Page:Annie Besant, Is the Bible Indictable.djvu/16

sphere, we find the old brutality coming again to repel us, and coarse denunciation shocks us, as in Isaiah iii. 17. How would the Lord Chief Justice have dealt with Isaiah if he had lived in his day, and acted as is recorded in Isaiah xx., 2—4? He clearly would have put him in a lunatic asylum (Trial, p. 168). If it were not that there are so many worse passages, one might complain of the taste shown in the comparison of Isaiah xxvi. 17, 18; the same may be said of Isaiah xxxii. 11, 12. In Isaiah xxxvi. 12 we have a repetition of 2 Kings xviii. 27, which we could well have spared. In Isaiah lvii. 8, 9, we meet a favourite simile of the Jewish prophets, wherein God is compared to a husband, and the people to an unfaithful wife, and the relations between them are described with a minuteness which can only be fitly designated by the Solicitor-General's favourite word. Isaiah lxvi. 7—12 would be regarded as somewhat coarse in an ordinary book. The prophets get worse as they go on. Jeremiah i. 5 is the first verse we meet in Jeremiah which the Solicitor-General would take exception to. We next meet the simile of marriage, in Jeremiah ii., 20, iii. 1—3, 6—9, verse 9 being especially offensive. Jer. v. 7, 8, is coarse, as are also Jer. xi. 15 and xiii. 26, 27. Ought the girl's schools to read Jer. xx. 17, 18? But, perhaps, as Ezekiel is coming, it is hypercritical to object to Jeremiah. Lamentations i. 8, 9, is revolting, and verse 17 of the same chapter uses an extremely coarse simile. Ezekiel is the prophet who eat a little book and found it disagree with him: it seems a pity that he did not eat a large part of his own, and so prevent it from poisoning other people. What can be more disgusting than Ez. iv. 12—15? the whole chapter is absurd, but these verses are abominable. The prophet seems, like the drawers of the indictment against us, to take pleasure in piling up uncomfortable terms, as in Ez. vi. 9. We now come to a chapter that is obscene from beginning to end, and may, I think, almost claim the palm of foulness. Let any one read through Ez. xvi., marking especially verses 4—9, 15—17, 25, 26, 33, 34, 37, 39, and then think of the absurdity of prosecuting Knowlton for corrupting the morals of the young, who have this book of Ezekiel put into their hand. After this, Ez. xviii. 6, 11, and 15 seem quite chaste and delicate; and no one could object to Ez. xxii. 9—11. Ez. xxiii. is almost as bad as chapter xvi., especially verses 6—9, 14—21, 29, 41—44. Surely if any book be indictable for obscenity, the Bible should be the first to be prose-