yet all the fairly-educated among them know full well that, as Dupin alleges, "it is mere superstition to assert, as some authors do, that the Hebrew text which we have at present is not corrupted in any place, and that there is no error, nor anything left out; and that we must indispensably accept of it as correct on all occasions. This is not only to speak against all evidence and contrary to all probability, but we have excellent proof to the contrary. For, in the first place, there have been differences between the oldest of the Hebrew copies, which the Masorites have observed by that which they called Keri and Ketib; and, putting one of the readings of the text in the text and the other in the margin, we have the different readings of the Jews of the East and the Jews of the West—of the Ben-Ascher and Ben-Naphtali; and the MS. copies of the Bible do not always agree." But this sort of thing is among the trade secrets of the parsons, and you may no more expect them to admit them from the pulpit to their credulous and uninquiring dupes than you may expect an interested and unscrupulous draper to stand in front of his shop and shout "My shelves are laden with shoddy and rubbish!" when, by holding his peace, he might sell his shoddy and rubbish as, and at the price of, excellent broad-cloth.
