Many attempts have been made by persons utterly unfitted for the task to paraphrase in rhyme the absurdities of the Bible, and to poetically satirize the dogmas of theology. But for the most part — yes, universally so far as we know — all these attempts have resulted in witless, vulgar, inharmonious jangles unworthy of the slightest attention. But none of these adjectives can be truthfully applied to “A Good Word for the Devil,” which, upon the whole, is one of the wittiest, cleverest, most skilful satires that we have seen for many a day. This becomes tho more surprising when it is considered that the author is an aged man, entirely inexperienced in literature except as a student. The book is written in the difficult metre adopted by Byron in “Don Juan,” and contains here and there a stanza that would not discredit that master poet. The author has a keen sense of the ridiculous, an extraordinary faculty for happily turning a phrase, und avast fund of information on all subjects connected with Biblical studies. More than this, he is a fearless thinker and outspoken writer. The work lacks method, and is marked at many points by crudities due to carelessness, both of author and printer. But it deals most effectively a rapid succession of keen thrusts and heavy blows at the Christian superstition, and deserves to be widely read. The treatment of the dogma of hell, introducing Joseph Cook I and his ingenious theory of Christ’s birth, fairly samples the faults and excellences of the work: therefore we append it.
I said that Hell had not then been invented.
We have the advantage over Bible times.
They burned or hacked the body, well contented
When death ensued; but when we’ve mocked the limbs
Or burned and buried those who have dissented,
Or won’t conform to our rehglouj whims,
We have the satisfaction of discerning,
With eye of faith, their Hell forever burning.
It would be joy to Jacob could he look
And see his brother Esan writhe in Hell,
Or Elisha see the boys the bruins shook
As a dog shakes a rat, all roasting well;
Or David, paired with Mrs. U., who took
A bath one evening, seeing him who fell
In battle by his act, show her Uriah,
Who feels that God is a consuming fire.
In this we have the advantage. Jon’than E.,
Who wrote the famous treatise on the Will,
Can look from Heaven’s battlements and see
A delicate cinder that, on earth, was El,
Or Eliery Channing. who maintained that three
Were three times one, not one, and now, in Hell
Gets his deserts. And gentle Jon’than E.
Harps louder on his harp to the blest trinity.
And J. Iscariot Cook, who once applied
The microscope to Mary, and explained
The mystery of the birth of him who died
On Calvary; that she was not impregned
By power the highest; and Old Gabriel lied
Or was mistaken; and that Mary feigned,
Or was deceived, when she broke forth in song,
Exultant that her offspring was the long
Foretold Messiah, through whose marvellous birth
All nations and all peoples should be blest,
And she should be proclaimed throughout the earth,
Happy above all mothers. Cook exprest,
Without the slightest tendency to mirth
Among his hearers, who all seemed imprest
With its importance, his belief that Jes-
Jesus was born as drones among the bees.
‘Twas partheno genesis and nothing more.
So said the latest science. Then he quoted
Jaw-breaking German gutturals; — a score
Of men to physiology devoted;
And said the person we’d been taught t’adore,
As the original Grecian word denoted,
Was a subsistence, not a person: three
Subsistences, not persons, were the trinity,
Which was a substance. Now, I cannot see
How a subsistence, which itself was nought
And could do nought, when multiplied by three,
Became the infinite God, transcending thought;
How three noughts added made infinity;
How this subsistence lived on earth and taught,
And walked about, and ate and drank and died;
Died like a man; nay, like a thief, was crucified.
Still he is confident, this Joseph C.,
That in some future state, some post-existence,
Translated into heaven, he will see,
While sitting, cheek by jowl, with th’ second subsistence,
The Devil, aided by a score of assistants,
Heaping the coals around poor Theodore P.,
While P., like Lazarus’ friend, begs Joe for water,
And Joe will see him damned first, as he oughter.
Provided always Joe can find some screen
To hang between his past and God Almighty,
So that the damning record can’t be seen.
The black and hideous record sua vita,
He hinted at, when lecturing yestreen,
In the “Old South,” when Standing Bear and Bright-eye
And ghosts, as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa,
“Declared” he must have been damned fast, this Joe, sir.
Proviso 2, that Joseph ia sustained
In his queer notions of the trinity,
By his Triune: for Joseph would be pained
Should it turn out that the Divinity
Is not a triplet; and that he impregned
Miss M., and, proud of his paternity,
Resents the insult that the heir to the throne
Is not one whit superior to a drone.
But Joseph’s dumb; that is, upon this theme.
He’s dropped the subject, never mentions it.
He knocked the key-stone out from the grand scheme;
The brethren were disgusted with it, quite.
The clergy thought him, upon this point, lame.
‘T would bring upon the sect a perfect blight.
Jesus no father? God no son? What next?
Then all religion was but a pretext.
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