To which Abram answers, “Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless.”
Meaning,—“Yes, I know that;—but what is the good of You to me, if I haven’t a child? I am a poor mortal: I don’t care about the Heavens or You; I want a child.”
Meaning this, at least, if the Latin and English Bibles are right in their translation—“I am thy great gain.” But the Greek Bible differs from them; and puts the promise in a much more tempting form to the modern English mind. It does not represent God as offering Himself; but something far better than Himself, actually exchangeable property! Wealth, according to Mr. John Stuart Mill. Here is indeed a prospect for Abram!—and something to refuse, worth thinking twice about. For the Septuagint reads, “Fear not, Abram. I am thy Protector, and thou shalt [[145]]have an exceeding great pay.” Practically, just as if, supposing Sir Stafford Northcote to represent the English nation of the glorious future, a Sermon of the Lord should come just now to him, saying, “Fear not, Sir Stafford, I am thy Devastation; and thou shalt have an exceeding great surplus.”
On which supposition, Abram’s answer is less rude, but more astonishing. “Oh God, what wilt thou give me? What good is money to me, who am childless?”
Again, as if Sir Stafford Northcote should answer, in the name of the British people, saying, “Lord God, what wilt thou give me? What is the good to me of a surplus? What can I make of surplus? It is children that I want, not surplus!”
A truly notable parliamentary utterance on the Budget, if it might be! Not for a little while yet, thinks Sir Stafford; perhaps, think wiser and more sorrowful people than he, not until England has had to stone, according to the law of Deuteronomy xxi. 18, some of the children she has got: or at least to grapeshot them. I couldn’t get anything like comfortable rooms in the Pea Hen at St. Alban’s, the day before yesterday, because the Pea Hen was cherishing, for chickens under her wings, ever so many officers of the Royal Artillery; and some beautiful sixteen-pounders,—exquisite fulfilments of all that science could devise, in those machines; which were unlimbered in the market-place, on their way to Sheffield—where I [[146]]am going myself, as it happens. I wonder much, in the name of my mistress, whose finger is certainly in this pie, what business we have there, (both of us,) the black machines, and I. As Atropos would have it, too, I had only been making out, with good Mr. Douglas’s help, in Woolwich Repository on Wednesday last, a German Pea Hen’s inscription on a sixteen-pounder of the fourteenth century:—
Ich bin fürwahr, ein Grober Baur
Ver frist mein ayr, es wurd ihm Saur.
Verse 5th. “And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Tell now the stars, if thou be able to number them. So shall thy seed be.”
Of course you would have answered God instantly, and told Him the exact number of the stars, and all their magnitudes. Simple Abram, conceiving that, even if he did count all he could see, there might yet be a few more out of sight, does not try.