Man is but a microbe lost in immensity. He peers about him and, by the uncertain light of his small intelligence, reads here a word, there a line in the great Book of Nature, and putting together these scattered fragments, makes a "Faith" which he defends with fanatical fervor. Dare to call in question its most inconsequential thesis and you are branded as an heretic; deny it in toto and you are denounced as an enemy of the Almighty! The curses of Brother Balaam no longer kill the body, but they are expected to play sad havoc with the soul! When the priest of Baal was en route to Moab's capital for cursing purposes an angel tried to withhold him, and even his burro rebuked him, but neither angels nor asses are exempt from the law of evolution. Now when a priest or preacher lets slip a curse at those who presume to question the supernal wisdom of his creed, the angels are supposed to flap their wings until Heaven is filled with flying feathers, while every blatant jackass who takes his spiritual fodder at that particular rick unbraids his ears and brays approvingly.