English critics, but his touch is lighter and his irony more telling.
His comment on geographical mistakes in the Old Testament is: “God was
evidently not strong in geography.” Having called attention to the
“horrible crime” of Lot’s wife in looking backward, and her conversion
into a pillar of salt, he hopes that the stories of Scripture will make
us better, if they do not make us more enlightened. One of his favourite
methods is to approach Christian doctrines as a person who had just
heard of the existence of Christians or Jews for the first time in his
life.

[155]

His drama, Saul (1763), which the police tried to suppress, presents the
career of David, the man after God’s own heart, in all its naked horror.
The scene in which Samuel reproves Saul for not having slain Agag will
give an idea of the spirit of the piece. SAMUEL: God commands me to tell
you that he repents of having made you king. SAUL: God repents! Only
they who commit errors repent. His eternal wisdom cannot be unwise. God
cannot commit errors. SAMUEL: He can repent of having set on the throne
those who do. SAUL: Well, who does not? Tell me, what is my fault?
SAMUEL: You have pardoned a king. AGAG: What! Is the fairest of virtues
considered a crime in Judea? SAMUEL (to Agag): Silence! do not
blaspheme. (To Saul). Saul, formerly king of the Jews, did not God
command you by my mouth to destroy all the Amalekites, without sparing
women, or maidens, or children at the breast? AGAG: Your god—gave such a
command! You are mistaken, you meant to say, your devil. SAMUEL: Saul,
did you obey God? SAUL: I did not suppose such a command

[156] was positive. I thought that goodness was the first attribute of
the Supreme Being, and that a compassionate heart could not displease