Page:God and His Book.djvu/21

Rh you can make a silken purse out of a sow's ear. And, then, as to frivolity, Jehovah was an incorrigible trifler. He occupied much of his time with patterns for tents and toggery for priests, with fringes and candlesticks and snuffers and tongs. He also turned his attention in the Eugene Rimmel direction, and manufactured a certain kind of holy hair-oil, and threatened to put to death any one who would make a perfume to smell like it—his way of taking out a patent. This is not the sort of trifling in which he, who would be a writer, can afford to indulge. And candour compels me to admit that the three inscrutables rolled into one inscrutable could not produce "Childe Harold," even with all the assistance they might get from the "worm of the dust," John Smith.

How long, O Lord, how long? There is a grievous injustice done thee somewhere. Arise and avenge thyself. Thy works have got so inextricably mixed up with those of Smith that I, for one, am utterly at a loss what to read devoutly as thine, and what to read with reprehension as a spurious imitation of thy style. For thy greater honour and glory, I herewith furnish thee with thy servant Dupin's list of the various books that have been attributed to thee by Jews and Christians:—

The five Books of Moses.

The Book of Joshua.

The Book of Judges.

The Book of Samuel, or the first and second Books of Kings.

The third and fourth Books of Kings.

Isaiah.

Jeremiah.

Ezekiel.

The Twelve Minor Prophets.

The Book of Job.

The Hundred and Fifty Psalms.

The Proverbs of Solomon.

The Ecclesiastes.

The Canticles.

Daniel.

The Chronicles.

Esdras, divided into two Books.