Should speak of Plutarch as so mean,
So full of petty spite and spleen,
That, if you vexed him in the least,
Into your crops he'd turn his beast. *
* Paganism and Christianity, Farrer, pages 98, 99.
We often read in the newspapers of some foolish remark by a clergyman in his sermon, as, for instance, that the fearful and murderous wave of heat in the summer is a punishment from God for the sins of this or that city; or that earthquakes are sent to show the divine displeasure against this or that heresy in the church; or that God is opposed to aviation because the air belongs to the birds, as the sea does to the fishes; or that Christ is coming soon on a white horse: "The Son of God is coming on a white horse and the armies of heaven will follow him. Then he will be crowned king of all Israel. The kingdom promised to David will be resurrected," said the Rev. Dr. Ford C. Ottman, at the Winona Lake convention. The reverend speaker had in mind the following exquisite bible text when he was looking for the "white horse":
I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true.... And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses.... And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations.... and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. *
Is it possible that the American mind has so deteriorated as to hope for the fulfillment of such a prophecy?
But it is to the credit of the Christian clergy that they do not say more foolish things or oftener than they do—seeing that their entire life is spent in reading and teaching from a book full of fables, gossip, inanities, miracles, and, if I may say so—conundrums. What, for instance, may be expected from men who have to feed on such meaningless and even revolting texts as the following:
I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury. **