Jehovah, Jupiter, Baal

Last week in the prisoner's box of a crowded Toronto courtroom, Ernest V. Sterry squinted through thick glasses at a jury of his peers, stood trial for blasphemy against the Lord God of Christians. In the Christian Enquirer he had written of the God of the Bible as "this irate old party . . . this touchy Jehovah . . . who preferred the savory smell of roast cutlets to the odors of boiled cabbage,* who sat in a burning bush or popped out from behind the rocks" (TIME, Jan. 24). Edward J. Murphy, devout Roman Catholic, prosecuted for the Crown with vigor, called Atheist Sterry's writings "scandalous, impious, blasphemous, profane and indecent." Judge Coatsworth, Sunday School Superintendent, charged the jury: "Nothing is more sacred to us than our religion. . . . We look upon the Bible as the basis of every good law in our country." The jury, devout men all, took only 25 minutes to pronounce Mr. Sterry guilty. They had found no worth in his defense, led by Negro E. Lionel Cross, that his attack was upon "the old Jewish God" and that there is "no more blasphemy in talking against this God than there is against Jupiter or Baal." The judge sentenced him to 60 days in jail.

*Cain sacrificed to the Lord "the fruit of the ground," Abel "the firstlings of his flock." "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect."--GEN. 4:3,4:5.