There's a sample of "spiritual interpretation" for you! And what _clearness_ is there, dear reader! Just return to the fourth sentence of the above extract, commencing with "Baldness," and re-read it, and see if you can make anything out of it. What the sentence does really mean is to me as profound a mystery as the incantations of a Gypsy thaumaturgist. It would be interesting to get "Rationalist" to try his hand at spiritualizing some of the following passages of Holy Writ:-- "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired," &c. "And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him" (Moses) "and sought to kill him." "I have seen God face to face." _Per Contra_: "No man hath seen God at any time." "I am the Lord, I change not, I will not go back, neither will I repent." _Per Contra_: "And God repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them, and he did it not." "There is no respect of persons with God." _Per Contra_: "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated." "I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children." _Per Contra_: "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father." "It is impossible for God to lie." _Per Contra_: "If the Prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that Prophet." "Be not afraid of them that kill the body." _Per Contra_: "And after these things Jesus would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him." "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, 'Go number Israel.'" _Per Contra_: "And Satan provoked David to number Israel." "I bear witness of myself, yet my record is true." _Per Contra_: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." "A man is not justified by the works of the law." _Per Contra_: "Ye see, then, how that by works a man is justified." "There shall no evil happen to the just." _Per Contra_: "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace." _Per Contra_: "In much wisdom is much grief and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." "It shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days." _Per Contra_: "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power." "Thou shalt not: commit adultery." _Per Contra_: "Then said the Lord unto me, 'Go get, love a woman, an adulteress.'" Here, certainly, is ample scope for exegetical ingenuity. The passages quoted, besides scores of others, many of them too indecent for these pages, would seem to require the touch of "Rationalist's" spiritual interpretation wand. When the literal meaning is "rubbed off," the occult, spiritual meaning will appear. As a sample of "Rationalist's" metaphysical philosophy I give the following:--