The Profits of Religion | Page 8

and the
Psalmist repeats it. "Dominion and fear are with Him," cries Job. "How
then can any man be just before God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? Behold, even the moon hath no brightness, and the
stars are not pure in His sight: How much less man, that is a worm?
And the son of man, which is a worm?" He goes on, in his lyrical
rapture, "Sheol is naked before Him, and Destruction hath no
covering. . . . The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His
rebuke. . . . The thunder of His power who can understand?" That all
this is some of the world's great poetry does not in the least alter the
fact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical perversion of the
facts of life, and a preparation of the mind for the seeds of Priestcraft.
The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the
denouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last word
about life? "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and repent in dust
and ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we have been told at the
beginning that he "was perfect and upright, and one that feared God,
and eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and the Chaldeans rob him, and
"the fire of God" falls from heaven and burns up his sheep and his
servants, and "a great wind from the wilderness" kills his sons and
daughters; and then his body becomes covered with boils--a

phenomenon caused in part by worry, and the consequent nervous
indigestion, but mainly by excess of starch and deficiency of mineral
salts in the diet. Job, however, has never heard of the fasting cure for
disease, and so he takes him a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he
sits among the ashes--a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his
religious ritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors himself,
and cries out: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no
purpose of Thine can be restrained." By which utter, unreasoning
humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, and his friends make
a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams--a feast for a whole
templeful of priests--and then "the Lord gave Job twice as much as he
had before. . . . And after this Job lived an hundred and forty years, and
saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four generations."
You do not have to look very deeply into this "Wisdom-drama" to find
out whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your own
impotence, abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred Caste, the
Keepers of the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon and respite--in
exchange for fresh meat. Here are verses from a psalm of the ancient
Babylonians, which "heathen" chant is identical in spirit and purpose
with the utterances of Job:
The Sin that I have wrought, I know not; The unclean that I have eaten,
I know not; The offense into which I have walked, I know not.... The
lord, in the wrath of his heart, hath regarded me; The god, in the anger
of his heart, hath surrounded me; A goddess, known or unknown, hath
wrought me sorrow.... I sought for help, but no one took my hand; I
wept, but no one harkened to me.... The feet of my goddess I kiss, I
touch them; To the god, known or unknown, I utter my prayer; O god,
known or unknown, turn thy countenance, accept my sacrifice; O
goddess, known or unknown, look mercifully on me! accept my
sacrifice!
Salve Regina!
And now let the reader leap three thousand years of human history, of
toil and triumph of the intellect of man; and instead of a Hebrew
manuscript or a Babylonian brick there confronts him a little
publication, printed on a modern rotary press in the capital of the
United States of America, bearing the date of October, 1914, and the
title "Salve Regina". In it we find "a beautiful prayer", composed by the

late cardinal Rampolla; we are told that "Pius X attached to it an
indulgence of 100 days, each time it is piously recited, applicable to the
souls in purgatory."
O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where
thou sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant. Though
conscious of his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts thee from his
whole heart as the purest, the most beautiful and the most holy of
creatures. He blesses thy holy name. He blesses thy sublime
prerogatives as real Mother of God, ever Virgin, conceived without
stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the human race. He blesses the
Eternal Father who