Page:God and His Book.djvu/25

Rh Seeing that nobody was permitted to read the Book of the Law, or even to approach within several feet of it, it was obliging of Jehovah to come down and sit on the lid of the box that contained his book, and talk over matters with his friend Moses. "There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things, which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel." So a performing Jehovah came down and sat on the top of his shittim-wood box, just as you have seen a performing monkey sit on the top of a travelling hurdy-gurdy. This was very condescending on his part. Business must have been slack in heaven when he could afford the time to come and sit on the top of that box, like a parrot on a perch, between the two gew-gaws of sacred fowls, which he is pleased to call chererubims. But he would have saved himself all this humiliation and trouble if he had only permitted his book to be read. He wrote the Law, and then came down to the lid of the box and delivered it orally; in short, he kept a dog and yet did the barking himself.