The Tower of Babel

as this? "We read" (of course he does not tell where), "that the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb unto the abode of the Gods." Surely the Bible must be an unknown book in America if such sayings can go uncontradicted, for such a passage is not to be found in it. It is one of Ingersoll's own manufacture. I am prepared to prove that. Then see what the sarcastic lecturer says of himself. "The man who wrote that believed the firmament to be solid. He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation." Mr. Ingersoll is of course the most fit person to make such a statement. I suppose he would speak the truth about himself in a matter like that; however, I am quite willing to accept his authority in this particular case. But then, what surprises me is that a few lines previous he seems to blame Moses for, in his opinion, believing the same thing. It is not often that men fall out when they are agreed. In such cases there is generally some ulterior motive operating behind the scenes; perhaps tills time it arises from a spirit of jealousy in the heart of the brilliant and audacious Ingersoll, lest the honour and fame of being the first to publish this strange theory should be given to Moses. I may assure him that Moses nowhere makes claim, nor is, from any part of his truly excellent works, entitled to this superior distinction. He may rest perfectly composed, for Moses will never be able to deprive him of his well-earned reward in the world of fame.

Is there not something singular in the philosophy of this sentence—"The sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and disappointed, their vaporous sighs changed into tears and fell again as rain." I should say the man who wrote this thought the sun was a young man, and the waves of the sea a maiden, very deeply in love with each other; and that an irate father had prevented their matrimonial union. He was quite ignorant of the real nature of either the sun or the waves of the sea. He did not know that the sun was a great orb of light and heat, the material centre of our planetary system; nor did he know that the waves of the sea were merely ruffles on the face of the ocean caused by the blowing of the wind.