This is an astonishing _Canon_; for if one allows that four thousand years ago Jehovah spoke words which were _then_ inscribed--if one allows that the Jewish Priests kept annals and chronicles, and down through different ages preserved and added to their histories--if one allows that the followers of Christ after his death recorded some things concerning his life and his teachings, and that other followers wrote letters upon these matters--yet, one must also allow that all these writings were written at different periods, for different purposes, and in different and scattered records; all in obscure and unknown tongues; that they have been copied, re-copied, translated--that there are various versions--that, in respect of their meaning, and even of their right to be called a part of the Word, the highest and best cannot agree! Yet, through all the changes of great periods of time--through darkness, and wars, and every sort of ignorant credulity--through everything! _every word_ of this huge collection of Obscure and Ancient Literature, and of an Obscure and Barbarous People, remains exactly as originally delivered by Jah! "Oh, certainly," says his devotee, "because _He has preserved them_." "Yes; but when a statement is absolutely impossible--as where 'the water covered the whole earth.'" "Oh, the _Word_ does not deal with Science." I think not; Jah was not a god of science--he was, in fact, just as ignorant as the Jew-Priests who pretended to speak his _Word_! Yet this inconceivable _Canon_ goes further, and declares that this _Word_ is the absolute, and only, and perfect _Revelation_ of the Deity to man; that it contains the only TRUTH, and is the only way by which man, _under damnation already_, can have _any_ hope, however small, of escaping the everlasting fire of hell! Upon this _Canon_ all the Sects of the Western Barbarians erect their _Idolatries_--they call them Churches; but, as we have seen, they are for ever fighting as to the meaning of these very Sacred Writings!