480 MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS -I 



rejoiced in believing that the Rev. Mr. Spalding s bibli 

 cal novel was a new revelation from the Almighty. 



The whole matter was thus fully laid open, and it might 

 have been reasonably expected that thenceforward no 

 human being would insist that the stone figure was any 

 thing but a swindling hoax. 



Not so. In the Divinity School of Yale College, about 

 the middle of the century, was a solemn, quiet, semi- 

 jocose, semi-melancholic resident graduate Alexander 

 McWhorter. I knew him well. He had embarked in va 

 rious matters which had not turned out satisfactorily. 

 Hot water, ecclesiastical and social, seemed his favorite 

 element. 1 He was generally believed to secure most of 

 his sleep during the day, and to do most of his work 

 during the night; a favorite object of his study being 

 Hebrew. Various strange things had appeared from his 

 pen, and, most curious of all, a little book entitled, &quot; Yah- 

 veh Christ, in which he had endeavored to demonstrate 

 that the doctrine of the Trinity was to be found entangled 

 in the consonants out of which former scholars made the 

 word &quot; Jehovah, &quot; and more recent scholars &quot;Yahveh&quot;; 

 that this word, in fact, proved the doctrine of the Trinity. 2 



He now brought his intellect to bear upon the Cardiff 

 Giant/ 7 and soon produced an amazing theory, develop 

 ing it at length in a careful article. 3 



This theory was simply that the figure discovered at 

 Cardiff was a Phenician idol; and Mr. McWhorter pub 

 lished, as the climax to all his proofs, the facsimile and 

 translation of an inscription which he had discovered 

 upon the figure a &quot;Phenician inscription,&quot; which he 

 thought could leave no doubt in the mind of any person 

 open to conviction. 



1 The main evidence of this is to be found in &quot;Truth Stranger Than Fic 

 tion : A Narrative of Recent Transactions involving Inquiries in Regard to 

 the Principles of Honor, Truth, and Justice, which Obtains in a Distinguished 

 American University,&quot; by Catherine E. Beecher, New York, 1850. 



2 See * Yahveh Christ, or the Memorial Name.&quot; by A. McWhorter, Boston, 

 1857. 



3 See McWhorter, &quot;Tammuz and the Mound-builders,&quot; in the &quot;Galaxy,&quot; 

 July, 1872. 



