Forty-seventh. "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness
they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.
"And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and
Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
"And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be
done to him.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all
the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
"And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him
with stones, and he died." 1
When the last stone was thrown, and he that was a man was but a mangled,
bruised, and broken mass, this God turned, and, _touched with pity_,
said: "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they
make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their
generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a riband
of blue."2
In the next chapter, this Jehovah, whose loving kindness is over all his
works, because Korah, Dathan, and Abiram objected to being starved to
death in the wilderness, made the earth open and swallow not only them,
but their wives and their little ones. Not yet satisfied, he sent a
plague and killed fourteen thousand seven hundred more. There never was
in the history of the world such a cruel, revengeful, bloody, jealous,
fickle, unreasonable, and fiendish ruler, emperor, or king as Jehovah.
No wonder the children of Israel cried out, "Behold we die, we perish,
we all perish."
Forty-eighth. I cannot believe that a dry stick budded, blossomed, and
bore almonds; that the ashes of a red heifer are a purification for
sin;3 that God gave the cities into the hands of the Jews because they
solemnly agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that God became enraged
and induced snakes to bite his chosen people; that God told Balaam to go
with the Princess of Moab, and then got angry because he did go; that an
animal ever saw an angel and conversed with a man.