Page:Annie Besant, Is the Bible Indictable.djvu/15

 welfare of the state. We are next given the odious story of Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam. xiii. 1—22), instructive for Lord Sandon's boys and girls to read together, as they go through the Bible from beginning to end. 1 Kings i. 1—4 conveys an idea more worthy of George IV. than of the man after God's own heart. In 1 Kings xiv. 10, the coarseness is inexcusable, and verse 24 is only too intelligible after Judges xix. 2 Kings ix. 8, xviii. 27, are thoroughly Biblical in their delicacy. 1 Chron. xix. 4 repeats the unpleasant story of 2 Sam. x. 4; but both 1 and 2 Chronicles are, for the Bible, remarkably free from coarseness, and are a great improvement on the books of Kings and Samuel. The same praise is deserved by Ezra and Nehemiah. The tone of the story of Esther is somewhat sensual throughout: the drunken king commanding Vashti to come in and show her beauty, Esther i. 11; the search for the young virgins, Esther ii. 2—4; the trial and choice, Esther ii. 12—17, these are scarcely elevating reading; Esther vii. 8 is also coarse. To a girl whose safety is in her ignorance, Job iii. 11 is very plain. Psalm xxxviii. 5—7 gives a description of a certain class of disease in exact terms. Proverbs v. 17—20 is good advice, but would be condemned by the Lord Chief Justice; Proverbs vi. 24—32 is of the same character, as is also Proverbs vii. 5—23. The allusion in Ecclesiastes xi. 5 would be objected to as improper by the Solicitor-General.

The Song of Solomon is a marriage-song of the sensual and luxuriant character: put Knowlton side by side with it, and then judge which is most calculated to arouse the passions. It is almost impossible to select, where all is of so extreme a character, but take i. 2, 13; ii. 4—6, 17; iii. 1, 4; iv. 5, 6, 11; v. 2—4, 8, 14—16; vii. 2, 3, 6—10, 12; viii. 1—3, 8—10. Could any language be more alluring, more seductive, more passion-rousing, than the languid, uxorious, "linked sweetness long drawn out" of this Eastern marriage-ode? It is not vulgarly coarse and offensive as is so much of the Bible, but it is, according to the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice, a very obscene poem. One may add that, in addition to the allusions and descriptions that lie on the surface, there is a multitude of suggestions not so apparent, but which are thoroughly open to all who know anything of Eastern imagery.

After the Song of Solomon, it is a shock to come to the prophets; it is like plunging into cold water after being in a hothouse. Unfortunately, with the more bracing