The deity of Moses was rather extravagant in fitting out his tabernacle and ark. The latter was his travelling box, to afford him ease and comfort when making long marches, and was composed of very costly materials; but, in point of room and convenience, we should think it must have been inferior to some of Punch's portable palaces. However, the God grew so fond of, and so "jealous" about, his box, that, on one occasion, he perpetrated a tremendously bloody miracle, in killing 50,070 of the "glowrin' byke," for peeping into it. Putting aside the monstrosity of this story, in relation to number, could this offence arise from looking into an _empty_ box? Certainly not. Sir William Drummond, in his "Ædipus Judaicus," asserts that, according to the Hebrew, the Jews carried about their idol in this box,* as was customary with the migrating hordes of the desert, all of whom, as well as the Jews, kept an ark for that purpose! Sir William's assertion is justified by the Bible itself, where it says that the Philistines were afraid, _because the Jews brought their god into the battle_ when the ark was taken, a misfortune which their deity, with all his omnipotence, could not prevent; but he took terrible revenge on the captors by smiting them with emerods: hence the story in Rabelais against a certain most _unholy_ and _unsanctified_ use of that book. * The Christian translators of the Bible, no doubt, did all in their power to suppress the fact, that a representation of the Jewish idol was kept in this box. The Levites being the constituted priests of this idol, Micah, when he had his god made of the stolen silver, did not consider it by any means sufficient to have one of his own sons as priest. Why? Because his new idol represented the Jewish deity; and, therefore, a Levite as his priest was indispensable; for then, says he, "I know the Lord will do me good." (See Judges, xvii.) That this god was afterwards located at Jerusalem, as the other district gods of the country were stationed in their respective towns, we have many proofs in the Bible. (See 1 Kings xii; Ezra i., 3; vii., 15, 19.) ** Did not the priests of Jupiter Ammon carry the magnet with, them, in a compass-box, as the _ark of the covenant of their god_, which, it was death for the unsanctifled to look into.