st."

* * * * *

"God created Man in His image," says the Scripture: "and," adds Heine,
"Man made haste to return the compliment." It sounds wicked, but is one
of the truest things ever said. After all, and without vanity, it is the
best compliment Man can pay, poor fellow!--and he goes on striving to
pay it, though often enough rebuked for his zeal. "Canst _thou_,"
demands the divine Interlocutor in the _Book of Job_--

_"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands
of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazaroth in his season? Or canst thou
guide Arcturus with his sons?"_

To this, fallen and arraigned man, using his best jargon, responds that
"the answer is in the negative. I never pretended to _do_ these things,
only to guess, in my small way, how they are done."

Nor is there any real irreverence in answering thus: for of course it is
not the Almighty who puts the questions, but someone audaciously
personating Him. And some of us find this pretension irritating; as
Douglas Jerrold meeting a pompous stranger on the pavement was moved to
accost him with, "I beg your pardon, Sir, but would you mind informing
me--Are you anybody in particular?"

Again, in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Esdras, someone
usurping the voice of the Almighty and using (be it said to his credit)
excellent prose, declares:

_"In the beginning, when the earth was made, before the waters of
the world stood, or ever the wind blew,

Before it thundered or lightened, or ever the foundations of
paradise were laid,

Before the fair flowers were seen, or ever_ _the moveable powers
were established; before the innumerable multitude of angels were
gathered together,

Or ever the heights of the air were lifted up, before the measures
of the firmament were named, or ever the chimneys of Zion were hot._

Then _did I consider these things, and they all were made through Me
alone, and through none other: by Me also they shall be ended, and
by none other."_

It is all very beautiful: but (for aught that appears) no one was
denying it. It has been shrewdly objected against the arguments of the
"affable Archangel" in the later books of _Paradise Lost_ that argument
by its nature admits of being answered: and the fatal fallacy of putting
human speech into a divine mouth, as in the above passage, is that it
invites retort.

A sensible man doe