Essay（s） by Israel Zangwill
Salvation For The Seraphim
Israel Zangwill
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Herbert Spencer says he knew a retired naval officer in whose mind God figured as a transcendently powerful sea-captain; and we have all heard the story of the English admiral who, when fighting the Dutch, felt sure God wouldn't desert a fellow-countryman. But this ingenuous identification of earthly and divine interests has been carried to the point of imbecility by General Booth in his claim to
"THE LARGEST CIRCULATION."
The _War Cry_, so the General states,
Among the angels circulates,
To Heaven having gone; but, oh,
That it had first expired below!
Which is uglier--the crude spiritualism of the Salvationist or the crude materialism of the scientist? I receive the same sort of shock when I peruse Mrs. Spurgeon's fond picture of her departed husband waylaying the angels at the shining street-corners to preach the gospel to them, as when I read that woman's poetry is inferior to man's because she exhales less carbonic acid.
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Israel Zangwill's essay: Salvation For The Seraphim