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"I'm a family man, Bob, and I ask you candid, do you feel peevish?" "Not in particular," and Yancy put aside his rifle. "I'm a-going to trust you, Bob," said Balaam. And forsaking the shelter of the sweetgum he shuffled up the slope. "How are you, Charley?" asked Yancy, as they shook hands. "Only just tolerable, Bob. You've been warranted Dave Blount swore hit on to you."
The character of Balaam is so perfectly natural, and yet of a kind so very difficult to unravel and explain, that if the story was invented by man, as poems or novels are, it must have been invented very late indeed in the history of the Jews; at a time when they had grown to be a far more civilised people, far more experienced in the cunning tricks of the human heart than they were, as far as we can see from the Bible, before the Babylonish captivity.
One Balaam, one Jeroboam, one Ahab, O how many fish such bring to Satan's net. These are the tares that he strives to sow among the wheat, for he knows they are mischief to it. "Wherefore let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."
When Balak saw that Balaam, instead of cursing, praised and exalted Israel, he led him to the top of Pisgah, hoping that he might there succeed in cursing Israel. By means of his sorcery, Balak had discovered that Pisgah was to be a place of misfortune for Israel, hence he thought the Balaam would there utter his curse against Israel.
I've picked up bigger things 'n them. Picked myself up this mornin'. Balaam you don't know Balaam; he's my donkey he tumbled me over his head in the sand this mornin'." And Elder Brown had to resume an upright position until his paroxysm of laughter had passed.
The ass attempts to bite Joseph, who strikes it, and the ass speaks. "I am one of the family of Balaam's ass," says the animal. "But I am not Balaam," says Joseph, "to divine that thou hast eaten nothing all night." The servant asserts that he fed the ass, but the animal had gobbled up everything, his appetite being equal to his owner's. But Joseph will not believe this, and Enan is deeply hurt.
How ill it torment me! Balaam could not be contented to be damned himself, but also he must, by his wickedness, cause others to stumble and fall. The Scribes and Pharisees could not be contented to keep out of heaven themselves, but they must labour to keep out others too. Therefore theirs is the greater damnation.
Mary's, Oxford, took his text out of the history of Balaam, Numb. xxii., "Am I not thine ass?" Dear Sir, pardon this rhapsody of, Sir, your, &c. He thought, writing to Lord Spencer about 1690, that we have "few tolerable letters of our own country" excepting and that only in a fashion those of Bacon, Donne and Howell. "Odorumque canum vis as Lucretius expresses it" perhaps requires a note.
Balaam the son of Beor then spake, and said: "This means nothing but that a great evil will spring up against Egypt, for a son will be born unto Israel, who will destroy the whole of our land and all its inhabitants, and he will bring forth the Israelites from Egypt with a mighty hand.
Then Balaam "bowed his head, and fell flat on his face," and there he and Neddy laid side by side, two asses together. Now, dear reader, you will observe that the ass, being indeed an ass, saw the angel first, and that Balaam, who was a wise man, did not see the angel until his wits were disordered by the wonder of a talking donkey.
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