And this is in a book put into the hands of little boys and girls, without one protest from the Home Secretary. After all this we are not surprised to read “the spirit” lifted Ezekiel up in the air, “the form of a hand” taking him “by a lock of mine head” (chap. viii., 3). When we read that Gabriel lifted Mahomet in this manner, we say it is an impudent fraud; when we read it of Ezekiel it is “the very truth of God.” The book of Daniel has been so utterly destroyed by criticism that it would be wasted time to dwell upon it. Yet this book is kept as one of the “prophets,” although it has been proved to demonstration that the pretended prophecies were written after the event. The “minor prophets” deserve a pamphlet to themselves, so full of absurdities are they. Hosea, judging by chap. i., 2, 3, and iv., 1, 2, must have been a man of very indifferent character. His writings have the _two_ characteristics of the minor prophets, indecency and maniacal raving; sexual vice is played upon in a manner that is wearisomely disgusting (see v., 1—13; iv., 12—14; v., 3, 4; vi., 10, etc., etc.). Amos tells us how “the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, a plumbline” (chap. vii., 7, 8). Amos was always seeing queer things, and “the Lord” was always asking him what he saw! He saw some grasshoppers (vii., 1, 2), and a basket of summer fruit (viii., 1), and the “Lord standing upon the altar” (ix., 1). Jonah’s adventures are famous, and it is blasphemy to deny that throwing Jonah into the sea stilled the waves, that a great fish swallowed him, that the fish was a whale (Matt, xii., 40), that he lived in the whale’s stomach for three days and three nights, said his prayers there, and was thrown up safe and sound after living for seventy-two hours inside an animal! Zechariah is as bad for vision-seeing as Amos. He sees red, speckled and white horses among myrtle trees (i., 8), and then four horns (v. 18); a friendly angel talks with him (v. 9), and explains matters in a fashion that makes them more confused. Then there is a “man with a measuring line” (ii., 1), and Joshua the high priest “in filthy garments,” whom they undressed and dressed up again (iii., 1—5). And there are a candlestick, and two olive-trees, and some pipes which “empty the golden oil,” and which are the “two anointed ones” (iv.). Next comes “a flying roll,” and then can anyone make sense of the following: “Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, what is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, this is their resemblance through all the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead, and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead