ignorant Ghost, and put him right on the subject. They were, of course, present at the "Creation," and saw how the thing was done and how many gods were engaged in it, and this gives them full warranty to correct the Ghost in the very first line he has written.
When the parsons are found out, when even their dupe, Mr. J. Smith, stops cutting cheese with a wire to ask how the blazes it came about that the world was "created" by a batch of gods, and then, in next chapter, "created" over again by a solitary but exceedingly clever God, the poor spider that spins prayers will concoct some stupidly ingenious answer. He will very likely contend that, like a reaping machine, God, with a big G, consists of a great number of parts, and that, finding that he had before him the tough job of "creating" the universe, he screwed himself to pieces that he might the more readily accomplish the task. When he "created" the world for the second time, knowing that the job would be easier this time, he gathered up his disjecta membra, and screwed himself together, so as to make one compact and good-sized God. "My Christian brethren, this is the explanation. Wicked Infidels, in their lack of the spirit of God dwelling within them, cannot see this beautiful manifestation of divine power, for it is spiritually discerned. Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, it is simply a matter of divine screwing and unscrewing. In the first chapter of his own Holy Word God is not screwed, in the second chapter he is screwed. And whatsoever he screweth in heaven, it shall be screwed unto him; and whatsoever he screweth on earth it shall be screwed into him again. Forever blessed be his holy name. Let us pray." And Mr. J. Smith will be satisfied with the explanation, and his Mary Anne and his Araminta will be more than satisfied. Every day in the year the Christian clergy give their congregations explanations more preposterous than this; and the congregations accept such explanations and pay for them; for God made man only a little lower than the angel—the angel being, most probably, a misprint for the ass.
The gods in the first chapter of Genesis seem to have "created" a rather better universe than the god "created" in the second chapter of Genesis. The god
