,
      who was a black man, like Adam, turned pale with fear, and never regained
      his original color. All his children were pale too; and that, said the
      preacher, "accounts for de white trash you see ebery war in dese days."
    </p>
    <p>
      How did Cain manage to go "out from the presence of the Lord," who is
      everywhere? Satan does the same thing in the Book of Job, and Jonah tries
      to do it later on. Jehovah was clearly a local as well as a visible God,
      and not the infinite spirit of the universe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where was the land of Nod situated? East of Eden, says the Bible. But
      nobody knows where Eden was. As we pointed out in "The Creation Story,"
      scores of different positions have been assigned to it. The only point of
      agreement among the commentators is that it was <i>somewhere</i>. All that
      can safely be affirmed, then, is that Nod was east of Somewhere. The name
      itself is very appropriate. No doubt the Lord was not quite awake in that
      locality, and hence we may explain how Cain managed to go "out from his
      presence."
    </p>
    <p>
      In this strange land of Nod, Cain "knew his wife." Who was she? Probably
      his own sister, but the Bible does not tell us anything about her. Their
      first son was called Enoch. Cain then "builded a city, and called the name
      of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch." But this is directly
      opposed to the curse "a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the
      earth."
    </p>
    <p>
      Delitzsch notices this, and, as usual, seeks to explain it away. Cain, he
      says, "in this way set himself against the divine curse, in order to feel
      it inwardly so much the more, as outwardly he seems to have overcome it."
      To which we reply&mdash;first, that there is no evidence that Cain felt
      the curse "more inwardly" after he built the city; and, secondly, the idea
      of a man successfully setting himself against an omnipotent curse is a
      trifle too absurd for credence or criticism.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now Adam and Eve, when Cain fled after the murder of Abel, were left
      childless, or at least without a son. But it was necessary that they
      should have another, in order that God's chosen people, the Jews, might be
      derived from a purer stock than Cain's. Accordingly we read that Adam, in
      his hundred and thirtieth year, "begat a son in his own likeness, after
      his image, and called his name Seth." Why was not Cain begotten in the
      same way? Had he been so, the cradle of the world might not have been
      defiled with the blood of fratricide. Seth being "the image" of Adam, and
      Adam "the image" of God, Seth and the Almighty were of course very much
      alike. He was pious, and from him were descended the pious patriarchs,
      including Noah, from whom was descended Abraham the founder of the Jewish
      race. God's chosen people came of a good stock, although they turned out
      such a bad lot.
    </p>
    <p>
      From Seth to Noah there are ten Patriarchs before the Flood. This is
      clearly mythological. The Hindus believed in <i>ten</i> great saints, the
      offspring of Manu, and in <i>ten</i> different personifications of Vishnu.
      The Egyptians had <i>ten</i> mighty heroes, the Chaldeans <i>ten</i> kings
      before the Flood, the Assyrians <i>ten</i> kings from Ham to Ninyas, and
      as many from Japhet to Aram; and Plato enumerates <i>ten</i> sons of
      Neptune, as the rulers of his imaginary Island of Atlantis, submerged by
      the Deluge.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cain's descendants were of course drowned by the Flood, but they did a
      great deal more for the world than the descendants of pious Seth, who
      seems to have done little else than trust in God. The Cainites laid the
      basis of civilisation. One of them Jabal, founded <i>cattle-keeping</i>;
      his brother, Jubal, invented <i>musical instruments</i>; and their
      half-brother Tubal-cain first practised <i>smithery</i>. Seth's
      descendants had nothing but piety. Even their morals were no better than
      those of the Cainites; for at the Flood only eight of them were found
      worthy of preservations, and they were a poor lot. Noah got beastly drunk
      after the waters subsided, and one of his three sons brought a curse on
      all his offspring. What then must we think of the rest?
    </p>
    <p>
      Tuch excellently explains the mythological significance of the story of
      Cain and Abel and Seth. "There lies," he says, "in this myth the perfectly
      correct reminiscence, that in the East <i>ancient</i> nations lived, under
      whom in very early times culture and civilisation extended, but at the
      same time the assertion, that these could not prejudice the renown of the
      Western-Asiatics, since the prerogatives, which their descent from the
      first-born would secure to them, were done away through God's Curse, which
      lighted on their ancestor, Cain. Thus the East is cut off from the
      following history, and the thread fastened on, which carries us on in
      Genesis, right across through the nations, to the only chosen people of
      Israel." The entire history of the world before the Flood is dismissed in
      five chapters, and that from the Flood to Abraham in two more. After that
      the mighty antique civilisations are never noticed except so far as they
      affect the history of the Jews. The ages of the Patriarchs also dwindle
      down from nine centuries in the beginning to almost the normal longevity
      in the semi-historical period. Could anything more conclusively prove the
      mythical character of the narrative?
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the Patriarchs descended from Seth, namely Enoch, which singularly
      enough is also the name of Cain's eldest son, never died. We read that "he
      was not, for God took him." It is about time that the Lord took the whole
      lot out of his Word, and gave us a little ancient <i>history</i> instead.
      We want a <i>revised</i> Bible in the fullest sense of the word. The old
      book needs to be completely rewritten. How thankful we should all be if
      the Lord inspired <i>another</i> "Moses" to rectify the errors and
      supplement the deficiencies of the first, and to give us scientific truth
      instead of fanciful myths about the early history of our race! But the
      Lord never inspires anybody to do a useful piece of work, and our Darwins
      will therefore have to go on with their slow and laborious task of making
      out a history of mankind from the multitudinous and scattered traces that
      still survive the decay of time.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
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    <h2>
      LOT'S WIFE.
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIBLE ROMANCES.&mdash;12.
    </h3>
    <p>
      By G. W. FOOTE.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot and his family were a queer lot. Their history is one of the strangest
      in the whole Bible. They dwelt amongst a people whose debauchery has
      become a by-word, and in a city which has given a name to the vilest of
      unnatural crimes. Lot, his wife, and their two unmarried daughters, were
      the only persons preserved from the terrible fate which Jehovah, in one of
      his periodic fits of anger, inflicted upon the famous Cities of the Plain.
      They witnessed a signal instance of his ancient method of dealing with his
      disobedient children. In the New Testament, God promises the wicked and
      the unbelievers everlasting fire after they are dead; in the Old
      Testament, he drowns them or burns them up in this world. Lot and his
      family saw the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by "brimstone and fire
      from the Lord out of heaven"; and they, four persons in all, just half the
      number that survived the Flood a few centuries before, were the only ones
      that escaped. God specially spared them. Yet Lot's wife was turned into a
      pillar of salt for looking back as she fled from the doomed city, and the
      old man himself soon after got drunk and committed incest with his
      daughters. From this crime sprang Moab and Ammon, the founders of two
      nations who became for many centuries the most implacable enemies of God's
      chosen people.
    </p>
    <p>
      Why did the Lord spare these four persons? Why did he not profit by the
      lesson of the Flood? The eight persons rescued from drowning in that great
      catastrophe were infected with original sin, and the consequence was that
      the world peopled from their stock was a great deal worse than the
      ante-diluvian world. It would clearly have been better to destroy all and
      start absolutely afresh. The eight rescued persons were apparently just as
      bad as those who were drowned. So with the four persons spared at the
      destruction of Sodom. The people of that city could hardly have been much
      worse than Lot and his children. The Lord appears to have been as stupid
      in his mercy as he was brutal in his wrath.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot was Abraham's nephew, and evidently came of a bad stock. The uncle's
      evil career will be sketched in our series of "Bible Heroes." For the
      present we content ourselves with the remark that no good could reasonably
      be expected from such a family. Lot's father was Haran, a son of Terah,
      and brother to Abraham.
    </p>
    <p>
      He "died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the
      Chaldees." A city was called by his name in the land of Canaan, and Terah
      and the family dwelt there after they left Ur, until the patriarch died
      and Abraham was called out from his kindred to found a new house. The
      "father of the faithful" took his orphaned nephew with him. Lot
      accompanied his uncle on the journey to Egypt, where Abraham passed his
      wife off as his sister, and showed his natural bent by lying right and
      left.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon afterwards we learn that Abraham and Lot had grown very rich, the
      former "in cattle, in silver, and in gold," and the latter in "flocks, and
      herds, and tents." Indeed "their substance was so great that they could
      not dwell together, and there was strife between the herdmen of Abram's
      cattle and the herd-men of Lot's cattle." Whereupon Abraham said "Don't
      let us quarrel within the family, but let us part. You can go where you
      like. If you go to the right I'll go to the left, and if you go to the
      left I'll go to the right" It was necessary to separate Lot from the
      fortunes of Abraham, in order that God's dealings with the latter might be
      uninterrupted and his family kept distinct; and so the Hebrew chronicler
      very naturally separates them here, in a manner which reflects great
      credit on Abraham, and exhibits him in a most amiable light.
    </p>
    <p>
      Cunning Lot took full advantage of the offer. He "lifted up his eyes, and
      beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, even
      as the garden of the Lord." So they parted, and Lot "pitched his tent
      towards Sodom," whose inhabitants, says our naive story, "were wicked and
      sinners before the Lord exceedingly." Commentators explain that Lot's
      approach to such a detestable sink of iniquity indicated the native
      corruption of his heart, or at least a sad lack of horror at the sins
      which made the place stink in the nostrils of God.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the next chapter we find Lot living in Sodom, although we are not told
      when he moved there. Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar,
      Chedorlaorner king of Elam, and Tidal "king of nations," made war with
      Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah,
      Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the "king of Bera, which is Zoar." A great
      battle was fought in the vale of Siddim, which is alleged to be now
      covered by the Dead Sea. The four kings were victorious over the five. The
      kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and the victors spoiled their cities,
      taking with them many captives, among whom was "Lot, Abram's brother's
      son." How Abraham went out with a handful of men, defeated the triumphant
      forces of the allied kings, and rescued his nephew, is a pretty little
      story which we reserve for our life of that patriarch. All the other
      captives were rescued also, and Lot, returning with his friends, continued
      to dwell in Sodom as before.
    </p>
    <p>
      We hear no more of him for a considerable time. During the interval
      Abraham has a child by Hagar. Ishmael, with the rest of the patriarch's
      household, is circumcised. And finally the Lord visits Abraham again to
      tell him that, notwithstanding their advanced ages, he and Sarah shall yet
      have a son. What happened during the interview properly belongs to the
      life of Abraham, but we shall here consider so much of it as relates to
      the fortunes of Lot.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Lord complained that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was "very
      grievous," and said that the great cry of it had reached him in heaven.
      Being much concerned about their "goings on," he had resolved to drop down
      and see for himself if they were realty as bad as he suspected. "If not,"
      said he, "I will know." In the Old Testament, God, who knows everything,
      is always seeking information.
    </p>
    <p>
      Abraham surmised that the Lord meant to play the devil with the Sodomites,
      and he was anxious about Lot who dwelt with them. So he began a parley.
      "Now, my Lord," said Abraham, "you surely don't mean to destroy
      indiscriminately; you, the judge of all the earth, must act on the square.
      Suppose there are fifty righteous men in Sodom, won't you, just for their
      sake, spare the place?" Knowing that there were nothing like fifty
      righteous men in Sodom, the Lord promptly acceded to Abraham's-request; so
      promptly indeed that Abraham smelt a rat, and determined to drive a closer
      bargain. So he asked the Lord to knock off five. "Very well," was the
      reply, "if I find forty-five righteous men I'll spare the city." Abraham
      was still suspicious. He knew that Jehovah loved a bit of destruction, and
      was not easily moved when he had once made up his mind to indulge himself.
      So he returned to the charge. "I beg pardon," said he, "for troubling you
      so, but do you mind knocking off another ten, and making thirty of it?"
      "Not at all," answered the Lord, "we'll say thirty." Abraham felt
      there-was something wrong. This amiable readiness to oblige thoroughly
      perplexed him. If the Lord had haggled over the thirty, he would have
      known that there was about that number of righteous men in the place; but
      in the actual condition of affairs, he felt that he had considerably
      overshot the mark. The-game was very dangerous, but he decided to renew
      it. "My Lord," he began, "I'm a dreadful bore, but I'm not quite satisfied
      with our contract and should like to re-open it. I don't wish to be
      importunate, but will you knock off another ten?" "With all my heart,"
      replied the Lord, "we'll say twenty." Still dissatisfied, Abraham resolved
      on a final effort. "My good Lord," said he, "this is really the last time
      of asking. I promise to bother you no more. Will you knock off another
      ten?" "All right," was the reply, "anything to oblige. Well say ten
      altogether. If there are so many righteous men in Sodom I'll spare it.
      Good afternoon, Abraham, good afternoon." And the Lord was off. Abraham
      ruefully watched the retreating figure, perfectly assured that the Lord
      had got the best of the bargain, and that he himself had been duped,
      worsted, and befooled.
    </p>
    <p>
      God did not go to Sodom himself, but sent two angels to inspect it. They
      reached its gate in the evening, and found Lot sitting there. In eastern
      towns the places before the gate are the appointed localities for
      meetings; and in ancient times they were used for still more extensive
      purposes. There the judge pronounced his decisions, and even kings held
      there occasionally their courts of justice; there buying and selling went
      on; the people assembled there to see each other and hear the news; and
      almost all public affairs were transacted there, from religious worship to
      the smallest details of civil life. It is not surprising, therefore, that
      Lot should be sitting in the gate when the two strangers arrived at the
      city. Some commentators have even conjectured that he went out to meet
      them; but others object that this is contradictory to the narrative, which
      does not exhibit Lot as recognising the angels, and that it implies "too
      ideal a notion of its virtue." Some have supposed that Lot had attained to
      the dignity of a judge, and that he was sitting to act in that capacity on
      this occasion; but later circumstances refute this supposition; for, in
      the quarrel which ensued, the people of Sodom reproached him as "a
      stranger" who set himself up as a judge of their conduct.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot advanced to the strangers, greeted them with a profound bow, addressed
      them as "my lords," and asked them to stay over night at his house, where
      he would wash their feet, give them something to eat, and find them a bed.
      They declined his frank hospitality, and said they meant to pass the night
      in the streets. Kalisch observes, as though he knew all about their
      motives, that "it was their intention to try his character, and to give
      him an opportunity of showing whether his generosity was merely a
      momentary emotion, or had become a settled feature in his character." He
      also dismisses the idea that they wished to remain in the streets in order
      to study "the moral state of the Sodomites," as they required no such
      knowledge, for "they were not only the angels of God, but God himself
      acted in them." But Kalisch should bear in mind that God told Abraham he
      was going on purpose to "see whether they have done altogether according
      to the cry of it"; and that, as the angels could not know more than God,
      it was after all necessary that they should make inquiries. Lot, however,
      "pressed upon them greatly," and at last they entered his house. He then
      "made them a <i>feast</i>" which seems to have consisted of nothing but
      unleavened bread. Perhaps the angels, who had dined heavily with Abraham
      on veal, butter, and milk, were afraid of bad dreams, and only wanted a
      light supper before going to roost.
    </p>
    <p>
      They were not, however, destined to enjoy a good night's sleep. Before
      they "lay down," the men of Sodom "compassed the house round, both old and
      young, all the people from every quarter." And they called unto Lot, and
      said unto him, "Where are the men which came in unto thee this night?
      Bring them out unto us, that we may know them."
    </p>
    <p>
      We are reluctant to criticise this dirty story, but duty compels us. God's
      Word is full of disgusting narratives, and if we scrupled to examine them
      we should have to leave the book alone. We have no love of filth, and if
      the Bible were not held up as a divine work we should never condescend to
      notice its beastly tales of fornication, adultery, sodomy, and incest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Why did <i>all</i> the men of Sodom, both old and young, flock to Lot's
      house? Is it likely that <i>every</i> male in the city, past the age of
      puberty, should burn with unnatural lust at one and the same time? Did
      they suppose that <i>all</i> of them could abuse the two strangers? The
      story is as silly as it is nasty.
    </p>
    <p>
      For a parallel to Lot's answer to the demand of his neighbors we must go
      to the nineteenth chapter of <i>Judges</i>, where the men of Gibeah clamor
      for the Levite as the men of Sodom clamor for the two angels, and where
      his host offers them instead his own daughter as well as the Levite's
      concubine. A woman's honor was a very trivial thing to God's chosen
      people. In itself it counted as next to nothing. The man's right of
      possession gave it all its importance and worth.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot went out and shut the door after him. Then he rebuked his neighbors
      for desiring to do "so wickedly," and immediately made them an offer which
      he seems to have thought perfectly fair and square. "Behold, now," he
      said, "I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you,
      bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only
      unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my
      roof." The laws of hospitality are sacred, and Lot did well to maintain
      them; but he had no right to sacrifice to them a still more sacred law.
      Instead of strenuously opposing the committal of one crime, he proposes
      another as heinous.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Sodomites scorned his offer. They had a <i>penchant</i> for a
      different pleasure. Ravishing virgins was not in their line. So they
      reviled Lot for setting himself up as a judge amongst them, called him
      "fellow," threatened to deal worse with him than with the strangers, and
      actually pressed so sore upon him that they "came near to break the door."
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the strangers manifested their power. They "put forth their hand, and
      pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut too the door. And they smote
      the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and
      great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door." However blind
      they were surely they might have found the door by feeling for it. Kalisch
      makes this episode more reasonable by substituting "blind confusion" for
      "blindness."
    </p>
    <p>
      The angels continued to act promptly. They informed Lot that they intended
      to destroy the place because of its sin, and told him to gather all his
      family together and leave at once. Lot spoke to his "sons-in-law, which
      married his daughters," but they appear to have thought him daft. Early in
      the morning "the angels hastened Lot" who still lingered. They laid hold
      of his hand, his wife's, and his two unmarried daughters', led them
      outside the city, and said, "Escape now for thy life; look not behind
      thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountains lest
      thou be consumed." Lot did not relish this prospect of a hard climb. He
      therefore asked the angels to let him flee unto the city of Zoar, because
      it was near and "a little one." That is what the servant girl said to her
      mistress when she produced an illegitimate child, "please 'm its only a
      very little one." She thought that a small illegitimate baby wasn't as bad
      as a big illegitimate baby, and Lot thought that a little wicked city
      wasn't as bad as a big wicked city.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot's request was granted, and he was told to look sharp. He made good
      speed, and reached Zoar when "the sun was risen."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from
      the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain,
      and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the
      ground." It is a mistake to suppose that brimstone and fire are
      characteristic of hell, for the Lord evidently keeps a large stock of
      those commodities in heaven. Nor must it be supposed that Lot was spared
      because he was righteous. He was spared because the Lord "was merciful
      unto him." His virtues, Kalisch remarks, were not sufficient for his
      salvation, which he owed to "the piety of Abraham." Abraham may have had
      "piety" enough to save a Lot, but he had scarcely "virtue" enough to save
      a mouse.
    </p>
    <p>
      Kalisch says that "about the situation of Zoar there remains little
      doubt." He identifies it with "the considerable ruins found in Wady Kerek,
      on the eastern side of the Dead Sea." But he has no such assurance as to
      the situation of Sodom. He deprecates De Saulcy's assumption, that Sodom
      is traceable in the heap of stones found near the Salt Mountain, Udsum;
      and adds&mdash;"We may hope rather than expect, that authentic ruins of
      the four destroyed towns will ever be discovered. Biblical historians and
      prophets already speak of them as localities utterly and tracelessly swept
      away; and the remark of Josephus, that 'shadows' of them still existed in
      his time, is vague and doubtful."
    </p>
    <p>
      In the South of Palestine there is an extraordinary lake of mysterious
      origin. It is about thirty-nine miles long, and from eight to twelve miles
      broad. It is fed by the river Jordan, and drained by the evaporation of a
      fierce and terrible sun. Its water is clear and inodorous, but nauseous
      like a solution of alum; it causes painful itching and even ulceration on
      the lips and if brought near a wound, or any diseased part, produces a
      most excruciating sensation. It contains muriatic and sulphuric acid, and
      one-fourth of its weight is salt. No fishes live in it; and according to
      tradition, which however is not true, birds that happen to fly over its
      surface die. Near it is said to grow the Apple of Sodom, beautiful in
      appearance, but containing only ashes. This lake is appropriately called
      the Dead Sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      The natives say that at low water they glimpse fragments of buildings and
      pillars rising out of the bottom of the lake. But this is only a fancy.
      Yet beneath the waters of the Dead Sea are thought to lie the Cities of
      the Plain. The northern part of the lake is very deep, the southern part
      very shallow. The bottom consists of two separate plains, one elevated,
      the other depressed. The latter is by some held to be the original bottom
      of the lake, and the former to have been caused by the destruction of
      Sodom and Gomorrah. But this also is only a fancy. The bitumen, which is
      found in such large quantities in and near the lake, is a symptom and
      remnant of the volcanic nature of the region. Several lines of earthquake
      are traced from it in a north-eastern direction; and it is conjectured
      that the three lakes, Merom, Tiberias, and Asphaltites, together with the
      river Jordan, are the remaining traces of the huge gulf once filled by the
      Dead Sea before the land was lifted by a geological catastrophe. Volcanic
      action has caused all the remarkable phenomena of the district, which were
      of immemorial antiquity thousands of years ago; and the story of the
      Cities of the Plain is only one of the legends which ancient peoples
      associated with every striking aspect of nature.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let us recur to Lot. His sons, his married daughters, and their husbands,
      perished in the deluge of brimstone and fire. He and his two unmarried
      daughters fled to Zoar as fast as their legs could carry them. But his
      wife was less fortunate. She ran behind Lot, and with the natural
      curiosity of her sex she looked back on the doomed city. For this
      violation of the angels' orders she was turned into "a pillar of salt."
      Some commentators try to blink this unpleasant fact by artful
      translations; such as "she fell into a salt-brook," or "she was covered
      with a salt crust," or she was "<i>like</i> a pillar of salt." Josephus
      pretended to have seen this old woman of salt, but others have been less
      lucky, although many travellers and pilgrims have searched for it as for a
      sacred relic. But let us not despair. Lot's wife may yet be discovered and
      exhibited in the British Museum.
    </p>
    <p>
      What became of Lot and his daughters? Fearing to dwell in Zoar, they left
      it and "dwelt in a cave." The damsels, who had heard their father offer
      them to the promiscuous embrace of a lustful crowd, could not be expected
      to be very scrupulous in their conduct. They were alone, without husbands
      to make them mothers, and to be childless was a calamity and a reproach;
      so they put their heads together and devised a nasty scheme. Two nights
      successively they made their father blind drunk, and got him to commit
      incest with them. This is very beastly and very absurd. Lot was <i>old</i>;
      he was so drunk that he knew nothing of what happened; yet he got two
      virgins with child! The porter in "Macbeth" would have laughed at such a
      ridiculous story.
    </p>
    <p>
      These improper females were by no means ashamed of their action; on the
      contrary, they boast of their bastards; and the historian does not utter a
      word in condemnation of their crime.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lot was the father of his own grandchildren; his daughters were the
      mothers of their own brothers; and his other children were destroyed by
      heavenly brimstone and fire. Were they not, as we said at the outset, a
      queer lot? But the queerest lot was Lot's wife. Whatever may be said of
      the rest of the family, no one can say that she was not worth her salt,
      for the Lord thought she was worth enough to make a pillar. Let us hope
      that the old lady will some day be (un)covered, and that her pillar of
      salt may yet, to the confusion of sceptics, stand as a veritable pillar in
      the house of God, and there defy the attacks of all the infidel Samsons,
      world without end. Amen.
    </p>
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