MARK TWAIN OUTDONE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 221, 4 October 1906, Page 4

MARK TWAIN OUTDONE.

ORTHODOXY TRUMPS HIS CARD

("Civis" in the jOtago Daily Times

Dear Civis, —You may remember the Mark Twain story of the miracle on Mount Oarmel as explained by an old steamboat captain—how Elijah tricked the priests of Baal by pouring on petroleum instead of water and touching it off with a lucifer match. It comes as a surprise to meet this ancient mariner in the current number of the Nineteenth Century and to find him still elucidating the mysteries of "these 'ere miracles," and in the case of the Carmel theory supplying a revised version a trifle crude, so we have it now refined to naptha, while Elijah seems to have mislaid his matchbox this time. I am sure all admirers of the venerable theologian will be delighted to know that his facilities are still unimpaired; but when we find his overflowings in the pages of the Nineteenth Century can we say as much for the editor's sense of humour?— Observer. That the Nineteenth Century contains an article adopting—or, as we say in Presbytery, homologating—the petroleum theory is, I find, a fact, —a fact equally indubitable and incredible. A 'Mr P. W. Balkwill—hitherto unknown to fame, I fancy—is permitted to trump Mark Twain's best card. The prophet Elijah obtains from his friends the priests in Jerusalem a supply of naphtha (not petroleum, but that is a detail) —four barrels of naphtha,— ''four small barrels enclosed for safety in four large barrels" (see how circumstantial we are!), gets this inflammable cargo secretly conveyed to the top of Mount Carmel, and then, calmly confident, awaits the ordeal, knowing that he has the .baalites on toast. The same ingenious Balkwill explains the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that marshalled the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses possessed a large petroleum lamp, the flame surrounded by a circular brass plate for safety, which would prvent the flame being seen. In still weather the dense smoke would ascend as a pillar to some height, and then, spreading out, from the cloud described later on as resting on the tent of the tabernacle, whilst the re- ! flection on the smoke from the flame below would make it appear at night a,s a pillar of fire. This scheme of interpretation will perhaps "not be acceptable to theologians," thinks the author of it, but he is sure "that it,must be a great relief to others"—which is very like saying with Hamlet tnat "though it makes the unskilful laugh, it cannot but make the judicious grieve." As for the Nineteenth Century editor, I take him to have been out of town, gone for a holiday, entrusting the conduct of his hitherto respectable publication to the junior office-boy.