nd, the Whitechapel devil, the
slaughterer and mutilator of women, is--Jehovah!

"Blasphemous!" is shouted from a million throats. But science is used to
such shriekings. We pause till the noise subsides, and then proceed to
point out that our theory fulfils the grand condition of fitting in with
all the facts.

The Whitechapel murderer is shrouded in mystery. So is Jehovah. The
Whitechapel murderer comes no one knows whence and goes no one knows
whither. So does Jehovah. The Whitechapel murderer appears in different
disguises. So does Jehovah. The Whitechapel murderer's movements baffle
all vigilance. So do Jehovah's. The Whitechapel murderer comes and goes,
appears and disappears, with the celerity and noiselessness of a ghost.
So does Jehovah, who _is_ a ghost. Thus far, then, the similarity is
marvellously close, and a _prima facie_ case of identity is established.

It will very likely be objected that Jehovah is incapable of such
atrocities. But this is the misconception of ignorance or the politeness
of hypocrisy. Jehovah has written his autobiography, and on his own
confession his murderous exploits were very similar to those of the
Whitechapel terror. Appealing to that incontrovertible authority,
we propose to show that he has every disposition to commit these
enormities.

According to his own history of himself, Jehovah is passionately fond
of bloodshed. The sanguine fluid which courses in our veins is the
only thing that appeases him. "Without shedding of blood," he tells us
through the pen of St. Paul, "there is no remission" of any debts owing
to him. He called on Abraham, his friend, to stick a knife into his own
son. He slew the first-born of every family in Egypt in a single night.
He accepted the blood of a young virgin offered him by Jephthah. He
slew 50,070 men at Beth-Shemesh for looking into his private trunk. He
ordered his "chosen" friends, a famous set of banditti, to exterminate,
men, women, children, and even animals, and to "leave alive nothing that
breatheth." He massacred 70,000 citizens of Palestine because their king
took a census, a social experiment to which he has a rooted antipathy.
He had a house especially built for him, and gave orders that it should
daily be drenched with blood. According to one of his candid friends,
Archdeacon Farrar, "the floor must literally have swum with blood, and
under the blaze of Eastern sunlight, the burning of fat and flesh on the
large blazing altar