are like the everlasting hills to them. But in all my wanderings
I never came across the least vestige of authority for these
things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate
flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.
The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees
no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear
sky. If I ever see more clearly at one time than at another, the
medium through which I see is clearer. To see from earth to
heaven, and see there standing, still a fixture, that old Jewish
scheme! What right have you to hold up this obstacle to my
understanding you, to your understanding me! You did not invent
it; it was imposed on you. Examine your authority. Even Christ,
we fear, had his scheme, his conformity to tradition, which
slightly vitiates his teaching. He had not swallowed all
formulas. He preached some mere doctrines. As for me, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest imaginable essences,
which would not stain the morning sky. Your scheme must be the
framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.
The perfect God in his revelations of himself has never got to
the length of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state.
Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three? Do
you know the number of God's family? Can you put mysteries into
words? Do you presume to fable of the ineffable? Pray, what
geographer are you, that speak of heaven's topography? Whose
friend are you that speak of God's personality? Do you, Miles
Howard, think that he has made you his confidant? Tell me of the
height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space,
and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty,
and I shall pronounce thee mad. Yet we have a sort of family
history of our God,--so have the Tahitians of theirs,--and some