Page:God and His Book.djvu/17

Rh The Book of Nathan the Prophet (1 Chronicles xxix. 29).

The Book of Gad the Seer (1 Chronicles xxix. 29).

The Chronicles of King David (1 Chronicles xxvii. 24).

The Book of Nathan the Prophet (2 Chronicles ix. 29).

The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilomite (2 Chronicles ix. 29).

The Visions of Iddo the Seer against Jeroboam the son of Nabat (2 Chronicles ix. 29).

The Book of Shemaiah the Prophet (2 Chronicles xii. 15).

The Book of Iddo the Seer concerning Genealogies (2 Chronicles xii. 15).

The Story of the Prophet Iddo (2 Chronicles xiii. 22).

The Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (2 Chronicles xvi. 11, and six other places in the same Book).

The Book of Jehu (2 Chronicles xx. 34).

The Memoirs of Hircanus (mentioned in 1 Maccabees).

The Books of Jason (mentioned in 2 Maccabees ii.).

The Acts of Uriah, mentioned in 2 Chronicles xxvi. 22.

Three thousand Proverbs of Solomon, mentioned in 1 Kings iv. 32.

A thousand and five Songs, mentioned in ibid.

Several other volumes by the same author, mentioned in ibid.

The Prophecy of Jeremiah, torn in pieces by Jehoiakim, cited in Jeremiah xxxvi.

Another Prophecy of his upon the city of Babylon, mentioned in Jeremiah li.

Memoirs or Descriptions of the same author, mentioned in 1 Maccabees ii.

The Prophecy of Jonah, mentioned in the Book of Jonah.

These works may each and all have been inspired. I cannot allege that I say so through inspiration; nevertheless, I feel inclined to think that the Book of Jasher, the Book of Iddo, and the rest of them, were juvenile and immature performances of the Ghost. I opine that he incorporated the gist of them into his more recent writings, and then committed to the flames the crude compositions of his adolescence. It is, however, a pity he burnt them. With what holy and absorbing interest we should have read them as milestones on the road of mental development on which travelled the only ghost that ever took to writing books! Still, some Tischendorf or Shapira may yet unearth the Ghost's boyish volumes, the Book of Gad and the Book of Nathan. We have certain of the boyish writings of Sir Walter Scott, which were tenderly preserved by his mother; but the Ghost, being his own mother, does not stand on quite parallel lines with Sir Walter Scott.

Then, as to certain of the Targums, God only knows