Thou wilt excuse my drawing thy attention to this. It is now a good while since the "creation;" and it may be thou canst not, at this distance of time, quite remember how the thing was done, and how these Genesaic notes came to be jotted down. When thou hast a spare afternoon thou mayst possibly go over these notes and reconcile them. This would make belief in thy Book and in thee a trifle easier than it is at present. Of course, in the bustle of "creation" the notes recording the progress of the event may have been very roughly jotted down, and ever since thou mayst have been so busy numbering the hairs of our heads and watching sparrows fall that thou hast never had leisure to revise thy notes. For a small consideration, I will revise them for thee—for a better harp than usual, a pair of extra long wings, and a seat close to Sarah.
You are, no doubt, in some respects, a very good God. I have a lingering apprehension that your Book makes you much worse than you are, and that, if the said Book were competently corrected, you would appear in your true light, and command the respect of all of us. Your careless and unrevised writing has done you incalculable injury. I have heard—likely so have you—of a Georgia merchant, who, a short time ago, received the following order from a customer:—
"Please send me one dollars worth of coffy, and one dollars worth of shoogar, some small nales. My wife had a baby last nite, also two padlocks and a monkey rench."
Through her husband's careless composition this American woman was represented as bringing forth not only a baby, but two padlocks and a monkey-wrench! I apprehend it was some similarly inadvertent writing on your part, O Lord, that has given the impression that a virgin bore you a son by the Holy Ghost. I am sure you never would have given such an impression in your sane senses and with time to revise. I suspect I, even I, have had experiences somewhat similar to yours. A good many years ago I wrote, "This is Palm Sunday." The compositor set it up, "This is Sam Lundy." I felt irritated, and wrote on the margin of the proof, "Who the deuce is Sam Lundy?" To my horror when, next
