The writings of the prophets abound with prodigies, strange and unnatural events. The walls of Jericho are represented to have fallen to the ground in consequence of a blast of ram's horns; Balaam's ass to speak to his master, and the prophet Elijah is said to have been carried off bodily into heaven by a chariot, in a whirlwind. Strange stories! But other scriptures tell us, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." The history of the affront, which the little children of Bethel gave the prophet Elisha, his cursing them, and their destruction by the bears, has the appearance of a fable. That Elisha should be so exasperated at the children for calling him _bald head_, and telling him to _go up_, was rather a sample of ill breeding; most gentlemen would have laughed at the joke, instead of cursing them, or being instrumental in their destruction, by merciless, wild and voracious beasts. Though the children were saucy, yet a man of any considerable candor, would have made allowance for their non-age, "for childhood and youth are vanity." "And he went up from thence unto Bethel, and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city and mocked him, and said unto him, go up thou bald-head, go up thou bald-head, and he turned back and looked on them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord, and there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." It seems by the children's address to Elisha, that he was an old bald-headed man, and that they had heard, that his mate, Elijah, had gone up a little before; and as it was an uncommon thing for men to kite away into the air, and leave the world after that sort, it is likely that it excited a curiosity in the children to see Elisha go off with himself in the same manner, which occasioned their particular mode of speech to him, saying, "go up bald head." The writings of Solomon, Song of Israel, must needs have been foisted into the canonical volume by some means or other, for no one passage therein gives the least intimation of inspiration, or that he had any immediate dictation from God in his compositions, but oh the contrary, he informs us, that he acquired his knowledge by applying himself to wisdom, "to seek and to search out concerning all things that are done under the sun. This sore travail," says he, "has God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith." And since Solomon never pretended to inspiration, others cannot justly claim his writings to have been anything more than natural reasonings, for who can, with propriety stamp his writings with divine authority, when he pretended no such thing, but the contrary? His song of songs appears to be rather of the amorous kind, and is supposed to have been written at the time he was making love to the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, who is said to have been a princess of exquisite beauty and exceeding coy, and so captivated his affections that it made