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The
Ark continued its voyage, drifting
around here and there and yonder,
compassless and uncontrolled,
the sport of the random winds
and swirling currents. And
the rain, the rain, the rain!
It kept falling, pouring, drenching,
flooding. No such rain had
ever been seen before. Sixteen
inches a day had been heard
of, but that was nothing to
this. This was a hundred and
twenty inches a day -- ten
feet! At this incredible rate
it rained forty days and forty
nights, and submerged every
hill that was four hundred
feet high. Then the heavens
and even the angels went dry;
no more
water was to be had.
As
a Universal flood it was a
disappointment, but there had
been heaps of Universal Floods
before, as is witnessed by
all the Bibles of all the nations,
and this was as good as the
best one.
At
last the Ark soared aloft and
came to rest on top of Mount
Ararat, seventeen thousand
feet above the valley, and
its living freight got out
and went down the mountain.
Noah
planted a vineyard, and drank
the wine and was overcome.
This
person had been selected from
all the populations because
he was the best sample there
was. He was to start the human
race on a new basis. This was
the new basis. The promise
was bad. To go further with
the experiment was to run a
great and most unwise risk.
Now was the time to do with
these people what had been
so judiciously done with the
others -- drown them. Anybody
but the Creator would have
seen this. But he didn't see
it. That is, maybe he didn't.
It
is claimed that from the beginning
of time he foresaw everything
that would happen in the world.
If that is true, he foresaw
that Adam and Eve would eat
the apple; that their posterity
would be unendurable and have
to be drowned; that Noah's
posterity would in their turn
be unendurable, and that by
and by he would have to leave
his throne in heaven and come
down and be crucified to save
that same tiresome human race
again. The whole of it? No!
A part of it? Yes. Now much
of it? In each generation,
for hundreds and hundreds of
generations, a billion would
die and all go to perdition
except perhaps ten thousand
out of the billion. The ten
thousand would have to come
from the little body of Christians,
and only one in the hundred
of that little body would stand
any chance. None of them at
all except such Roman Catholics
as should have the luck to
have a priest handy to sandpaper
their souls at the last gasp,
and here and there a presbyterian.
No others savable. All the
others damned. By the million.
Shall
you grant that he foresaw all
this? The pulpit grants it.
It is the same as granting
that in the matter of intellect
the Deity is the Head Pauper
of the Universe, and that in
the matter of morals and character
he is away down on the level
of David.
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