CHAPTER III.
The "Book of the Law" not in the Ark—Ark Lost for 2,800 Years—Where is it?—"Book of the Law" Found—How Verified—Huldah the Witch—"Book of the Law" again lost—Reproduced by Ezra.
Poor deluded Jehovah! As something of an author myself, I extend him my fraternal sympathy. After all the preternatural fuss he had made about his "Book of the Law," he was completely on the wrong track. He had made some Jew too clever, and that Jew had managed to swindle and over-reach his maker. The ark was opened in the time of Solomon,[1] and, O duped and insulted heaven! the Book of the Law was not in it! If ever the "Book of the Law" had been there, it had been fraudulently abstracted, God knows when, and this in spite of Omniscience knowing what was in the bottom of the ark, and in spite of Omnipotence kow-towing upon the lid of it!
After this appalling discovery the ark was never again heard of. What became of it and the two stones that were in it, God only knows. Peradventure Jehovah, on discovering how he had been swindled, jumped upon the box with his omnipotent feet, and smashed it into matchwood, while the 50,070 men of Beth-shemesh looked down from heaven and up from hell, putting their right hands to their noses, and extending their fingers and crying "Ha! ha!" while murdered Uzzah[2] delivered himself of a ghastly giggle. It is now more than two thousand eight hundred years since the ark was last seen. According to Maccabees, the prophet Jeremiah hid it in a cave on Mount Pisgah, and sealed up the entrance of the said cave. There, of course, it remains till this day,
