RISE AND PROGRESS OF BOB THE GOD-STEALER.—OMNIPOTENCE IN DANGER.—HOW
THE VALIANT BLATHERSKITE CAME TO THE HELP OF THE HELPLESS ALMIGHTY.
[Illustration]
IN the latter days of the sad existence of the Society for the
Protection of the Almighty, there arose most strangely from nowhere, a
huge, heavy-footed dog, that ran about scattering dismay and confusion
amongst the salaried barkers, by encouraging the dogs to speak
disrespectfully of the various societies in general, and of the Society
for the Protection of the Almighty in particular.
A very independent and fearless dog was he. He was endowed with a voice
of thunder and an eye of lightning, and he had a set of great sharp
teeth that seemed to have been made especially and particularly to tear
and worry the salaried barkers, and the pious dog thumpers and clubbers.
Wherever they gathered together, there he appeared in the midst of them
to spoil their counsels, to frustrate their plans, and drive them crazy.
Never did they meet save to devise some new way to harass the forlorn
and hungry dogs, in the name of God and to the enrichment of the fleas,
and never did they meet but they had to meet the lightning of his eye,
the thunder of his voice, and the cutting snap of his gleaming teeth;
which, after braving and enduring a few times, they learned to respect
by tucking their tails snugly away between their legs and scattering
with howls of pain and rage, to the accompaniment of the laughter of the
poor dogs which gratefully recognized in him a friend.
All the pious dog thumpers, the virtue compellers, the morality cobblers
hated him because he boldly told them that the Tree of Virtue could only
grow up out of the ground of Good Victuals and healthy bodies, which
they said was a wicked and damnable heresy and subversive of the good
old Gospel of the Club; and all the salaried barkers hated him because
he laughed at their Almighty Fiction, and called it the ugly creation of
their own diseased brains.
So, not being able to face him in a stand-up fight, they went about
seeking his destruction in sly and roundabout ways.
First, they tried their most powerful weapon—a nickname. His name was
Robertus Robustus, for he was of great strength. Therefore they went
about amongst the poor dogs calling him “Bob,” for it was a sacred
religious principle with all salaried barkers to call everyone that
was obnoxious to them, by a contemptuous nickname. They had discovered
through long experience that heresies amongst dogs were more easily
prevented than cured; that it was more efficacious to bring any one into
contempt with them, than to let them see him, hear him and judge of him
for themselves.
So they called him “Bob,” and sneered over his name whenever they spoke
of him; and they tried to get the dogs to have a horror of him by
describing him as a beast with horns, hoofs and a long spiked tail; and
bore other false witness against him; “for,” said they, “the case is
urgent; the very existence of our God is imperilled, and a little false
witness to save him He will surely pardon, for all is fair in love and
theological war.”
But what caused these salaried barkers to hate him so intensely was the
fact that “Bob” was a very good and noble dog, and showed more real
kindness of heart and love for the down-trodden and afflicted dogs than
they. They reasoned amongst themselves, and boldly told the dogs that
all God-despisers, all belittlers of the Almighty Fiction, always had
been bad, must necessarily be bad, and therefore “Bob” the God despiser
and ridiculer, must necessarily be bad too; that all contempt of the
ever blessed Almighty Vengeance, and his ever glorious Hell and the
benign eternal tortures, did and _must_ proceed from a corrupt and
wicked heart; that none but believers in the Unutterable Horror, were or
_could_ be good; therefore, “Bob’s” heart must be rotten and his life
wicked. And when a dog objected that the _fact_ that “Bob’s” life being
good did not agree with and justify their theory, they said that was all
the worse for the fact.
So they proclaimed abroad that “Bob’s” goodness was an irregular,
unsanctified and wicked goodness, more wicked than immorality; a cloak
“put on” to hide the devilishness of his purpose, which was to steal
their God and leave the dogs Godless; which the salaried barkers
all and unanimously declared was a great step to the next greatest
misfortune—to leave the dogs flealess.
But “Bob” Robertus Robustus cared not. He went on showing himself and
laughing at the Almighty Monstrosity, and pleading with the remaining
prostrate dogs to lift up their heads, and generally making the many
societies look silly.
So the salaried barkers, perceiving that this big dog had grown very
dangerous, and that dogs everywhere were growing irreverent, and that
instead of receiving with meekness and with the wide open mouth of
Simple Faith, the large chunks of ancient and mouldy dogmas of Orthodox
Religion, with which the barkers daily fed them, were falling into the
wicked habit of shutting the mouth of Simple Faith, and opening the eye
of Reason, and smelling, with an inquiring smeller, of the ancient and
mouldy dogmas, and poking the nose of irreverence into the “why” and
“wherefore” of all the sacred humbugs, resolved to call a conference to
devise ways and means to stay the ravages this dangerous dog was
working.
All the little and lesser salaried barkers came to the conference with
fear and trembling, for their little souls were weighed down with the
conviction that if something were not done soon to this irreverent dog,
it was all up with them; but when they saw that the Reverend Tee de
Little Wit Blatherskite was there, they took heart of hope, for they
all knew him to be a most valiant defender of Simple Faith and enemy of
Reason.
One of them therefore arose and said: “Brethren and fellow barkers; we
to whom has been committed the care of the ever holy dogmas, upon which,
up to the present, we have been enabled to preserve the blessed hoary
mould and the ancient musty smell, are gathered here to-day by a common
sense of a common peril. Ye know that there hath arisen amongst the dogs
a fierce and wicked dog of large dimensions and great strength, who is
teaching them to laugh at sacred things and bring _us_ into contempt.
Now, it follows that if we are brought into contempt, not only will our
living be gone (which is the thing of greatest moment), but the divinely
ordained relations between the dogs and our patrons and masters, the
fleas, will be disrupted, and go to the dogs; and we, the divinely
appointed guardians of those sacred relations, shall draw upon our heads
the wrath of the Monstrous Fleas, who will regard us as unfaithful
stewards of their interests.
“In this perilous hour, then, we need some one who will point a way out
of our trouble. I am happy to say I see with us our valiant friend,
the Reverend Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite.” (Immense and prolonged
barking by the whole assembly.) “I need not say he is our champion. Ye
all intuitively perceive that there is none so fit as he to grapple with
this newly arisen terror of a dog.
“I propose, therefore, that he be appointed our standard bearer, our
sword wielder, our lightning discharger, our thunderer against our
enemy.” (Immense and prolonged acclaim.) “Is he not most fit, I say,
to be our champion? Is he not most valorous of mouth? Pours there not
therefrom the most undammed torrent of eloquence that ever tumbled from
the lips of mortal barker? Is he not the tried and proven champion
Reason destroyer? Yea, verily, brethren. How many times has my soul been
exalted with pride, as I have seen him in battle with Reason, belt him
over the head, give it him in the neck, upper and under cut him, roast
him in the ribs, cross buttock him, overthrow him, kick him, kill him.”
(Great barking.) “Yea, verily, brethren, there never was, in all this
world, a barker so contrary to Reason, so deadly a foe to it as he. He
is worthy to be our leader.” (Loud and prolonged acclaim, and cries
of, “He is; he is; he is;” and calls of “Blatherskite, _Blatherskite_,
BLATHERSKITE.”)
Whereupon the great Reverend Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite arose and
opened his mouth and spake:
“Brethren of the Most Holy Order of Divine Barkers: I feel proud of the
high honor ye have conferred upon me in calling me to be your champion
against this Goliath, who so impudently cometh forth to defy the armies
of the living Almighty. Who is this dog that imagineth, with his great
spear of Reason, to smite and slay our ancient Simple Faith? With my
little sling and stone will I smite him, and he shall be no more. My
brother, who proposed me to be your leader, was right in his generous
eulogy of me; I do despise and hate Reason with all my soul. I hate
it as a deadly snake and trample it under foot every time I get the
chance—which is every time I speak. This wielder of the spear of
Reason, this Bob, this God-stealer, is an infidel and a blasphemer, and
will go straight down to Hell, like that friend of his, that dirty dog,
that Tom who wrote the ‘Age of Reason,’ and was tormented of our God
for it. Oh, my brethren, he suffered untold agonies in his conscience,
and served him right, too. At least we barkers have always said he did,
because he ought to have suffered if he didn’t. Some there are who say
we lie when we say he suffered, but I don’t believe that _our_ God would
allow any one to preach Reason without making it all-fired hot for him;
at least I know if _I_ had been God, _I_ would have made his soul shriek
with pain; _I_ would have tormented him, for there is nothing more
fatal to _our_ religion and _our_ interests than Reason. Then down with
Reason, I say, for it is the whole Devil, and every truly sanctified
barker’s eternal enemy.
[Illustration]
“As for this other Reasoner, this Bob, surely we can kill him, just
as we killed his predecessor, Tom. Never call him by his respectable
name of Robert; none but barkers and true believers are entitled to be
called by their respectable names. That’s how we overthrew Thomas—by
contemptuously calling him Tom. We got the world to deride him; that
was far more easy than to refute his book. Call him ‘Bob,’ then; and
brethren, in a cause so momentous and holy as this, ye may even lie
about him; for the world will always believe anything evil about a
dog with a bad name; but if by any miracle of grace he should ever be
converted, _then_ ye shall call him Robert, and esteem him respectable.
[Illustration]
“This Bob is an awful public danger; if he be allowed to run around
loose he will steal our God, he will overthrow the Almighty; he will
deprive the dogs of the inestimable blessing of having something to
worship. Already hath he somewhat loosened his eternal foundations, and
shaken his immovable fixtures, and on several occasions, had it not been
for us rushing to his rescue, our Almighty must have been overthrown.
“Now, brethren, this constant strain upon our minds, this perpetual
anxiety to ward off this beast’s constant attacks upon our omnipotent
God, is wearing us to skin and bone. Something ought to be done to
restrain him. Have we not laws to imprison such as he? Yea, verily, have
we. Have we not laws against blasphemy? Yea, we have. Then why is this
dog allowed to go about putting our God in peril? Why is he allowed to
go about sapping and mining under his feet with intent to make him fall?
He has been caught many times boring holes in his anatomy and letting in
the daylight; he has been convicted many times of exposing the mystery
of his flaming eyes and his smoking mouth and nostrils, yet nothing has
been done to him. Where are the police? Where are the good old Blue
Thunderbolts? Alas! they rust and rot in the swampy places, where our
cowardly police dogs dropped them when Unbelief reared its ugly head in
our midst.
“Oh brethren, what we need is a great revival of the good old-fashioned
Blue Laws and the Blue Thunderbolts. We need the re-erection of the good
old safeguards wherewith our fathers surrounded our Almighty God, and
preserved him, which the degenerate dogs of this day have allowed to
fall into innocuous desuetude. Oh! we need the revival of the good old
methods, by which Reason and Unbelief were held down by the strong hand
of the Law, and the eternal, almighty and all-convincing truths of our
only genuine and original Gospel were given a show.
“No wonder that True Religion and Simple Faith prospered and prevailed
in those days; for the authorities were all holy and did their duty—the
police were effective. And no wonder that Reason and Unbelief stalk
haughtily abroad to-day and our omnipotent Almighty is despised,
rejected and shoved to the rear; for our laws are obsolete, and our
authorities careless and indifferent about helping him.
“Let us then, pray for a great outpouring of holy zeal upon the police,
that they may be inspired to dig up the good old Thunderbolts and polish
them for use again. Is not this Bob dog a public nuisance? Is he not
endeavoring to make all dogs godless, and by so doing endeavoring to
overthrow the country, even as his friend the Tom dog tried to do in
his day, and perhaps would have done had not God caused him to die an
infidel’s death?
“His suppression, then, ought to be the public concern, and I call on
our police, our rulers, and all fleas big and little that have the love
of God and Country in their hearts to put him down, imprison him, and
forever shut his mouth.”
At the conclusion of this magnificent burst of oratory all the assembled
barkers burst into loud and prolonged approbation, and some one
moved, and another seconded, and another supported, and the assembly
unanimously carried a Resolution; that
“WHEREAS, Our good old Almighty and fearful God and his blessed eternal
Hell are menaced by a certain blasphemous dog, of the name of Bob, with
utter destruction and overthrow, and
“WHEREAS, The said destruction and overthrow of the said Almighty would
lead straight and swift to utter godlessness amongst dogs, and to the
setting up of Thought and Reason in his place, and
“WHEREAS, In the setting up of said Thought and Reason, all dogs
everywhere would be led to shake off all allegiance they owe to the
divinely appointed fleas, and with them us and all our vested worldly
interests,
“_Resolved_, That we call upon Pup McPoodle, his counsellors, the
police, and all who have the safety of the country and the welfare of
dogs at heart to arise at once in their might and rescue our terribly
beleaguered and imperilled God, by smiting this Bob and all his
following with a great smiting greatly, and if necessary killing them
all, and hand over their souls to us for damnation, which we undertake
to do with all solemnity, neatness and despatch.”
And this resolution was signed by all the Society for the Protection
of the Almighty, and all the other many Anti-Evil Societies, and all
the eminent and Monstrous Fleas, and was carried by Tee de Little Wit
Blatherskite and other choice-souled barkers to the authorities. And the
authorities said it was a very fine resolution, and did great credit to
the holy zeal and patriotism of all concerned; and nothing would give
them greater pleasure than to make the poor dogs more miserable if it
were possible; but just now there seemed to be no feasible way of doing
it, and they were afraid that their Almighty would have to wag along as
best he could, for the present. Anyhow, they would see about it—they
would see about it.