Chapter XXII (Rise And Progress Of Bob The God Stealer) (Rise And Progress Of Bob The God Stealer). Rise And Progress Of Bob The God Stealer - Omnipotence In Danger. - How The Valiant Blatherskite Came To The Help Of The Helpless Almighty.

IN the latter days of the sad exist-ence of the Society for the Protection of the Almighty, there arose most strangely from nowhere, a huge, heavy - footed dog, that ran about scattering dismay and confusion amongst the salaried barkers, by encouraging the dogs to speak disrespectfully of the various societies in general, and of the Society for the Protec-tion of the Almighty in particular.

A very independent and fearless dog was he. He was endowed with a voice of thunder and an eye of lightning, and he had a set of great sharp teeth that seemed to have been made especially and particularly to tear and worry the salaried barkers, and the pious dog thumpers and clubbers.

Wherever they gathered together, there he appeared in the midst of them to spoil their counsels, to frustrate their plans, and drive them crazy. Never did they meet save to devise some new way to harass the forlorn and hungry dogs, in the name of God and to the enrichment of the fleas, and never did they meet but they had to meet the lightning of his eye, the thunder of his voice, and the cutting snap of his gleaming teeth; which, after braving and enduring a few times, they learned to respect by tucking their tails snugly away between their legs and scattering with howls of pain and rage, to the accompaniment of the laughter of the poor dogs which gratefully recognized in him a friend.

All the pious dog thumpers, the virtue compellers, the morality cobblers hated him because he boldly told them that the Tree of Virtue could only grow up out of the ground of Good Victuals and healthy bodies, which they said was a wicked and damnable heresy and subversive of the good old Gospel of the Club; and all the salaried barkers hated him because he laughed at their Almighty Fiction, and called it the ugly creation of their own diseased brains.

So, not being able to face him in a stand-up fight, they went about seeking his destruction in sly and roundabout ways.

First, they tried their most powerful weapon - a nickname. His name was Robertus Robustus, for he was of great strength. Therefore they went about amongst the poor dogs calling him "Bob," for it was a sacred religious principle with all salaried barkers to call everyone that was obnoxious to them, by a contemptuous nickname. They had discovered through long experience that heresies amongst dogs were more easily prevented than cured ; that it was more efficacious to bring any one into contempt with them, than to let them see him, hear him and judge of him for themselves,

So they called him "Bob," and sneered over his name whenever they spoke of him; and they tried to get the dogs to have a horror of him by describing him as a beast with horns, hoofs and a long spiked tail; and bore other false witness against him; "for," said they, "the case is urgent; the very existence of our God is imperilled, and a little false witness to save him He will surely pardon, for all is fair in love and theological war."

But what caused these salaried barkers to hate him so intensely was the fact that "Bob" was a very good and noble dog, and showed more real kindness of heart and love for the down-trodden and afflicted dogs than they. They reasoned amongst themselves, and boldly told the dogs that all God-de-spisers, all belittlers of the Almighty Fiction, always had been bad, must necessarily be bad, and therefore "Bob" the God despiser and ridiculer, must necessarily be bad too ; that all contempt of the ever blessed Almighty Vengeance, and his ever glorious Hell and the benign eternal, tortures, did and must proceed from a corrupt and wicked heart; that none but believers in the Unutterable Horror, were or could be good ; therefore, "Bob's" heart must be rotten and his life wicked. And when a dog objected that the fact that "Bob's" life being good did not agree with and justify their theory, they said that was all the worse for the fact.

So they proclaimed abroad that "Bob's" goodness was an irregular, unsanctified and wicked goodness, more wicked than immorality; a cloak "put on" to hide the devilishness of his purpose, which was to steal their God and leave the dogs Godless; which the salaried barkers all and unanimously declared was a great step to the next greatest misfortune - to leave the dogs flealess.

But "Bob" Robertas Robustus cared not. He went on showing himself and laughing at the Almighty Monstrosity, and pleading with the remaining prostrate dogs to lift up their heads, and generally making the many societies look silly.

So the salaried barkers, perceiving that this big dog had grown very dangerous, and that dogs everywhere were growing irreverent, and that instead of receiving with meekness and with the wide open mouth of Simple Faith, the large chunks of ancient and mouldy dogmas of Orthodox Religion, with which the barkers daily fed them, were falling into the wicked habit of shutting the mouth of Simple Faith, and opening the eye of Reason, and smelling, with aa inquiring smeller, of the ancient and mouldy dogmas, and poking the nose of irreverence into the "why" and "wherefore" of all the sacred humbugs, resolved to call a conference to devise ways and means to stay the ravages this dangerous dog was working.

All the little and lesser salaried barkers came to the conference with fear and trembling, for their little souls were weighed down with the conviction that if something were not done soon to this irreverent dog, it was all up with them ; but when they saw that the Reverend Tee de Little Wit Blatherskite was there, they took heart of hope, for they all knew him to be a most valiant defender of Simple Faith and enemy of Reason.

One of them therefore arose and said: "Brethren and fellow barkers; we to whom has been committed the care of the ever holy dogmas, upon which, up to the present, we have been enabled to preserve the blessed hoary mould and the ancient musty smell, are gathered here to-day by a common sense of a common peril. Ye know that there hath arisen amongst the dogs a fierce and wicked dog of large dimensions and great strength, who is teaching them to laugh at sacred things and bring us into contempt. Now, it follows that if we are brought into contempt, not only will our living be gone (which is the thing of greatest moment), but the divinely ordained relations between the dogs and our patrons and masters, the fleas, will be disrupted, and go to the dogs; and we, the divinely appointed guardians of those sacred relations, shall draw upon our heads the wrath of the Monstrous Fleas, who will regard us as unfaithful stewards of their interests.