ABSTRACT
Assuredly, my dear girl, I do not take you, or your uncle either, for a bibliolater in the vulgar sense; but it is clear that Mr Bristley is a believer, after a sort, in the inspiration of the Bible, I hardly expected this, and I must say it is a belief I do not share. A man with a hobby and lots of talent can hew anything he pleases into the shape of his theory; but to my mind the authors of the Jewish sacred books were simply augurs, who pandered to the ignorant superstitions of a people sitting in darkness, solely with a view to keep them under their thumb. Still your uncle is not the only clever man of the present day who thinks otherwise. For instance, we have here in Brooklyn a noted preacher, Dr Josiah Mispath,*who delights in just such lucubrations as those you have treated me to. I read to him that part of your letter; he was much interested, and said he would like to meet you. In particular, he asked me to draw your attention to Isaiah xiv. 29. “Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a flying dragon.” Dr Mispath says this is a passage containing more occult wonders than those you have found in Genesis. He sees in it an esoteric doctrine to the effect that the male sex of mankind is to be superseded by the female, not only in all the higher 199functions common to both, but virtually also in those physiological ones which hitherto have been his separate province. He finds also other parts of Hebrew Scripture, such as the song of Deborah and Barak, where this monster out of the deep is obscurely alluded to. Well, that will not happen in our time, Lesbie, or only very exceptionally; so I will confine my attention to more practical relations.
