Why hath your God brought thofe events to pafs, of which he requires me to be inftructed, at fo great a dif tance? Is it a crime to be ignorant of what paffes at the Antipodes? Is it poffible for me to divine that there exifted, in the other hemifphere, the people of the Jews, and the city of Jerufalem? I might as well be required to know what happened in the moon. You are come, you fay, to inform me; but why did you not come time enough to inform my father? Or why do you damn that good old man, because he knew nothing of the matter? Muft he be eternally punished for your delay ? he who was fo juft, fo benevolent, and fo defirous of knowing the truth! Be honeft, and fuppofe yourself in my place- Do you think, upon your teftimony alone, that I can believe all thefe incredible things you tell me? or reconcile fo much injustice with the character of that juft God, whom you pretend to make known? Let me firft, I pray you, go and see this diftant country, where fo many miracles have happened, totally unknown here. Let me go and be well informed why the inhabitants of that Jerufalem prefumed to treat God like a thief or a murderer ?

They did not, you will fay, acknowledge his divinity. How then can I, who never have heard of him, but

from you? You add, that they were punished, difperf ed, and led into captivity; not one of them ever ap proaching their former city. Affuredly they deserved all this but its prefent inhabitants, what fay they of the unbelief and deicide of their predeceffors? They deny it, and acknowledge the divinity of the facred perfonage juft as little as did its ancient inhabitants.

To be continued.

New-York: Published every Saturday, by ELIHU PALMER, No. 26, Chatham-street. Price Twe Dollars per ann. paid in advance.

PROSPECT; or, View of the Moral World.

SATURDAY, November 17, 1804.

No. 50.

Comments upon the Sacred Writings of the Jews and Christians. Exodus Chapter 34 & 35.

EVERAL of the verfes of this 34th chapter, are

SEV

taken up in representing a strange and contempti ble fchemeof proftitution which took place between human beings and the gods. This matter and the delicate manner in which it is expreffed may be read in the 16th and other verfes adjoining in this chapter. There the pious believer may behold fome of the heavenly beauties: of holy writ, and feaft his fallen pilgrim exiftence with. language and fentiments fuch as revelation alone difclofes to mortal man, The next point worth notice is that of Mofes fubfifting forty days upon the mount without bread or water and afterward making his appearance a mong the people with a fhining face. It would be difficult in these modern times to find a man whofe face would shine after fafting forty days; but every thing in former ages was upon a plan of conjuration, and Mofes was not the least of the conjurers of antiquity. He puts a vial upon his face when he talks with the people, and make them believe his face fhines with fome fort of divine greafe. Such barefaced hypocrify might be fwallowed by an ignorant multitude, but would be rejected with difdain in times of enlightened knowledge. In the third verfe of the 35th chapter there is a prohibitory command laid down which muft of neceffity be of partial and local application. It forbids the making of fire on the fabbath day; this might anfwer within the tropics; but certainly: it does not relate to high lattitudes in a cold feafon of the year, and of courie whether it be revelation or not we have nothing to do with it. The remaining part of this chapter is taken up with a plan of taxation by which Mofes ftripped the people of their property, under pretence of its being an offering to the Lord; alfo a defcription of the tabernacle, and many other things which have.

nothing to do with religion or revelation. It is wholly uninterefting to the prefent generation, and is probably mixed with more fable and falfhood than many other hiftoric details of antiquity. Five chapters more close the book of Exodus; and there is not in all of them a thing that merits any ferious attention. They may They may ftand as records of Jewish folly and popular credulity; but it is one of the unaccountable facts of modern times, that an enlightened age fhould accede to the opinion that these books, Genefis and Exodus, were given to mankind by the fpirit of the living God! We now pafs them by as wholly unworthy of commanding further ferious reflection; they are a compound of folly, falfhood and wicked. nefs; it is time they fhould defcend to the tomb of oblivion, and the reafon of man rifing in all its energy should proclaim an age of fcience virtue and univerfal happinefs.

MAHOMETAN CREED.

A catechifm has lately been printed at Conftantinople for the inftruction of children educated in the Mahometan Religion. It forms a copious commentary on the tenets of Islamism. The principal articles to which the young Muffulmen is required to give his affent, are com prifed in the following declaration:"I believe in the books which have been delivered from Heaven to the Prophets. In this manner was the Koran given to Mahom et, the Pentateuch to Mofes, the Pfalter to David, and the Gofpel to Jefus.-I believe in the Prophets, and the Miracles which they performed. Adam was the first Prophet, and Mahometan the laft, I believe that, for the fpace of fifty thoufand years the righteous fhall repose under the fhade of the terreftial Paradife; and that the wicked shall be expofed naked to the burning rays of the fun. -I believe in the bridle Sirat, which paffes over the bottomlefs pit of Hell. It is as fine as a hair, and as fharp

as a Sabre. All muft paff over it, and the wicked fhall be thrown off. I believe in the water pools of Paradife. Each of the Prophets has, in Paradadife a bafon for his own ufe; the water is whiter than milk, and fweeter than honey. On the ridge of the pools are veffels to drink. out of, and they are bordered with ftars. I believe in Heaven and in Hell. The inhabitants of the former know no want, and the Houris who attends them, are never afflicted with ficknefs. The floor of Paradife is mufk, the ftones are filver, and the cement gold. The damned are, on the contrary, tormented with fire, and by voracious and poisonous animals."

TO THE EMPEROR OF CHINA.

AUGUST SIRE,

It was my primary intention, after having finished the Verses, which I now lay at your Majefty's feet, te have dedicated them to fome Chriftian Potentate, who should appear the most diftinguished, among the crowned heads of Europe, as the friend, protector, and father of his peo ple, and the lover and promoter of peace.

Your Majefty will doubtless acknowledge, that it was moft natural for a man born in a Chriftian country, to feek for fuch a character and patron among the profeffed believers in the God and Gofpel of Peace, among those who style themselves his Vicegerents on earth, Defenders of the Chriftian Faith, Moft Catholic, Moft Faithful, &c.-But, alas! I found them all, either wading in blood, or aiding and abetting the horrid carnage and deftruction which for ages have defolated the earth. When I fay for ages, your Majefty will doubtlefs be furprised, and of courfe be induced to afk, if the Chriftian Powers are always at war? To which I am forry to find that a due refpect to truth compels me to anfwer in the affirmative; and to confefs, that the hiftories of the different European powers ever fince their civilization (if they can be faid to be civilized who are always cutting each other's

throats) inconteftable prove, that all the intervals between the epochas of active war, which they have pretended to confider as a state of peace, ought only to be regarded as truces, during which the different parties have been confantly occupied in feeking new caufes of quarrel, and in preparations of fresh havock; it being the policy, or propenfity, of Chriftian Protentates to ruin their own ftates, s in order to injure or acquire thofe of others; and too often to estimate the value of their dominions, more by the number of acres than of fubject. Such is the fyftem of European rules, and fuch the miferable ftate of their vaffals.

Finding Europe thus employed, and in fuch a ftate of never-ceafing confufion, I naturally fuppofed it was not the place for the mufe to look for protection and patronage. I then turned my regard towards Afia, where the greatest fovereign of the greatest empire on earth, who is at the fame time the greateft philolopher, hiftorian, and in Poet all his vaft dominions, attracted and fixed my attention; -but I contemplated with peculiar veneration and admiration, the copious bleffings that flow from a prince who is the father of his people, who is equally distinguished for his good as his great qualities, and who, happily for his people, unites the talents and dispofition to make them happy.

To be continued.

What! in the fame city in which your God was put to death, neither the ancient nor present inhabitants acknowledge his divinity! And yet you would have me