Page:God and His Book.djvu/146

136 on his boot that Adam might see not to meddle too freely with the tails of such creatures as the scorpion. There are a few trifles connected with this first and second "creation" that are not quite clear to me, and, if Jehovah would enlighten me on the subject a little just now, it might prevent my troubling him by putting questions to him when I get into Abraham's bosom. He, it would seem from the second chapter of Genesis, made woman in the dark, and, up to this time, he has kept me completely in the dark as to how he did it.

I should regret to be considered troublesome; but I should like to ask Jehovah one or two more trifling questions, the answers to which might put himself and myself on less strained relationships than at present exist between us. If he do not care to roar at me all the way down from the kingdom of heaven, stunning Rahab and alarming "the Lamb's wife," a still small voice, if it speak sense, will quite satisfy me. He may address me some night after I am in bed. I am sure to know his voice instantly from that of bellicose and amatory cats in the back yard, and I will at once get up on my elbow and say, "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth thee."

1. We learn from the Ghost's Book that Adam and Eve "heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Does the voice of the Lord God often walk in gardens and elsewhere, and does it wear Wellington boots?

2. Was it from the pigeons at Hurlingham, that are hatched to be shot, that Jehovah caught the idea of "creating" man to be cursed? Did Jehovah derive great pleasure from the cursing of the two poor featherless bipeds, Adam and Eve? Is it the favourite recreation of a God to place two weak, silly creatures in a garden, when, in that garden, he has placed a damnation-trap and baited it with an apple, knowing well that his two poor children would munch at the apple, and thereby spring the damnation-trap, letting its terrible teeth cut through their flesh and rasp upon their bones, and upon the bones of generations yet unborn? When I get to heaven am I to be imbued with tastes which will enable me to delight in this sort of thing? If yes, would I