pentance, heart felt, genuine repentance, as well as a humble petition at the throne of divine grace, before he will clothe his face with smiles to a transgressor." It will be borne in mind that the individual is to be the sole judge of what is wrong—of what will offend his Jesus-the sole interpreter of his injunctions. We have seen what liberties you have taken. with them, retaining some, and rejecting, even laughing, at others. He is also to be the sole judge of the quality and quantity of the repentence, and the length and nature of the prayer necessary to obtain his pardon, and of course, is to determine for himself whether his Saviour has pardoned him. This determination is always found to be in his own favor, as none are never found despairing, but all seem sure of eternal salvation, Is it too much to say, that he who can sin and have a pardon on his own terms, from the only being in the universe who, he believes, can grant it, and whom he is taught to revere, cannot be for this reason a better member of society! Can a statesman-can a philanthropist-can you wish that all the individuals of our country should be taught to look even with indifference upon the good or ill opinion of their fellow citizens; should be made to believe that all their sins at some certain period of their lives had been pardoned by something called conversion, and that the crimes thereafter committed had been pardoned by repentence and prayer, and that those hereafter to be committed, could and would be pardoned by the same means; should consider themselves the sole judges of what sin repentence and prayer are, and how much, and of what nature the two latter must be, to expiate for the former; and should feel an utter contempt for the frowns of man, having the assurance that their Jesus is smiling with complacency upon them? I say would you wish that all should be thus taught, thus feel, and be thus assured?

You should recollect of what materials society is composed, and what influence similar notions have had upon its members. I allude to the doctrine of the Catholics, to which the preference is certainly to be given; for, according to your teaching, every individual can be his own father confessor, and despatch his sins upon the spot. Do you not feel thoroughly convinced that thousands, if thus taught and thus assured, would be ready to perpetrate any bloody deed, in anticipation of pardon, with as much sang froid as an ignorant Catholic would with an indulgence in his pocket?

You reply that as I am a matter-of-fact man, I must admit that something growing out of the Bible, whether it be religion or a perversion of it, actually has an influence upon the ignorant to deter them from crime. I admit that a certain portion of our population have been told, they must not do this and that, and that they can give no other reason, why they should not, (because they have been taught no other,) than that the Bible says so,

I would further admit, that if this class were to be told, that the Bible did not say so, or was false, they would in all probability consider themselves at liberty to run-riot, were it not for a certain fact staring us in the face that rebuts such presumption, and proves conclusively, that a Bible prohibition serves but to stimulate the unconverted believer to its resistance, by the commission of the act prohibited. I allude to what is called profane swearing. These persons are fully persuaded that what is understood by the term, is directly in violation of an unrepealed law of God. No sordid motive can be assigned for its violation-it neither puts money in the purse, or adds to reputation: Still, God and Jesus Christ, Heaven, and hell, are constantly invoked, and are as familiar in their mouths as household words. The laws of the land, if any prohibiting it, are seldom, if ever, enforced, which shews that public opinion is controlled, in this particular, by the profane-so called. The conclusion from all which is, that the mere circumstance of an act being prohibited in the Bible, does not in the least prevent, but rather invites, to its commission. It is for you to explain this, not me. I have this further conclusion to draw: that those persons who are thus shaking their fists, (as they believe they are,) in defiance at God Almighty, must be continually growing more and more corrupt and hardened. You may say that the violators of this law, whom God said he would not hold guiltless, are unbelievers; then they are hypocrites, and on this account becoming continually more unprincipled. In either case the deterioration is to be charged to the Bible.

I have thus shown that christianity, as properly defined, and as taught, can have no tendency to enlighten the minds of men or improve their morals; and that it has not accomplished these desirable objects. You probably deceive yourselves, and are enabled to deceive the crowd, by contrasting the condition of christendom with savagism—the people of the United States with the Camanches, for instance, and attributing the superiority of the former to the iufluences of christianity. A book worm might, with equal propriety, attribute it to the influence of the Greek and Latin classics. You seem to forget that christianity had not to force its way originally by the mild and gentle means, you so frequently boast of, among a barbarous people, but among a people already civilized, and as enlightened as ourselves. You are defied to point out a single instance, where it has, by its own energies, without the aid of arms, or brute force, reformed, or enlightened a savage people. You may send your missionaries to India, and to all the Isles of the sea, and relate to the natives all the wonderful facts of the Bible, and they may believe them; will that faith make them anatomists, astronomers, chemists, geologists, or artists, or even better moralists? No! the arts and sciences are to be taught them still, before

they can compare with us. Christianity does not embrace either, nor are your missionaries generally qualified to teach them. Infidels could do this favor for the heathen as well as christians.

You also seem to be under the impression, that no other being but Jesus Christ and his apostles, ever taught morality; not being aware that he taught nothing very remarkable, except that degree of forbearance* to which I have already alluded, and which you all condemn and refuse to practice. If he had taught any thing new, he would have coined new words; but he found meekness, brotherly love, mildness, forbearance, charity, peace and peace makers, already in existence; and the golden rule, so true and self-evident, had been better worded by Tobit and Confucius; even the notion of a resurrection was a distinguishing tenet of the Pharisees, and others of the Jews, long before his appearance. (When and how they came by it, I shall endeavor to shew hereafter. It is certain they did not get it from any canonical Jewish writings.) You ascribe too much--too great an influence to all religions, and especially to your own. After proving to your own satisfaction, that it is preferable to the Mahometan, or any other religion, you conclude that it is an institution greatly to be cherished, upon the further positions, that men must necessarily have some religion, and that any sort is better than none; both of which are untenable, as I shall endeavor to shew in the sequel.

*This was taught and practised by the Essenes, long before Christ. An Essene may be called a Jewish Quaker.

CHAPTER III.

Let us suppose that Cicero were to re-appear among us, with faculties as vigorous as when he penned his oration for Milo, and you were to put the Bible into his hands, with a request that he would read it carefully, and give you his opinion as to the veracity of the several authors. He reads a few of the first chapters of Genesis. He then asks who the author is. You tell him his name was Moses. He takes it for granted. He then tells you that this Moses relates some wonderful facts- -so wonderful that he cannot believe them; and asks again, how Moses knew them. You tell him that Moses was inspired. He calls upon you for proof of this assertion. You reply that he must presume it. He would then address you somewhat in the following strain: "You requested me to examine this book, as a man of good sense or a logician should do, and why ask me now to take for granted what would render scrutiny, or examination of testimony unnecessary; for if Moses was inspired by a truth telling God, as you wish me to presume, he must necessarily have written the truth." Under the full conviction that I have proved that nothing can be presumed in favor of Moses that could not be presumed in favor of any other author, I shall proceed to examine the Pentateuch, on the supposition that a man of that name wrote it.

I have already remarked, that from no man who is said to have lived before Moses, and there were many to whom he says God revealed himself, have we a single line? The question here suggests itself: how did Moses know what transpired at the creation? for he no where tells us, that in any of their interviews, God ever told him any thing about it. You must infer that God told him, or this cosmogany of his was a mere vague tradition. I shall proceed upon the ground that Moses means to be understood as telling us that he derived his information from the mouth of God himself. If God told him so, all he has written is true; but, if I can shew that what he has written is not true, then God never told him so. I now proceed to show that what he has written is not true.

I assert in the first place, that the first allegation in the book, that God made the Heaven is a falsehood. In order to determine this question, we must ascertain what Moses meant by the word Heaven-he meant something he tells us that God made something that he called Heaven; and we want to know what that something was, that we may determine whether God made it or not. Moses does not formally define the word. It could not therefore have been a new term, or used by him in a sense different

from its common acceptation. writings of other authors of the Bible for the purpose of ascertaining what was understood by the word Heaven. If I do not succeed in shewing that Heaven was the studded firmament, then all the previous observations, and after arguments apply to the allegation that God made the firmament. I contend, that by the word firmament, Moses meant a transparent, pliant, solid arch or concave over our heads; and that Heaven was the same arch, with the sun, moon, and stars set in it. It can be compared to a tambord shawl; before it is put into the frame, it is a square of white muslin only, (firmament,) but after figures are worked upon it, it becomes a shawl, (Heaven.) Moses tells us that God called the firmament Heaven; they cannot therefore be two totally distinct things; but one must be a modification of the other-one the muslin, the other the tambourd muslin or shawl.

We must therefore resort to his; and the

Let us enquire for what purposes, or object Moses says this firmament was made--what office it was to perform. "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters," was, according to Moses, one of the fiats of the Almighty. It does not require a knowledge of the Hebrew to discover that the expression, "in the midst of," should be rendered "between,” for God immediately goes on to say, "and let it divide the waters from the waters." Then Moses tells us that "God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." This firmament was something palpable, something solid, as the term imports, which was to serve as a barrier to prevent certain waters which were above it from a confluence with certain other waters which were upon the earth. The same substance, water-a liquid-the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, not in a gaseous or vaporous, but in a liquid state that was upon the earth, and afterwards gathered into seas and lakes, was said by Moses to be above, or resting upon this firmament. It must therefore have been something solid. This firmament, according to Moses, was perforated, over whose openings there were gates, or windows or trap-doors which were opened and shut, as God chose to give or withhold rain. In vii, 2 Gen. Moses says: "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of Heaven were opened;” and what then? "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." Again, in viii, 2 Gen. he says: "The fountain of the great deep, and the windows of Heaven were stopped;" and what then? "And the rain from Heaven was restrained. Again, to the same point; 1 Kings, 8 35: "When the Heaven is shut up and there is no rain." 2 Chron. 6, 36 the same, and 7, 13: "If I shut up Heaven, and there be no rain," Psalm. 78, 23: "Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of Heaven, and had rained down manna." Luke 4, 25: