"Our Pope which art in Rome, cursed be thy name,"
and ending,
"For thine is the infernal pitch and sulphur for ever and ever. Amen."
"The Religious Recruiting Bill" was written with a pious intention, as was also the Catechism by Mr. Toplady, a clergyman, aimed at throwing contempt upon Lord Chesterfield's code of morality. It is almost impossible to draw a hard and fast line between travesty and harmless parody—the feelings of the public being the safest guide. But to associate Religion with anything low is offensive, even if the object in view be commendable.
Some parodies of Scripture are evidently not intended to detract from its sanctity, as, for instance, the attack upon sceptical philosophy which lately appeared in an American paper, pretending to be the commencement of a new Bible "suited to the enlightenment of the age," and beginning—
"Primarily the unknowable moved upon kosmos and evolved protoplasm.
"And protoplasm was inorganic and undifferentiated, containing all things in potential energy: and a spirit of evolution moved upon the fluid mass.
"And atoms caused other atoms to attract: and their contact begat light, heat, and electricity.
"And the unconditioned differentiated the atoms, each after its kind and their combination begat rocks, air, and water.
"And there went out a spirit of evolution and working in protoplasm by accretion and absorption produced the organic cell.