Page:God and His Book.djvu/145

Rh forgot in this second "creation" to make the sun, moon, and stars. But the gods in the first creation had "made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night," and "the stars also." It was the second "creation" that went in for the rib business, and the performing of the surgical operation upon Adam while he slept. God seems to have been so absorbed in this feat that he forgot to "create" the sun, moon, and stars. So, out of the rib, woman must have been made in the dark. It has often occurred to me that she is not all she should be; but, considering that she was made out of a rib, and in the dark, I must admit that she is a really wonderful performance. If in the second "creation" Jehovah had not been in such a hurry to make her that he forgot to "create" the sun, God only knows what she would have been like! Even as it is, she is the best thing he has ever made. And all out of a rib and in the dark! I am constrained to admit that the Lord is not without a certain amount of cleverness.

Still harping on woman, the Lord forgot, in the second "creation," to make fish as well as the sun, moon, and stars. I sympathise with him: if you get your head thoroughly taken up about a woman, you are apt to forget a great many things you would do better to remember. The Lord, however, remembered to make a great many birds and animals generally. He took it into his head that he would like to hear what Adam would call them; so he sent them up in droves before Adam to have them named. How the Lord found them in the dark is not stated; and how Adam saw them in the dark the divine penman sayeth not. Possibly Adam felt them in order that he might give them appropriate names. Feeling the lion, especially about the jaws, must have been highly interesting; feeling the business end of the wasp would be a trifle exciting; and, as he felt the cobra, that hospitable worthy would anoint him with mucus and invite him to go inside. The laughter of Jehovah must have shaken the darkness as he heard Adam naming the tiger—and the tiger naming Adam. But all things, including all future inventions, were known to the Omniscient, so he possibly struck a lucifer