Even before Noll died a number of Presbyterian Preachers had announced
that they considered Adam, Moses, Jonah and other personages of Note
in Bible literature as Myths. With rare exceptions, there is about as
little initiative in Professional Preachers as there is in
Professional Pugilists, and the last sect of which one might have
expected such iconoclastic utterances is that which claims Calvin and
John Knox as its shining lights. I remember, as a small boy, feeling
sorry for a chum because, as a Presbyterian, he did not know and had
no means of finding out whether he had been born to go to Heaven or
Hell, and in those days both of those resorts were spelled with
capitals and pronounced with awe. Had he been able by a most rigorous
observance of all the rules laid down by God and Man to make certain
of living in a future state of beatitude I would have felt sorry for
him still, as he would be compelled, of necessity, to miss many of the
joys of this world; still his future then--though in a hard and
grinding measure--would have lain in his own hands. But whether he
became a Pirate or a Preacher was all one; he had been born to go to
Heaven or Hell and nothing that he could do could enable him to change
his final destination. In later life he, evidently, appreciated this,
for he became a Stock-Broker, after, as a Preacher, having broken most
of the Commandments and fractured the rest. Had the Dominie of the
flock of which he was a member expressed a doubt of the existence,
some years ago, of Adam, Moses or Jonah, but particularly Adam, he
would have saved my friend from much mental and some physical
distress.
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