“And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
“And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
“And your strength shall be spent in vain; for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
“I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate....
“And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.”
Nan had not listened; the music of that other verse was running in her drunken head, “Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices....”
“Half of the Bible should be printed in blood,” said Silas, meditating the fulminations, “and read with a spear in the hand.—But it’s a trick, a trick!” he said, instantly checking his enthusiasm, with the mocking twist on his mouth, “I do the trick myself, sometimes, to demolish it,” and turning over the pages of Leviticus, he came across a sheet covered with his own handwriting, which he gave to Nan. “Read it aloud.”
She read,—
“Consider how miserable a pigmy is man, who for his most terrible fancy conceives bulk, weight, and uproar; the magnifying of what he commonly beholds.
“Get hence, thou starveling, thou poverty-stricken of spirit! let thy poor eyes dictate; creation was not given unto thee.