d; because the same reflection 'that there are more than threescore
thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their
left,' meaning young children, applies to all their cases. It satirizes
also the supposed partiality of the Creator for one nation more than for
another.

As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of prediction; for
as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to wish it. The
pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at last
he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the
accomplishment or the failure of his predictions.--This book ends
with the same kind of strong and well-directed point against prophets,
prophecies and indiscriminate judgements, as the chapter that Benjamin
Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the stranger, ends
against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions--Thus much for
the book Jonah. [The story of Abraham and the Fire-worshipper, ascribed
to Franklin, is from Saadi. (See my "Sacred Anthology," p. 61.) Paine
has often been called a "mere scoffer," but he seems to have been among
the first to treat with dignity the book of Jonah, so especially liable
to the ridicule of superficial readers, and discern in it the highest
conception of Deity known to the Old Testament.--Editor.]

Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I have
spoken in the former part of 'The Age of Reason,' and already in this,
where I have said that the word for prophet is the Bible-word for Poet,
and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of which have
become obscure by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances,
have been ridiculously erected into things called prophecies, and
applied to purposes the writers never thought of. When a priest quotes
any of those passages, he unriddles it agreeably to his own views, and
imposes that explanation upon his congregation as the meaning of the
writer. The whore of Babylon has been the common whore of all the
priests, and each has accused the other of keeping the strumpet; so well
do they agree in their explanations.

There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser
prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors,
it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let
them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be
forgotten together.

I have now gone thro