Noah
and his family were saved --
if that could be called an
advantage. I throw in the if for
the reason that there has never
been an intelligent person
of the age of sixty who would
consent to live his life over
again. His or anyone else's.
The Family were saved, yes,
but they were not comfortable,
for they were full of microbes.
Full to the eyebrows; fat with
them, obese with them, distended
like balloons. It was a disagreeable
condition, but it could not
be helped, because enough microbes
had to be saved to supply the
future races of men with desolating
diseases, and there were but
eight persons on board to serve
as hotels for them. The microbes
were by far the most important
part of the Ark's cargo, and
the part the Creator was most
anxious about and most infatuated
with. They had to have good
nourishment and pleasant accommodations.
There were typhoid germs, and
cholera germs, and hydrophobia
germs, and lockjaw germs, and
consumption germs, and black-plague
germs, and some hundreds of
other aristocrats, specially
precious creations, golden
bearers of God's love to man,
blessed gifts of the infatuated
Father to his children -- all
of which had to be sumptuously
housed and richly entertained;
these were located in the choicest
places the interiors of the
Family could furnish: in the
lungs, in the heart, in the
brain, in the kidneys, in the
blood, in the guts. In the
guts particularly. The great
intestine was the favorite
resort. There they gathered,
by countless billions, and
worked, and fed, and squirmed,
and sang hymns of praise and
thanksgiving; and at night
when it was quiet you could
hear the soft murmur of it.
The large intestine was in
effect their heaven. They stuffed
it solid; they made it as rigid
as a coil of gaspipe. They
took pride in this. Their principal
hymn made gratified reference
to it:
The
discomforts furnished by the
Ark were many and various.
The family had to live right
in the presence of the multitudinous
animals, and breathe the distressing
stench they make and be deafened
day and night with the thunder-crash
of noise their roarings and
screechings produced; and in
additions to these intolerable
discomforts it was a peculiarly
trying place for the ladies,
for they could look in no direction
without seeing some thousands
of the creatures engaged in
multiplying and replenishing.
And then, there were the flies.
They swarmed everywhere, and
persecuted the Family all day
long. They were the first animals
up, in the morning, and the
last ones down, at night. But
they must not be killed, they
must not be injured, they were
sacred, their origin was divine,
they were the special pets
of the Creator, his darlings.
By
and by the other creatures
would be distributed here and
there about the earth -- scattered:
the tigers to India, the lions
and the elephants to the vacant
desert and the secret places
of the jungle, the birds to
the boundless regions of empty
space, the insects to one or
another climate, according
to nature and requirement;
but the fly? He is of no nationality;
all the climates are his home,
all the globe is his province,
all creatures that breathe
are his prey, and unto them
all he is a scourge and a hell.
To
man he is a divine ambassador,
a minister plenipotentiary,
the Creator's special representative.
He infests him in his cradle;
clings in bunches to his gummy
eyelids; buzzes and bites and
harries him, robbing him of
his sleep and his weary mother
of her strength in those long
vigils which she devotes to
protecting her child from this
pest's persecutions. The fly
harries the sick man in his
home, in the hospital, even
on his deathbed at his last
gasp. Pesters him at his meals;
previously hunts up patients
suffering from loathsome and
deadly diseases; wades in their
sores, gaums its legs with
a million death-dealing germs;
then comes to that healthy
man's table and wipes these
things off on the butter and
discharges a bowel-load of
typhoid germs and excrement
on his batter-cakes. The housefly
wrecks more human constitutions
and destroys more human lives
than all God's multitude of
misery-messengers and death-agents
put together.
Shem
was full of hookworms. It is
wonderful, the thorough and
comprehensive study which the
Creator devoted to the great
work of making man miserable.
I have said he devised a special
affliction-agent for each and
every detail of man's structure,
overlooking not a single one,
and I said the truth. Many
poor people have to go barefoot,
because they cannot afford
shoes. The Creator saw his
opportunity. I will remark,
in passing, that he always
has his eye on the poor. Nine-tenths
of his disease-inventions were
intended for the poor, and
they get them. The well-to-do
get only what is left over.
Do not suspect me of speaking
unheedfully, for it is not
so: the vast bulk of the Creator's
affliction-inventions are specially
designed for the persecution
of the poor. You could guess
this by the fact that one of
the pulpit's finest and commonest
names for the Creator is "The
Friend of the Poor." Under
no circumstances does the pulpit
ever pay the Creator a compliment
that has a vestige of truth
in it. The poor's most implacable
and unwearying enemy is their
Father in Heaven. The poor's
only real friend is their fellow
man. He is sorry for them,
he pities them, and he shows
it by his deeds. He does much
to relieve their distresses;
and in every case their Father
in Heaven gets the credit of
it.
Just
so with diseases. If science
exterminates a disease which
has been working for God, it
is God that gets the credit,
and all the pulpits break into
grateful advertising-raptures
and call attention to how good
he is! Yes, he has done
it. Perhaps he has waited a
thousand years before doing
it. That is nothing; the pulpit
says he was thinking about
it all the time. When exasperated
men rise up and sweep away
an age-long tyranny and set
a nation free, the first thing
the delighted pulpit does is
to advertise it as God's work,
and invite the people to get
down on their knees and pour
out their thanks to him for
it. And the pulpit says with
admiring emotion, "Let tyrants
understand that the Eye that
never sleeps is upon them;
and let them remember that
the Lord our God will not always
be patient, but will loose
the whirlwinds of his wrath
upon them in his appointed
day."
They
forget to mention that he is
the slowest mover in the universe;
that his Eye that never sleeps,
might as well, since it takes
it a century to see what any
other eye would see in a week;
that in all history there is
not an instance where he thought
of a noble deed first,
but always thought of it just
a little after somebody else
had thought of it and done it.
He arrives then, and annexes
the dividend.
Very
well, six thousand years ago
Shem was full of hookworms.
Microscopic in size, invisible
to the unaided eye. All of
the Creator's specially deadly
disease-producers are invisible.
It is an ingenious idea. For
thousands of years it kept
man from getting at the roots
of his maladies, and defeated
his attempts to master them.
It is only very recently that
science has succeeded in exposing
some of these treacheries.
The
very latest of these blessed
triumphs of science is the
discovery and identification
of the ambuscaded assassin
which goes by the name of the
hookworm. Its special prey
is the barefooted poor. It
lies in wait in warm regions
and sandy places and digs its
way into their unprotected
feet.
The
hookworm was discovered two
or three years ago by a physician,
who had been patiently studying
its victims for a long time.
The disease induced by the
hookworm had been doing its
evil work here and there in
the earth ever since Shem landed
on Ararat, but it was never
suspected to be a disease
at all. The people who had
it were merely supposed to
be lazy, and were therefore
despised and made fun of, when
they should have been pitied.
The hookworm is a peculiarly
sneaking and underhanded invention,
and has done its surreptitious
work unmolested for ages; but
that physician and his helpers
will exterminate it now.
God
is back of this. He has been
thinking about it for six thousand
years, and making up his mind.
The idea of exterminating the
hookworm was his. He came very
near doing it before Dr. Charles
Wardell Stiles did. But he
is in time to get the credit
of it. He always is.
It
is going to cost a million
dollars. He was probably just
in the act of contributing
that sum when a man pushed
in ahead of him -- as usual.
Mr. Rockefeller. He furnishes
the million, but the credit
will go elsewhere -- as usual.
This morning's journal tells
us something about the hookworm's
operations:
The
hookworm parasites often
so lower the vitality of
those who are affected as
to retard their physical
and mental development, render
them more susceptible to
other diseases, make labor
less efficient, and in the
sections where the malady
is most prevalent greatly
increase the death rate from
consumption, pneumonia, typhoid
fever and malaria. It has
been shown that the lowered
vitality of multitudes, long
attributed to malaria and
climate and seriously affecting
economic development, is
in fact due in some districts
to this parasite. The disease
is by no means confined to
any one class; it takes its
toll of suffering and death
from the highly intelligent
and well to do as well as
from the less fortunate.
It is a conservative estimate
that two millions of our
people are affected by this
parasite. The disease is
more common and more serious
in children of school age
than in other persons.
Widespread
and serious as the infection
is, there is still a most
encouraging outlook. The
disease can be easily recognized,
readily and effectively treated
and by simple and proper
sanitary precautions successfully
prevented [with God's help].
The
poor children are under the
Eye that never sleeps, you
see. They have had that ill
luck in all the ages. They
and "the Lord's poor" -- as
the sarcastic phrase goes --
have never been able to get
away from that Eye's attentions.
Yes,
the poor, the humble, the ignorant
-- they are the ones that catch
it. Take the "Sleeping Sickness," of
Africa. This atrocious cruelty
has for its victims a race
of ignorant and unoffending
blacks whom God placed in a
remote wilderness, and bent
his parental Eye upon them
-- the one that never sleeps
when there is a chance to breed
sorrow for somebody. He arranged
for these people before the
Flood. The chosen agent was
a fly, related to the tsetse;
the tsetse is a fly which has
command of the Zambezi country
and stings cattle and horses
to death, thus rendering that
region uninhabitable by man.
The tsetse's awful relative
deposits a microbe which produces
the Sleeping Sickness. Ham
was full of these microbes,
and when the voyage was over
he discharged them in Africa
and the havoc began, never
to find amelioration until
six thousand years should go
by and science should pry into
the mystery and hunt out the
cause of the disease. The pious
nations are now thanking God,
and praising him for coming
to the rescue of his poor blacks.
The pulpit says the praise
is due to him. He is surely
a curious Being. He commits
a fearful crime, continues
that crime unbroken for six
thousand years, and is then
entitled to praise because
he suggests to somebody else
to modify its severities. He
is called patient, and he certainly
must be patient, or he would
have sunk the pulpit in perdition
ages ago for the ghastly compliments
it pays him.
Science
has this to say about the Sleeping
Sickness, otherwise called
the Negro Lethargy:
It
is characterized by periods
of sleep recurring at intervals.
The disease lasts from four
months to four years, and
is always fatal. The victim
appears at first languid,
weak, pallid, and stupid.
His eyelids become puffy,
an eruption appears on his
skin. He falls asleep while
talking, eating, or working.
As the disease progresses
he is fed with difficulty
and becomes much emaciated.
The failure of nutrition
and the appearance of bedsores
are followed by convulsions
and death. Some patients
become insane.
It
is he whom Church and people
call Our Father in Heaven who
has invented the fly and sent
him to inflict this dreary
long misery and melancholy
and wretchedness, and decay
of body and mind, upon a poor
savage who has done that Great
Criminal no harm. There isn't
a man in the world who doesn't
pity that poor black sufferer,
and there isn't a man that
wouldn't make him whole if
he could. To find the one person
who has no pity for him you
must go to heaven; to find
the one person who is able
to heal him and couldn't be
persuaded to do it, you must
go to the same place. There
is only one father cruel enough
to afflict his child with that
horrible disease -- only one.
Not all the eternities can
produce another one. Do you
like reproachful poetical indignations
warmly expressed? Here is one,
hot from the heart of a slave:
I
will tell you a pleasant tale
which has in it a touch of
pathos. A man got religion,
and asked the priest what he
must do to be worthy of his
new estate. The priest said, "Imitate
our Father in Heaven, learn
to be like him." The man studied
his Bible diligently and thoroughly
and understandingly, and then
with prayers for heavenly guidance
instituted his imitations.
He tricked his wife into falling
downstairs, and she broke her
back and became a paralytic
for life; he betrayed his brother
into the hands of a sharper,
who robbed him of his all and
landed him in the almshouse;
he inoculated one son with
hookworms, another with the
sleeping sickness, another
with gonorrhea; he furnished
one daughter with scarlet fever
and ushered her into her teens
deaf, dumb, and blind for life;
and after helping a rascal
seduce the remaining one, he
closed his doors against her
and she died in a brothel cursing
him. Then he reported to the
priest, who said that that was
no way to imitate his Father
in Heaven. The convert asked
wherein he had failed, but
the priest changed the subject
and inquired what kind of weather
he was having, up his way. |