me folks and treated some others pretty shabbily."

"Oh, that is not so; my god is no respecter of persons; that's his very
strongest hold. He treats rich and poor just alike, only if anything he
leans a little toward the poor."

"That is pretty clever. But what else did he tell you in that talk?"

"Well, he told me to tell the people, 'Thou shalt not kill;' and
afterwards, at another time, he told me to take a lot of my men, and
go over there to that town just across, and kill all the men and boys I
could find, and if they fought hard for their homes, and I seemed to be
getting the worst of it for a little while, not to be afraid, he'd be
with me, and he'd see that I came out all right. Oh, he's the gayest old
god you ever saw to help in a fight."

"Well, yes, that was pretty clever to you; but isn't he the god of that
village too!"

"Oh, yes; but you see one of the men that lives over there went and
worshipped another god one day, and this one didn't like it."

"I see; but if he treats them all that way, don't you think it is rather
natural that they should go and hunt up another god to admire?"

Well, while I was waiting for Moses to answer this question, I heard
another man say that only a day or two previously this very fellow had
burned up their homes, and murdered a good many people who had never
injured him; and that he had dashed out the brains of the innocent
children, and had actually sold the sweet, pure young girls to his
brutal soldiers. Since I heard that, my mind has been so occupied with
some other little matters that my revision has not gone any farther, and
somebody else has got one out; so I don't know that I shall ever finish
mine. It does not seem to be very encouraging work any way; and I am
afraid that people would find fault with its scholarship if it should be
finished. Theological scholarship and common-sense always did disagree.
A man who is well vaccinated with either will never catch the other.

THE CHURCH'S MONEY-BOX.

The Church used to keep a box about four feet long and two feet wide
which it called the sacred ark of God. It was certain death for any man
not a priest to touch that box. It is supposed that they kept in it gold
and jewels which they extorted from their dupes, and that for fear of
robbery they made superstition their banker. Well, they had to move
that jewelry-box once for some reason, and it is not said that anything
happened to the men who put it on the ca