at a queer figure they must have cut! And what an astonishing chorus
of prayer ascended to heaven! According to the text, the beasts had to
"cry mightily" as well as the men. Since the confusion of tongues at
Babel, neither history nor tradition records such a frightful hubbub.

Their supplications prevailed. God "saw their works, that they had
turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had
said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." Immutable God
changes his mind, infallible God repents!

God spared Nineveh, but only for a brief while, for it was destroyed a
few years later by Arbaces, the Mede. The merciful respite was thus not
of long continuance. Yet it "displeased Jonah exceedingly." He had been
suspicious from the first, and he only fulfilled God's mission under
constraint. And now his worst suspicions were confirmed. After he had
told the Ninevites that their city would be overthrown in forty days,
God had relented, and utterly ruined Jonah's reputation as a prophet.
So he made himself a booth outside the city, and sat in its shadow, to
watch what would happen, with a deep feeling, which he plainly expressed
to the Almighty, that now his reputation was gone he might as well die.
The Lord considerately "prepared a gourd," which grew up over Jonah's
head to protect him from the heat; at which the sulky prophet was
"exceedingly glad," although it would naturally be thought that the
booth would afford ample protection. He, however, soon found himself
sold; for the Lord prepared a worm to destroy the gourd, and when the
sun arose he sent "a vehement east wind" which beat upon poor Jonah's
head, and made him so faint that he once more asked God to despatch him
out of his misery. Whereupon the Lord said coaxingly, "Doest thou well
to be angry?" And Jonah pettishly answered, "Yes, I do." Then the Lord,
with a wonderful access of pathos, altogether foreign to his general
character, twitted Jonah with having pity for the gourd and none for the
inhabitants of "that great city." With this the story concludes. We
are unable to say whether the poor prophet, so wretchedly sold, ever
recovered from his spleen, or whether it shortened his days and brought
him to an untimely grave.

The Book of Jonah is as true as Gospel, for Jesus endorsed it. The
Bible contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So without expressing any sceptical sentiments, we will end by repeating
Byron's