and, most likely, Jehovah is still sitting on the lid, shining away in the dark. "God does nothing," admitted Thomas Carlyle in mournful bitterness. But if Carlyle himself had been placed on the lid of a gilded box between two cherubs or golden hens, and confined to a cave in Mount Pisgah, could he himself have done more than Jehovah has done?
The "Book of the Law" was evidently a merry, happy go lucky volume, that dearly loved a game of hide-and-seek. After all the truly internal fuss which had been made about the "ark"—or, more or more correctly translated, box—of the Lord, which was supposed to contain it, as we have seen, the box was opened in the time of Solomon (and this time it would seem nobody was struck dead for meddling with it), and behold the "Book of the Law" was not there! But it was not all over yet with the marvellous volume, as the sequel will show. For hundred and fifty god-forsaken years the world had to get along as best it could without the works of Moses. Nobody could form any idea as to what god had done with his book. Had he deftly pilfered it out of the ark, and taken it up to heaven with him to read it to Sarah and ask her assistance in revising it for the press? Had he become thoroughly ashamed of it, and made up his mind to withdraw it all together? He had killed tens of thousands with his box and he was yet destined to kill untold millions with his book. No, he had not. He still had faith in the old book, in which he related how he created the heavens and the earth out of a few tons of excellent nothing. He had killed tens of thousands with his box, and he was yet destined to kill untold millions with his book. Three hundred and fifty years after Solomon’s time, when the ark was opened and no "Book of the Law" found therein, "Hilkiah, the high priest, said unto Shaphan, the scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord."[1] There was life in the old dog yet. And in that life lay hidden the Bolt of Death. Not all the books the world ever saw was so deadly and baneful as that book. Its fearful mission among mankind could not have been prefigured by making leaf of it from the upas tree, and every word of
- ↑ 2 Kings xxii. 8
