A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and EssaysBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought
to drink, and no room to swallow, and your solids either raw or too much
done. Poor fish! for even after preparation it must be disagreeable to
have one's poor stomach turned into a sort of prayer meeting. Jonah was
taken in; but the fish found that taking in a parson was a feat neither
easy nor healthy. After Jonah had uttered guttural sounds from inside
the fish's belly for three days and three nights, the Lord spake unto
the fish, and the fish was sick of Jonah, "and it vomited out Jonah upon
the dry land." Some skeptics urged that a whale could not have swallowed
Jonah; but once, at Todmorden, a Church of England clergyman, who had
been curate to the Reverend Charles Kingsley, got rid of this as an
objection by assuring us that he should have equally believed the story
had it stated that Jonah had swallowed the whale. And then the word of
the Lord came to Jonah once more, and this time Jonah obeyed. He was to
take God's message to the citizens of Nineveh. "And Jonah began to enter
into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days,
and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Should Jonah come to London in the
present day with a similar message, he would meet scant courtesy from
our clergy. A foreigner and using a strange tongue, he would probably
find himself in Colney Hatch or Hanwell. To come to England in the name
of Mahomet or Buddha, or Osiris or Jupiter, would have little effect.
But the Ninevites do not seem even to have raised the question that the
God of the Hebrews was not their God. They listened to Jonah, and
"the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on
sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word
came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid
his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the
decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast,
herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water: but
let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God:
yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence
that is in their hands." The consumption of sackcloth for covering
every man and beast must have been rather large, and the Nineveh
sackcloth manufacturers must have had enormous stocks on hand to supply
the sudden demand. The city article of the _Nineveh Times_, if such a
paper existed, would probably have described "sackcloth firm, with
a tendency to rise." Man and beast, all dressed in or covered with
sackcloth! It would be sometimes difficult to distinguish a Ninevite
man from a Ninevite beast, the dress being similar for all. This is a
difficulty, however, other nations have shared with the Ninevites. Men
and women may sometimes be seen in London dressed in broadcloth and
satins, and, though their clothing is distinguishable enough, their
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account