Page:God and His Book.djvu/24

14 schekinah—something or other that gave nearly as much light as a halfpenny candle. "Take the book of the law and put it into the side [i.e., inside] of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee."

When any ordinary mortal writes a book he takes some pains to give all the world an opportunity of reading it. When a god writes a book it is far otherwise. The Lord commanded his book to be put inside the ark, and ordered that the ark be kept in the most holy inner recess of the tabernacle or temple—a recess to which the high priest alone had access. Moreover, the place was too sacred for even the high priest to visit it whenever it might enter his head to do so; for Aaron was cautioned not to come "at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy-seat which is upon the ark, that he die not." From this it is obvious that, if the Lord had peculiar notions as to how to write a book, he had even more curious notions as to how to publish one. His mode of publishing was to put his MS. into a closed box, place the box in a recess where only one person was permitted to visit it, and that very cautiously and at stated times, under peril of being struck dead on the spot. This is slightly different from the way publishing is carried on in Paternoster Row and its environs; but, of course, there is some dissimilarity between Jehovah-nissi and Anthony Froude, as also between London and Kirjath-jearim. The men of Beth-shemesh were of an inquiring turn of mind, and one or two of them, on one occasion, ventured a peep into the box or ark in which the Lord kept his book. But the Lord, whose son said, "Search the Scriptures," did not approve of his book and his box being peeped at, so he "smote the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people 50,000 and three score and ten men." It is evident Jehovah had attached some importance to his book, since he slew 50,070 men because one or two out of that number had craned their necks to look into his book box. I repeat, Jehovah's ideas of publishing are just a trifle peculiar.