GROVER LINGER LONGER METHUSELAH. PLEASANT VALLEY, _Oct. 30, B. C. 5555.—I just want to shout “Eureka,” “Excelsior,” “Hail Columbia,” “E Pluribus Unum,” and give three cheers for your Kill-em-off Kerosene! Both my mothers in-law, who had bossed me seventy decades, tried a can of it on a sick fire this morning. Their funeral is billed for four o’clock p. m. to-morrow. Send me ten gallons more at once. BRIGHAM YOUNG LAMECH. ISLES OF GREECE.—I defy the Jersey Lighting to knock me out while your Benzine Bitters are in the ring. “A good thing; push it along.” SULLIVAN AJAX. Leaving the realm of conjecture, it is quite certain that the “pitch” which coated the ark and the “slime” of the builders of Babel were products of petroleum. Genesis affirms that “the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits”—language too direct to be dismissed by hinting vaguely at “the mistakes of Moses.” Deuteronomy speaks of “oil out of the flinty rock” and Micah puts the pointed query: “Will the Lord be pleased with * * * ten thousands of rivers of oil?” To the three friends who condoled with him in his grievous visitation of boils the patriarch of Uz asserted: “And the rock poured me out rivers of oil.” Whatever his hearers might think of this apparent stretch of fancy, Job’s forecast of the oleaginous output was singularly felicitous. Evidently the Old-Testament writers, whose wise heads geology had not muddled, knew a good deal about the petroleum situation in their day. [Illustration: Well, this beats the deuce!] A follower of Voltaire was accustomed to wind up his assaults on inspiration by criticising these oily quotations unmercifully. “Could anything be more absurd,” he would ask, “than to talk of ‘oil from a flinty rock’ and ‘rocks pouring forth rivers of oil?’ If anything were needed to prove the Bible a fool-book from start to finish, such utterances would settle the matter beyond dispute. Rocks yielding rivers of oil cap the climax of ridiculous nonsense! Next they’ll want folks to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, hair and hide and breeches. Bah!” Months and years passed away swiftly, as they have a habit of doing, and the sturdy agnostic continued arguing pluckily. At length tidings of oil-wells flowing thousands of barrels of crude reached him from William Penn’s broad heritage. He came, he saw and, unlike Julius Cæsar, he surrendered unconditionally. Remarking, “This beats the deuce!” the doubter doubted no more. He revised his opinions, humbly accepted the gospel and professed religion, openly and above-board. Hence the petroleum-development is entitled to the credit of one notable conversion, at least, and the balance is on the right side of the ledger, assuming that a human soul outweighs the terrestrial globe in the unerring scales of the Infinite.