4
Fling aside the holy legends handed down from ancient times,
Where the chosen left a history of their lollies and their crimes!
Life has need of other teachings, calls for comprehension vast,
That the spirit mount forever from the darkness of the past.
If the great Creator's mandate on the second day made bright
What was hitherto but chaos,—fired the universe with light,—
If the fourth morn saw discovered sun and moon and starry way,
To make radiant earth and ether, and to sever night from day;
If Jehovah, the All-powerful, was obliged to pause and rest
From the week's severe exertion, as the chronicles attest,
If a human clod was mated with a rib from out his side,
Then, because he ate an apple, doomed to wander far and wide,—
If created in God's image—one—the first-born of the race
Turned a fratricidal monster in that fair and heavenly place,—
If the records of succession be a veritable guide,
How, like patient brutes they wandered, found their homes, begat and died;
If, with blade made keen and fearful, Abraham had nigh begun
To atone for numerous sinnings by the slaughter of his son,—
If with wine his zealous daughters plied the patriarchal Lot
To insure the perpetration of their strange, incestuous plot,—
If the ever-famous lyrics of King Solomon, the wise,
Stain the whiteness of the pages that their music glorifies:
If the wayside tree was grafted—Absalom-wise, with human fruit,—
If the Jews' amazing thievery 'twere laborious to compute,
Ere from Egypt they departed, following Moses and his staff
In the safety of the desert to adore a golden calf,—
If Jehovah, God of justice, overwhelmed relentlessly
Pharaoh's swift pursuing forces with the roaring of the sea,—
If the gay Philistines perished by the jawbone Samson held,
If Rebecca's instigations actually her son impelled
To deceive his aged father, helpless, long bereft of sight,
Thus to steal away the blessing that was patient Esau's right,—
If Jehovah to reward him for the knavery, marked him well
Future head and source prolific of his people Israel,—
If the swallow and Tobias be a credence-worthy tale,
Or if Jonah undigested roamed the stomach of the whale,—
If the virgin mild and holy in her yet unwedded state,
Having borne the infant Jesus, still remained immaculate,—
If she tinned as custom ordered, and the Bible law recites,
