We are also informed, in this book, that the moment God saw all the people sitting in the ashes, and all the animals covered with sack-cloth, he repented. This failure on the part of God to destroy the unbelievers displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. Jonah was much like the modern minister, who seems always to be personally aggrieved if the pestilence and famine prophesied by him do not come. Jonah was displeased to that degree, that he asked God to kill him. Jonah then went out of the city, even after God had repented, made him a booth and sat under it, in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. God then "prepared a gourd, and made it to come up "over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his "head to deliver him from his grief." And then we have this pathetic line: "So Jonah was exceedingly "glad of the gourd." God having prepared a fish, and also prepared a gourd, proposed next morning to prepare a worm. And when the sun rose next day, the worm that God had prepared, "smote the gourd, so that "it withered." I can hardly believe that an in- finite being prepared a worm to smite a gourd so that it withered, in order to keep the sun from 104 the bald head of a prophet. According to the account, after sunrise, and after the worm had smitten the gourd, "God prepared a vehement east "wind." This was not an ordinary wind, but one prepared expressly for that occasion. After the wind had been prepared, "the sun beat upon the head of "Jonah, and he fainted, and wished in himself to "die." All this was done in order to convince Jonah that a man who would deplore the loss of a gourd, ought not to wish for the destruction of a city. Is it possible for any intelligent man now to believe that the history of Jonah is literally true? For my part, I cannot see the necessity either of believing it, or of preaching it. It has nothing to do with honesty, with mercy, or with morality. The bad may believe it, and the good may hold it in contempt. I do not see that civilization has the slightest interest in the fish, the gourd, the worm, or the vehement east wind. Does Mr. Talmage think that it is absolutely neces- sary to believe _all_ the story? Does he not think it probable that a God of infinite mercy, rather than damn the soul of an honest man to hell forever, would waive, for instance, the worm,--provided he believed in the vehement east wind, the gourd and the fish? 105