LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Mi^s ROSE COHN Received yM^^ ' ^^9 /• Accession No. t^^^^S' Class No. ^%; Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/collectionofthouOOstonrich^ J. L. STONE AND New TfcsTAM COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS. ^ -OR- EY TO Scripture. AN EXPLANATION OF THE OLD SND NEW TESTAMENTS, ACCORDING TO REASON, NATURE AND EXISTING FACTS, DISPENSING WITH Miracles, Mystery and Blind Faith — Uniting the Old AND New Testaments without Abrogating any- thing FROM THEM A RePLY TO ROBERT G. Ingersoll, Bishop Colenso, Paine's Age of Reason, AND A REFUTATION OF Prof. Smithes T^uelve Lectures about the Pentateuch, BY J. L. STONE, CHICAGO. READ AND CRITICISE. ■^^ ^^1 [oq^l-b-^ Entered according to A£t of Congress October 5th, 1881, By J. L. STONE, CHICAGO. ALL EiaETS BESESVED. V1SI7EMITY] TO THE EEADEE. We do not know of a subject about which so much has been written as that of Biblical Theology. The belief of the public is that to write a book now in explanation of the Bible, would be as useless as the pouring of a measure of water into the Mississippi for the purpose of raising a large ocean sailing vessel greatly overloaded, that had been run into its mouth and stranded. The boat cannot float in a river, and the first thing to be done for the purpose of raising her, is to relieve her from her freight and then, if possible, bring her back to the wide and bottomless ocean again. The Bible is the boat that carries all the religious freight; she was built to float in the boundless waters of the ocean of knowledge, wherein she floated pros- perously up to the time the first Christian church became her captain. Not only did that captain over- load her with his heavy and cumbersome freight and run her into the river of faith, whose bottom is of quick-sand, but all the freight of each and every sectarian church that came into existence during that IV length of time was loaded upon that already over- loaded vessel without relieving hei of the freight that was placed upon her, which was already more than she could carry; hence she is now embeded in the quick- sands of that unnavigable stream; and we, for the purpose of raising and saving the vessel, have relieved her from all her burdens by making each and every consignor take care of his own freight, and have brought the vessel back into the ocean of knowledge, wherein she has floated thousands of years, and have loaded her with unity, for which she was originally built. One thing is certain, and that is: if God gave the Bible to men, about which we have no doubt, He gave it to them that they may be benefited by it; then the Bible ought and must unite men and not disunite them and itself, as the sectarian freight made her do. It must, first of all, unite and agree with itself. Secondly. It must unite and agree with reason, with common- sense and with the laws of nature; and after it unites all these, it will unite all men in brotherly love, and it will unite them with their Creator, the God that gave the Bible to men for the purpose that they shall be united, even as He is a Unit. The following is the bill of freight with which we have reloaded the vessel, and we say and prove that it is the same freight with which she was loaded before the first church knew anything about her. AN EXPLANATION And reason why Solomon wrote his " Songs " in the manner and style that he did, and made use of the words that the members of one sect use when they express their affections and love to the members of the other sect, is because religion is as natural as the love and affection of one sect is for the other. Religion appertains to the soul — the will to the heart; both the soul and the will are imperceptible to the eye; we judge and speak of both according to their acts; hence Solomon, in speaking of the soul, made use of the words and the manner in which the words are used in speaking of the will. >^ Of TETT^^:]^ UiriVEIlCITy] SYNOPTICAL INDEX. CHAPTER I Page i Reformed Judaism. If the Bible is a book as men have, and the majority of men do believe, namely: that it is a covenant or contract between God and man, to which contract God is one party and man the other, then man, the one party, cannot change the contract according to his desire or convenience, neither to suit his business, without first obtaining the consent of the other party to the contract, God; and if the Bible is not a contract between God and man, and all that is said in the Bible as to the covenant between God and man is not true and these reformed Doctors know it, why then have they not the honesty of an honest Ingersoll to say so? We think they know enough not to kill the goose that lays the golden (official) egg. CHAPTER II Page 9 Biblical Polygamy and Slavery (Ingersoll.) Answer. The Israelite, as well as all the nations that have existed, were habituated and have practiced both polygamy and slavery long before the Bible was given to man, and for the Bible to stop these two habitual and semi-natural institutions, would be unnatural. God doth not change his laws of nature; if He would change them once He would change them all the time, and that would be compelling man to do what God desires him; and God will not do that, because He would destroy His own acts. He gave to man reason, which is the production of the soul, and the latter is a part of God Himself; He created man in His own image; he is free; hence man must to a certain extent be free. Reason governs man's freedom and will. As soon as man makes his will subject to reason he will do no wrong, and compulsive force is not needed to prevent such a man from doing wrong. VII ♦ CHAPTER III Page 15 Studying the Bible for sectarian and professional purposes is the cause of infidelity. CHAPTER IV Page 19 Voltaire says that it is unknown to chemistry, how to reduce gold to a powder so that it might be mixed with water and drank ; hence the Bible is not true, because it says that Moses had done so, (with the golden calf.) Each and every druggist now knows how to reduce gold to a fluid that can be mixed with water. CHAPTER V Page 20 Paine says that Moses could not have been the author of the book of Genesis, because the thiry-first verse of the thirty-sixth chapter of that book says. "These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel." Paine says that the first king that reigned over Israel was Saul; hence the book of Genesis could not have been written before the time of Saul, which was about five hundred years after the death of Moses. "We prove beyond a doubt that the man who says that the verse in ques- tion refer to Saul or to any of the kings that reigned in Israel, does not know the difference between the words over and in. Saul never did reign over Israel he reigned in, and the same is the case with all tlie kings oflsrael. They have all reigned in Israel and were LECT10N OF THOUGHTS, Hebrew letters engraved on stone in the walls of Christian churches. What kind of an opinion could we form of the man who maintained such a belief, and endeavored to make others believe the same thing? We believe the only thing which would save the man with such a belief from being sent to an asylum for the insane, would be, the reasonable or natural plea of ignorance. And the same opinion that we could form and conclusion to which we could reasona- bly come about the man in the supposition, we must form the same opinion and come to the same conclusion about the Right Rev. Infidel Bishop Colenso, because his lecture called the "Moabite Stone" exhibits as much learning or com- mon sense and sound reasoning faculties as the man who would insist that the Jews have borrowed their religion from the Christians; and if we should have to answer to what he says in the lecture in question, our reply would have to be governed by the rule that King Solomon made in Proverbs, 26:4 and 5: " Answer not a fool according to " his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool " according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." The meaning of these two apparently inconsistent verses is this: If a foolish question is asked, and you believe or have reason to believe that he who asked the question desires a proper answer, and will accept it, and that the answer will make him wiser, then " Answer not a fool according to " his folly, lest thou also be like unto him," (a fool,) for it must be reasonably supposed that you cannot give him the proper answer. But when you believe and there is reason to believe that the querist believes himself wise, and thinks others are fools, and therefore thinks that he can make them believe his foolish question or idea, then Solomon says: " Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be " wise in his own conceit." An answer to the Bishop's lecture called the " Moabite Stone" comes under the rule OR KEV TO SCRIPTURE. 6'J last named, because there is reason to believe that the Bishop thinks the world is foolish enough to believe what he says, and that he believes the nonsense of his lecture in question. To give him a proper answer to the nonsense of his lecture would only strengthen his belief in his own " conceit." Hence, the only reply that we see fit to make to it is: If the lecture in question is not the product of natural ignorance, then his mind is not in a sane condition, and he should be sent to an asylum for the insane! If the history of the Christian religion should happen to get lost, and in three thousand years from the present, or at any other time, the world should know no more of that history than we know ot the Moabite religion without the knowledge that we get of it in the Bible, and some un- known German missionary should happen to find a stone in the ruins of a Christian church with the words " Beth- el " engraved on it m Hebrew letters, (which we often see over the doors of churches,) and some Bishop should then say that the patriarch Jacob borrowed from the Christians the name of " Beth-el," which the Bible says he gave to the city of Luz, Oh, how our spirits would laugh at the Bishop's foolishness! And so ought we now, while yet our spirits are in our bodies, laugh at the infidel Bishop who says the Jews borrowed their language and religion from the Moabites, or from any other nation that existed at the time in question. We say, and we believe that the reader will coincide with us in the opinion, that every man who has any reason- able share of common understanding, and who is not an infidel Bishop, ' would take the Moabite stone — (if there actually was such thing found as the Bisho2D says there was; we know that in his "Attack upon the Pentateuch," in speaking of or about a " shekel," he could not tell the truth? 68 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, and therefore we have grave doubts w^hether he tells the truth about the stone in question,) — as evidence to substan- tiate the biblical truth, because the Bible tells us of the wars that the kings of Judah had with the kings of the Moabites, and both accounts agree. But we are morally certain that if the friends of the Bible would bring up the evidence of the stone in question for the purpose of demonstrating the truth of the Bible, the infidel Bishop, and all the professors, priests and laymen of infidelity would say that it was a natural impossibility for the stone to have stood for the last three thousand years with the inscription on it in the Moabite language. Would not they say that the Moabite Shiekh (which means ruler) who informed the German missionary of the stone, that he or any of the Moabites could iiave known the in- scription on the stone, and its value, before the German missionary told them ? " For nearly thousand years," says the Bishop, " that stone had lain exposed to all the elements, " uncared for, but now the Moabites found that it was very " valuable, and worth, as they supposed, its weight in gold." They would say that all this proves that the stone is a fraud, and the Moabites wanted money to keep the secret. And we have the right and reason to say the same. But as the stone proves nothing against the Bible, but on the contrary supports what the Bible says, as we will demon- strate to the Bishop when we come to examine his "Attack upon the Pentateuch," and will therefore let the Bishop and the Moabite stone for the present be where they are and what they are, and resume our subject, which is the biblical account of what was created on Ihe third day of creation. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 69 CHAPTER IX. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARTH, AND ITS RELATIVE POSITION TO THE SUN AND OTHER PLANET We have frequently heard men who call themselves scientists and critics say: " The man vvr ho wrote the bibli- " cal account of creation did not understand the laws of " nature as demonstrated by science, and consequently wrote " the account of creation as he understood it. Had he " known that nothing can grow upon the earth and nothing " can rij^en without the heat and light of the sun, the " account says that the earth was created on the third day, " and that on the same day it brought forth grass, fruit " trees, with the seed thereof in itself ; and that the sun " was not created until the fourth day." Hence they ques- tion how anything grew upon the earth without the heat and light of the sun, and therefore conclude that the author of the chapter in question knew nothing of the laws of nature. The men that we speak of may probably be scientists, but they are certainly no critics. Had they been the latter, they would have perceived that in the account of creation all the products that are now produced by the laws of na- ture did not come into existence at the time of the creation before the creative elements were in working order accord- ing to the laws that their Creator made for them. We now have to ask a few questions about the bibli- cal account of creation, before we can demonstrate what we said about that account. 7° A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, First. It says that on the first day of the creation God created light, and that He made a division between light and darkness. To the lignt he called day, and to the darkness he called night. According to that part of the account, there was light and darkness, day and night, im- mediately after the first day. What need was there for the sun and other luminaries which, the account says, God created on the fourth day? Second. God certainly knew that He would have to make the sun and other luminaries, and place them in the firmament. Why had He not done so on the second day, while He was making the firmament? Third. « On the third day," says the account, " God " said, Let the waters be gathered together, and the dry " land appear." And it further says that on that day God ordained the earth to bring forth grass, herbs, and fruit trees producing fruit, and the seed thereof to be in itself, " upon the earth, and it was so." The twelfth verse or the one following says: " And the earth brought forth " grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the fruit " tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself, after its kind." Why did not God ordain or make the earth produce ani- mals at the same time that he made it to produce fruit? Why did he wait with that part of the work until the sixth day? The same question may be asked about the creatures which live in the water. Why did He not create them on the third day, when the waters were gathered to- gether and He named them Sea? Why did He wait with that part of creation until the fifth day? Fourth. In telling how the firmament was made it says: " And God made the firmament," etc., and the ac- count ends, ** and it was so;" and it is the same in the account of the waters being gathered together unto one OR KEY TO SCRIPTURP:. 71 place and let the dry land appear, " and it was so," and also in the account of the earth, the words " and it was so" are followed by another verse which affirms the same sub- ject. The tenth, eleventh and twelfth verses of the chapter in question give the account of how the earth and its pro- ductions came into existence. The last clause of the nth verse is, " and it was so;" and the twelfth verse reads thus: " And the earth brought forth grass and herbs," and repeats the same words that are said in the eleventh verse. What is the use of repeating the same words in the twelfth verse? The words " and it was so " at the end of the eleventh verse affirm that it was done as God ordained; hence the twelfth verse seems to be superfluous. It is the same in the account of the creation of the sun and the moon. The fourteenth and fifteenth verses read thus: " And God said, Let there be lights in the " firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night? *' and let them be for signs and for seasons, ana for days " and for years. And let them be for lights in the firma- *' ment of the heaven to give light upon the earth; 'and it " was so.' " And verses sixteenth and seventeenth repeat the same thing over. They read : " And God made two " great lights and set them in the firmament of the heaven " to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day " and over the night, and to divide the light from the " darkness." There is but one answer to all the preceding questions: The heaven, the earth, and the other systems of worlds were created at one and the same time ; and the days of crea- tion which the biblical account of creation speaks of, are the different epochs of time that were necessary for the things to be developed and perform the purpose for which they were created. The light spoken of as having been created on the first day is either the first cause of light, 73 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, (which no man ever saw while he Hved upon the earth, and that has never given Hght upon the earth as the sun does,) or the word Hght in the Hebrew as well as in the English languag^e, (especially in the former,) is as often used to express comprehension as it is to express sight or visibility. The accounts of the firmament and the seas close bv the words " and it was so," as God hath ordained, without repeating the same as it does in the accounts of the earth and the -sun, because the former were at once fully devel- oped. The firmament was formed from the " air " (spirit) that was upon the face of the water, as is explained in the preceding chapter; and the seas were made from the water that was upon the earth: and both were ready to perform the purpose for which they were made; therefore nothing more is said in their account after the words " and it was so." But the earth, to perform the purpose for which it was created, must have the heat and light of the sun and the aid of other elements, because the earth could not perform her duties before the elements were developed and ready to lend their aid to the earth. It therefore repeats the words " and it was so." The earth was ready to perform her part, but the sun, the " help-mate" of the earth, was not yet developed; and the repetition, or the twelfth verse of the account in question, means or tells that the earth did not produce before it received her indispensable aid from the sun and other parts of the creation. And because the earth could not perform the purpose for which she was created without the sun and moon, the account of their de- velopment is connected with or follows the account of the development of the earth, instead of connecting it with the account of the formation of the firmament, which it is rea- sonable to suppose that it should be, because it is in the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. ^3 firmament the same as the account of the formation of the seas is connected with the account of the creation of the earth, and on the same day, and which the author of the creation would have done, the same as he did of the seas and the earth, if he had not intended to convey the idea he did, that the earth did not yield anything before the sun was able to give her his aid. And the three apparently unnecessary verses in the account about the sun, which follow the words " and it was so," tell us that the sun and moon could not perform their duty until they were fully developed and received their aid from other sources; and for that reason it says in the verse that follows the words " and it was so," " He made the stars also," — that is, the sun and moon were and are subject to some other planets or worlds. The earth possessed her productive power as soon as it was developed, as it has now, the same as an animal possesses its regenerative power as soon as it is born, but cannot regenerate before it gets fully developed and obtains its requisite aid from another animal of its kind. If the earth would have now, or had on the third day of creation, the power to produce living animals, cattle and other beasts, or if that would be in accordance with the laws of nature, she (the earth) would have been ordered to do so at the same time that she was ordained to produce " grass, herbs, trees, fruit and their seeds," and the writer of that account would have given the account thereof in his account of what took place during the epoch that he calls the third day of creation. But it is not natural for the earth to produce oxen, cows, men or any other animals. These were produced by the earth through a special super- natural power; therefore the author of the account of creation made a special account of it. He calls it the sixth y4 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, epoch or day of creation. The place that was made for the animals to inhabit (the earth) was complete, food for them was already in abundance. Then, and not before then, was the time to create the animals and bring them on the place that they were to dwell upon; and then did the Creator by a special ordinance, which man calls a miracle, ordain the earth to " bring forth the living creatures after " their kind, and cattle after their kind, and everj'thing that " creepeth upon the earth, after its kind;" and after all these were upon the earth, the man, who was to and does pos- sess, enjoy and rule everything that is on earth, was brought forth and placed in possession of all; and if the reader should ask why it was not written in the Bible in such a manner that each and every man shall so understand it, we answer that question by saying; For the same cause and reason that the earth was not made to yield its fruit without the labor of man in cultivating it. What would man be if he had all he wants without laboring for it? The Great and Wise Creator " saw that it was good " that man, as well as everything that he hath created, shall have to work. We will now see what the anti-biblical critics, or scien- tists, as they call themselves, say of the creation. OF KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 75 CHAPTER X. THE BIBLE AND THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY. The author of the " Age of Reason," for the purpose, as we beheve,. of accompHshing his poHtical object, plays the boy, who thought he had caught a flying star in the meadow, and who accused books of teaching what was not true, because they say that the stars are monstrous globes of light, and what he caught proved itself to be only a fire-fly with six legs and two wings to fly away. Had the boy known more of books than he did, he would have known the difference between a star and a fire-fly, and he would also have known that a meadow is not the place to look for a star. And if Mr. Paine did not say what he did for the purpose of accomplishing his political object, as we believe he did, but said it as the best of his knowledge and belief, then we believe we are justified in saying: If Mr. Paine, like the boy, had known more of books and languages, he would have known the difference between Greek astronomy, which knew nothing of the Bible, and the astronomy that was known and practiced among the people who knew and were masters of the Bible. We have seen with what success Voltaire applied the science of chemistry against the Bible, Paine the science of grammar, and Colenso the science of arithmetic. Let us now see what success Mr. Paine has in the use of as- tronomy against the truth of the same book. He says: " Almost all the scientific learning that now " exists came to us from the Greeks, or of the people who " spoke the Greek language." 76 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, That may be so, but Mr. Paine says the word of God is in the creation and in the science which that creation teaches us. Then, do we need any better or more proof than the Greeks and their scientific knowledge, which Mr. Paine speaks of, to prove that man can learn nothing of God with- out the Bible, unless it be by direct revelations? The Greeks, as well as the Egyptians, w^ere a scientific people. They have beheld the same universe that we be- hold; they have scientifically examined, and, with all their science, they did not believe, nor could they find out, whether that which they beheld was a creation. And if they, with their science, could not learn that what they beheld was a creation, how could that lead them to a knowledge of or be- lief in a Creator? The head of the Greek philosophers and the father of their philosophy, Aristotle, not having had the knowledge of the Bible, could not and did not know that what he be- held and scientifically examined was ever created. His phi- losophy simply made him say : If the w^orld is a creature, then there must be a Creator; and he concluded that the world was not a creature. Let us now see what he, the head of the Greeks and the father of philosophy (Aristotle), says about the scientific and philosophical knowledge of the Jews. Clearchus, a scholar of Aristotle, in his first book con- cerning Sleep, says that Aristotle, his master, relates what follows of a Jew, and sets down Aristotle's own discourse with him. " Now for a great part of what this Jew said, it " would be too long to recite; but what includes in it both " wonder and philosophy, it may not be amiss to discourse of: " Now, that I may be plain with thee, Hyperochides, I shall " herein seem to thee to relate wonders, and what will re- " semble dreams themselves. Hereupon Hyperochides an- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 77 " swered modestly and said : 'For this very reason it is that " 'all of us are very desirous of hearing what thou art going " 'to say.' Then replied Aristotle : For this cause it will be '^ best to imitate that rule of the rhetoricians which requires " us first to give an account of the man, and of what nation " he was, so that we may not contradict our master's direc- " tions. * * * * This man (said Aristotle) was " by birth a Jew, and came from Celesyra. These Jews are " derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by " the Indians 'Calami,' and by the Syrians 'Judaei,' and took " their name from the country they inhabit, which is called " Judea ; but the name of their city is a very awkward one, " tor they call it Jerusalem. Now this man * * * came " down from the upper country to the places near the sea and " became a Grecian, not only in his language but in his soul " also, inasmuch that when we ourselves happened to be in " Asia, about the same places whither he came, he conversed " with us and with all other philosophical persons, and made " a trial of our skill in philosophy ; and, as he had lived with " many learned men, he communicated to us more informa- " tion than he received from us." This is Aristotle's account of the matter, as given us by Clearchus, with whom Aristotle discoursed. " Those that " please may learn more about him from Clearchus' book " itself, for I avoid writing down more than is sufficient for " my purpose," says Josephus. (See Tosephus against Apion, book first.) The Jew, of whom Aristotle was relating to his pupils, must have told him and the other " philosophical persons" of the biblical knowledge that he (the Jew) possessed, and that is very likely what Aristotle meant in saying " it will " seem like dreams" to the pupils; and that Jew, says Aris- totle, imparted more philosophical knowledge to Aristotle and the other philosophical persons than he had received from 78 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, them. It is evident from what Aristotle says about the Jew whom he met in Asia among the Greeks that, in the time of Aristotle, there were greater philosophers among the Jews than even Aristotle was. No wonder that Ptolemy Philadel- phus, about forty years after the death of Alexander the Great (who was a pupil of Aristotle,) spent so much money and took so much trouble to have the Bible translated into the Greek language. Alexander must have known what his teacher, Aristotle, thought of the Jews and of their book, the Bible. And Soter, the father of Philadelphus, who brought many thousands of Jews into Egypt, must have in- quired of them also, and compared what he learned of them with what he had heard Aristotle say of them, and created within him a desire to obtain a knowledge of the Bible; and the great number of philosophers who were kept at Alexan- dria at the expense of the king must have known of the Jews and of their wisdom, and have confirmed the information that the king had in relation to the Jews. But before we make use of what history tells about the Jews and the Greeks, we will first compare the scientific knowledge that Mr. Paine credits to the Greeks to the same scientific knowledge that we find in Hebrew books written thousands of years ago. Not wishing to incorporate the whole " Age of Reason'* into this work, (which we would have to do if we should copy the exact words that Mr. Paine uses in his arguments,) and being that we intend to debate each and every question that he raised against the Old Testament, and against biblical re- ligion in general, we will therefore give only the substance of what he says as arguments, and will copy what he quotes from the Bible, or subject upon which the argument is based. Mr. Paine says: "After I made myself master of the " globes and the orrery, and conceived an idea of infinite space OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 79 " and of the eternal divisibility of matter," he found that the Bible taught what was not true (though he does not say it in the same words, but it is the same in substance). He then goes on to tell that the solar system of the universe consists of six planets besides the sun, gives their names, and the dis- tance that each one is from the sun. This is what Mr. Paine and the Greeks know of the solar system. But Maimonide, who lived between seven and eight hundred years ago, says nothing about globes and orreries, either because they were too much known at the time in question, and that it was thought useless to name them or say anything about them; but he says that the solar system, or system of worlds and planets to which the earth belongs can consist of no less than eighteen revolving j^lanets, besides their moons, of which he says that nine are known to all; and also that there are strong reasons to believe that in or be- tween these planets there are a vast number of minor planets. And in another part of his book he says that the whole im- mensity of space is as full of planets or systems of planets as the body of a human being is filled with bones and sinews, and that each and every planet moves by or through one and the same power, the same as all the members of the body move through the vitality of the heart. Nine of these planets, says the author of the same book, " Moureh Nebu- chim," Chap. 4, Part 2d, were known unto all who knew anything about astronomy, and he substantiates what he says by the sayings and writings of men who lived fourteen or fifteen hundred years before his time and were contemporaries of Aristotle, and brings up these subjects for the purpose of disproving what the Greek philosophers that had preceded and succeeded Aristotle and what Aristotle himself had said. Add to this what Aristotle said to his pupils about the Jew in Asia, and the desire and great endeavor of Ptolemy to obtain a knowledge of the Bible, and then add to all these the dem- So onstration that the science of astronomy has made to us since the time of Mr. Paine. We are no scientist, but a copy of " Olemsted's Compendium of Astronomy," pubhshed in the year 1839, tells us of nine superior and two inferior planets which constitute the solar system, or the system to which the earth belongs, besides the planets that were discovered since the year 1839, the time that the book which we consulted was printed, and all these prove beyond a doubt that the Greeks obtained their knowledge of science from the Jews, and the Jews came to their knowledge of these sciences be- cause the biblical account of creation telling them that what they beheld of the universe was a creature, and was created by the Creator in whom the Jews believed — the One God of Israel — they were therefore in the position of one who knows that a valuable diamond was dropped in a certain place : he will certainly look for it. The Jews knew of the valuable knowledge that was hidden in the creation. They looked for it and found it. The Greeks and the nations which pre- ceded them knew nothing of the creation nor of the knowl- edge that is to be gained therefrom, and have therefore not looked for it until after they saw that the Jews had enriched themselves with it. Aristotle said that one wandering Jew (l^robably a peddler) had more of it than he and all the " phi- losophical persons " that were there, and gave them more than they had possessed before they had received what they did from the Jew, and further, that there were a great many. The boy of the fable who caught the fire-fly is, we be- lieve, a fair representative of the astronomical knowledge that Mr. Paine exhibits in his " Age of Reason," and the evidence of the case shows that our belief is not erroneous. The astronomical theory of the " Age of Reason," in com- parison to the knowledge that the ancient Jewish writers exhibit on the same subject, is as a fire-fly to a star. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 8l CHAPTER XL LANGUAGE AND MAN. " It is always necessary," says the " Age of Reason," " that the means that are to accompHsh any end be equal to " the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be ac- " complished. It is in this that the difference between the " finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. *' Man frequently fails in accomplishing his ends from a " natural inability of the power to the purpose, and fre- " quently from the want of wisdom to apply power prop- " erly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom *' to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are always " equal to the end." We have copied the foregoing from the " Age of Reason " because it is a truism. Truth cannot be successfully used for anything that is not true. It is like oil, it always comes to the top when mixed with water. It makes no difference whether it is a finite or infinite power or wis- dom that wants to accomplish an object through or by a finite power, or human being, it must use the power that the employee, or the one employed possesses. For example: If We wish to employ steam, we must calculate the power that the engine possesses; if we wish to employ horse- power, we must calculate upon the power that a horse possesses; and if we wish to employ human power, we must calculate the power that a human being possesses. In the case before us the question is : What is the best power or method to make man know his Creator, and carry out 82 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the will of his Creator? There certainly can be but one answer to that question: We must convey to him whom we wish to employ, in the language which he, the em- ployee, understands, and language then is the greatest power that man possesses. Language is a part of the powers that man possesses, which make him the image of his Maker. The power of reasoning that man has, comes trom the mind. The mind comes from the invisible soul, which is a part of the Creator. With language, one man can draw a picture upon the mind of another man. With language we can raise the feeling of man's heart. What benefit could the world derive from the great discoveries that men have made if they who made the discoveries had not submitted their discoveries to the world in a language that is used in the world ? Of what benefit could the discovery of America be to the world, if Columbus had not informed the world of it in language? Of what benefit could the discovery of the power of steam, the power of electricity and the system of the universe be to us if each discoverer had kept his dis- covery in the realms of his mind without informing the world of it? And last, but not least, of what benefit could be to us the discovery that the world which wc behold and the numberless worlds with which the endless space is filled, were created, and that God is the Great Creator of ihem? Of what use could it be to man if it had not been remitted to him in language, which it is in the Bible? Mr. Paine says: " The only idea man can affix to the name of " God is that of a first cause — the cause of all things." But we know that before man knew of the Bible he pre- sumed everything to be the first cause of itself, and admired and worshiped everything as the first thing, or God. " It is only by the exercise of reason," says the author of the "Age of Reason," "that man can discover God. " Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of OR KHV TO SCRIPTURE. 83 " understanding anything." Language is the power that reason uses to convey understanding to man. Take away that language from him, and what good will silent and helpless reason be to him ? Through language, a man can make even a horse understand something; and without lan- guage even the reason of Aristotle could not understand. Without the language of the Bible, even he could not un- derstand that what he saw was not the first cause. How comes it that Mr. Paine rejects language? He questions and denies that the Bible is a revelation. That iTKiy have been n proper question, when the Bible was given to man, over four thousand years ago. But that is not the question of to-day. Does the Bible reveal anything* to us? is the ques- tion now, not whether the Bible is, or is not, a revelation itself. The question is not, how did Moses know that the nations of the earth would praise the Jews for their superior wis- dom and understanding, which he does in the fourth chap- ter of his hfth book, but the question is: Does not the praise which Aristotle, the greatest and wisest man of the Greeks, the greatest and wisest nation on the face of the earth at that time, of which we gave a synopsis in the for- mer chapter, prove that Moses knew? Hence the Bible is a revelation to us, for it reveals to us what Moses knew. The wild state of the Ishmaelites, the Turks and their indestructibity up to the present time, is proof to us that the author of the sixteenth chapter of the first book of Moses knew what he said. It is a revelation to us; for it reveals to us that he knew, and the visible fact herein named, is undisputed proof of the truthfulness of what it reveals to us. When Isaiah foretold the destruction of Babylon, and called the one that was to destroy it by name^ hundreds of years before he, Cyrus, was born, and said that Babylon shall be what it is, was a question for those whom Isaiah 84 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, told it was a question for them to ask, whether it is true, what Isaiah says, or not. But that is no question for us to ask. To us, it is a direct revelation, and the fact that we cannot ascertain within hundreds of miles where that great city stood, and find that hundreds of miles in the neighbor- hood, where history tells us that city stood, is now nothing but swamp, as is foretold in the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah, is proof to us that what that chapter reveals to us is true. The world does not ask to-day, nor is it a question for the world to ask to-day, how Jeremiah knew tliat a " full end," a total destruction, will be made of the nations where the Israelites were driven to, and that the Israelites will only be corrected in measure, and not left wholly unpun- ished, as is told in the forty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah. The world does not ask how Jeremiah came to know all this, but it looks upon the indestructibility and gradual pun- ishment of the Israelites, and takes it as a proof that what the Bible reveals to us about the people must be true; hence, the' Bible is a direct revelation to us, and to each one of us. We will have a chance to explain the word Revelation when we come to speak of the angel that Balaam's ass saw, and which spoke to Baalam. Mr. Paine, in speaking of the first cause, says: "And " incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to con- " ceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it '' from the ten-fold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is " difficult, beyond description, to conceive that space can " have no end ; but it is inore difficult to conceive an end. " It is difficult, beyond the power of man, to conceive an " eternal duration of what we call time, but it is more im- '• possible to conceive a time when there shall be no time." All this is none of man's trouble to know while he is on earth — and the power is not given to human understanding OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 85 to comprehend anything of which Mr. Paine speaks which we have heretofore copied. But he should have said: And difficult as it is for man to believe that the Bible is a revelation, he arrives at that belief from a ten-fold greater difficulty of disbelieving that it is a revelation, for there are thousands of such things foretold in the Bible, as we have heretofore named, and we know it came to pass as it is there foretold, which makes it ten times more difficult to believe that it is not a revelation, for the things spoken of in the Bible, that we are capable to ascertain or per- ceive, are verified just as therein foretold. The Bible speaks mostly of the Israelites, and they and their existence are the living proofs of the truth of the Bible. Just as Isaiah foretold when he said: " Fear ye not, neither be afraid; " have not I told thee from that time and have declared " it, ye are my witnesses." Isa. 44:8. 86 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XII. THE ANGEL THAT BALAAm's ASS SAW, AND HOW THE BEAST CAME TO SPEAK, AND WHAT KIND OF AN ANIMAL IT WAS. The question, how^ Balaam's ass came to speak, is a subject that has caused a great deal of scoffing against the Bible. It is a subject that contains many other questions besides the speaking of the beast. The men that the king of Moab sent to Balaam stopped over night by him. God came to Balaam in the night and asked him who they were that were by him. The question is: 1st. God knows everything; hence He must have known who the men were. Why, then, did He ask? 2d. If God did ask who these men were, why did not Balaam tell Him that the king of Moab had sent them, that he, Balaam, should go and curse the Israelites instead of telling him, as he did: " Balak, the son of "'Zippor, king of Moab, had sent unto me: 'Behold " * the people that came out of Egypt; behold it has cov- " ' ered the face of the earth, and now come curse me "'them; maybe I shall be able to overcome them and " ' drive them off.' " 3d. God said: " Thou shalt not go with them; thou " shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed." Was God afraid that Balaam's cursing would nullify His blessing? OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 87 4th. Balaam, it seems, was complying with and doing what God told him. The first time, He told Balaam not to go, and he did not go; the second time. He told him to go, and he went. Why then did God become indignant at his going? 5th. Why did the angel come out to be an adversary to him? 6th. When Balaam said to the angel, if my going displeases you, I will return, why did the angel tell him to go along with the men? 7th. How could three men, Salaam and his two servants, ride on one ass?* 8th. Even if it had been possible for the three to ride on one ass, such men that need two servants to wait upon them when they are on the way will not ride with their servants on the same beast, even if it had been possible. 9th. If Balaam was such a man that could not travel without having two servants to wait upon him, how comes it that he himself arose in the morning and saddled his ass for himself and for his two servants to ride, as the Bible tells us he did? 10th. How could the ass speak? To answer all these questions, or to explain the enigma, we must not only understand the Hebrew words that are used therein, but we must also know the origin of the words, and the different purposes for which the same words are used, especially the nouns, for nearly all the proper nouns which we find in the Bible are derivations from *The Bible tells us that he, Balaam, was riding- on his ass and his two servants with him. The English version says "were with him,'* but the verb "were" is not in the Hebrew Bible. We use the latter. SS A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, verbs or circumstances. For instance : The noun Isaac comes trom the verb " laugh," Jacob comes from the vv^ord " heel," as all the names of Jacob's children, and other Biblical names. The word " Alohim," one of the names that lan- guage has appropriated to the Deity, comes from the w^ord "Ale" (power), the plural of which is "Alohim" (powers). And we find that the word " Alohim " (of which the English translation is God) is often applied to man; as we find : God said to Moses, " He, Aaron, shall be to thee for " a mouth and thou shalt be to him for a God " (Alohim in Hebrew). Ex. 4:16. And Exodus, chapter 7, ist verse, says: " See, I have made thee for a God (Hebrew Alohim) " unto Pharaoh." And the word " Alohim" is very often applied, all through the Bible, to judges and rulers. Man possesses two powers — the will and the mind. The will comes from the body. The power of the mind is divine, and comes from the invisible but perceptible soul, which is a part of the Creator; and the only name that is or can be applied to the Creator himself is the word "Jehovah," which denotes Past, Present and Future. The power of the mind makes man the image of his Creator. Maimonide, in the first part of his Moureh Nebuchim, speaking of the sons of God (in Hebrew "Benai Alohim") who took the daughters of man, (Gen. 6:2,) says that the sons of God were the men that had made use of the power of their mind, as the sons of Seth, who were born after Adam ate of the fruit of knowledge. And in the days of Enos, the son of Seth, men began to call upon the Lord (Hebrew, " Je-ho-vah "). That is, they had begun to call upon or make use of the power of the mind, which is a part of the Lord " Je-ho-vah." 4 We will now return to our subject. Balaam told the messengers that the king of Moab OF KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 89 had sent to him that they should stay by him over night, and he would tell them what God would tell him. Here, (in the Hebrew Bible) the word "Jehovah" stands for the word God, and not " iVlohim," because the word " Alohim " is applicable to the will and the mind. And what Balaam really said to the men that came to him, was, that they should stay over night, and he would consult with his mind (understanding) which comes from the soul, part of Je-ho- vah, himself; therefore the word "Jehovah " is used there, and not the word' " Alohim." The desire of Balaam's heart was to go with the men, but he hacl to consult with his mind to see if he could accomplish what was asked of him after he would go. In the night Balaam began to consult with his mind. The "Jehovah," (God — his mind) asked him: "Who are these men?" They are not very great and honorable men; and Balak himself is not a very great man — he is king only for the present time (as the Bible tells, he was king at that time). He is not from a royal family. His father, Zippor, was no king; and the Moabites themselves are not a very honorable nation, if we take their founder into consideration, who was born from the connection of a father and daugh- ter. To which the desire of Balaam's heart said: It makes no difference who or what they all are; the object that they desire I shall accomplish, is very great. " The people " that came out of Egypt cover the sight of the earth, " (that is, the whole world looks upon that people), and " now, if I curse that people, and overcome them, or only " drive them off, then the whole world will honor me," said Balaam's heart to his mind. To which the mind replied : "Thou shalt not go with them." And the heart said: "I need not go, I can curse them here." To which the mind replied: "Thou shalt not curse that people." "Why?" asked the heart. " Because they are blessed," answered the 90 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, mind. " They are blessed by a greater power than you possess. Your cursing will not affect them; and if it will not affect them, then the whole world will laugh at you." These, or such, was the conversations between Balaam and God (Jehovah — his mind), and that is what Balaam told the king of Moab in Num. 23: 20, 21 and 23. "And He "(God) blessed them, and I cannot reverse it. The Lord ' is with them. God brought them out of Egypt. Surely, " there is no enchantment against Jacob, nor is there any "divination against Isreal." In the morning, Balaam told the messengers that his Jehovah (the mind) did not permit him to go with them* Had he told them all that which his mind had told him, namely : that his mind did not let him go, because his cursing could have no effect on the Israelites, then Balak would not have sent the other messengers to him, instead of simply telling them that his mind did not allow him to go with them; implying that with others his mind would let him go. They told the king of Moab what Balaam told them. " He does not want to go with them;" hence, Balak sent more, and more honorable men to Balaam; and when they came to 'him his God (Jehovah — mind) told him in the night the time when man can communicate with his mind the best. Had you told the first messengers that you could not go with them, because the Israelites are blessed, and your cursing can have no effect upon them, the second messengers would not have come. But, as they have come to call you, you must go with them, for you cannot tell them now that your cursing will have no effect upon them. They will ask you why you have not said so to the first messengers. Hence, " get up and go with them," and if you do not wish that the world shall laugh at you, " then yoif shall do what I will tell thee." " And Balaam rose up in the morning, saddled his ass OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 9I " and went with the princes of Moab. And God's anger " was kindled because he went, and the angel of the Lord stood " in his way for an adversary against him, and he was riding "upon his ass and his two servants with him." The word, ass, is translated from the Hebrew word "H-m-r," pronounced " Chamoure," and the same three con- sonants are used for the word "Clay," pronounced " Chomer," and the same word designates the body, which is clay, as well as the materials of which a thing is made of. The ass that Balaam saddled was his own heart, or will, which comes from the clay. That is, he resolved to carry out the dictates of his heart. He not only went, as his mind told him he must go, but he went with the intention of cursing that people, and that is the meaning of what the Bible tells us. " He went with the princes of Moab," when they first came to Balaam. The Bible calls them the servants of Balak : " And Balaam said unto the servants of Balak," (Num. 22:18.) And on account of their success in inducing Balaam to go with them, the account thereof calls them princes. They believed, inasmuch as he went with them, he would certainly curse that people, and it would accom- plish the purpose which they thought it would; and he went with them in the same belief, and that belief came from the dictates of his heart — the ass that he rode upon — and that ass nobody else but he himself could saddle for him to ride, and being that the heart made him go, as if it car- ried him, it says that he rode upon it. The ass says to Balaam : " Am not I thy ass, that " thou rode upon me from thy youth until this day ? " (He- brew version.) A man certainly has the same heart from the time that he is born until he dies. The word, servant, is here translated from the Hebrew word " Naar," and means young, and is sometimes used to 92 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, designate a young servant, and the same word is sometimes used for the words, brought up. The two servants that it says were with Balaam on the ass, were the understanding of his mind and desire of his heart. In Genesis, 7:21, it is said : " For the formation of man's heart is evil from his " youth." (The word, youth, is here translated from the Hebrew word "Naar.") These two servants of Balaam could not possibly have ridden upon any other ass than that upon which Balaam himself rode. The word, angel, is translated from the Hebrew word "Maalach," and the word " Maalach " comes from the word " Maalocho," a work. There are two questions about every thing that a man is to do. (That is, if it is anything that requires an understanding to do it.) First. Is the man willing to do it? Second. Is he capable to do it, or has he the power of mind to do it? The will comes from the heart; the ability comes from the mind. If the will and the mind coincide that the thing shall be done, the mind becomes the actor that does the work. It has the whole work done before the eyes can see, or the hands touch any part of the work. Hence, the mind is the actor, the " Maalach " (the angel) that does the " Maalocho" (the work). And if the mind is not satisfied that the work or thing shall be done, or if the mind understands that it can not be done, it makes no difference how great the will to do the thing may be, the thing can not be done, and the mind at last destroys the will. It happens very frequently that a man starts to do a OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 93 thing without consulting his understanding. He undertakes to do it, because his heart prompts him to, but when he finds that his understanding tells or shows that it can not be done, he gives it up, or returns from his undertaking, and the giving up destroys the will — that is, the will stops prompting the man to do it. This was the condition in which Balaam was at the time his enigmatical angel (the mind), with his sword drawn (the power to destroy the will, which the mind possesses). The word sword is translated from the Hebrew word " h-r-b," pronounced '^ chereb," and that same word is used in the Hebrew language for the word " destroy," because the sword destroys. Balaam started to do a thing that was contrary to his understanding. The mind (the enigmatical god) told him not to curse the people, because they were blessed by a greater power, and his cursing would have no effect upon them. Had he said that to the first messengers that the king of Moab sent to him, the second messengers would not have come for him. His mind advised him to go with them because he had no excuse to give for not going, which advice was on condition that he should only do what the mind would tell him, and he rode out on his will to accomplish the desire of his heart — to curse the people; and to destroy that desire, the angel (the mind) had taken its sword (the power to destroy) and placed itself against the will. And when the will saw that its desire could not be accomplished, it refused to carry Balaam any further. He could not proceed, be- cause his will refused to carry him. He had neither mind nor will to proceed, nor could he return, for he had no excuse to oflfer to the Moabite chiefs who were with him. He could not tell them that his god (the mind) did not permit him to go, because he told them to stay over night 94 A COLLKCTION OF THOUGHTS, and he would consult with his mind. He, necessarily, must have told them in the morning that it permitted him to go. They probably would have done something worse to him than laugh. And thus he had a fence on each side of him. It often happens to man that the mind becomes inactive, dull and heavy. He feels a weight upon it at such times. Balaam's mind was in that condition at the time in ques- tion, and the mind saw that Balaam smote his allegorical ass, (probably by grumbling at or cursing his will for bringing him to that unenviable condition,) and the mind having heard what Balaam said to the ass: If he had had a sword (the power ot the mind) in his hand he would have killed the ass (the will). How would he have done it? By doing what his understanding would tell to him to do.* Then the mind began to act. The Lord opened the eyes of Balaam. The word " opened " is translated from the Hebrew word " Gal," which means " rolled off." (" Posach " is opened.) And the same word that in Hebrew denotes eye, is also used for the word fountain or spring, and the mind is often called in the Hebrew language an inexhaustible foun- tain. Hence, we say that the heaviness was rolled off from Balaam's fountain (the mind), and it began to work, and told Balaam to go along with the men, but that he should do what it, the mind, the worker, the angel, would tell him, which we are told Balaam did. *To call the mind by the name of sword, is of ten done in the Hebrew lan- guage. The Polish and Russian Israelites, who use a great many Hebrew words and phrases in their jargon, say of a man that is well educated and has a powerful mind, he is a " Chereve Chado," u sharp sword. Maimonide says, and he refers to others who said the same, that the "turning flaming sword *' which God hath placed to wat<;h the way to the tree of life "' means man's understanding, which cannot find the way to it. It turns hither and thither .about the subject in question. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 95 He told Balak his, Balaam's, cursing or his power of enchantment and divination had no effect upon the Israel- ites, because God had blessed them. (See Num., chap. 23.) Moses, the authors of the Talmud, Maimonide and all the eminent men that have existed in Israel up to the present time, agree that no man, w^hile living, ever saw God or an angel. What the prophets have seen, they saw either in a trance or in a dream while asleep, or in a pro- phetic dream which probably was something like what we call a trance, and could take place in day-time while awake. If Balaam had seen something under these circumstances which he thought was God or an angel, and a:tual]y be- lieved that God told him to go with the chiefs of Moab, he would have said to the angel, I must go; God told me to go; you cannot stop me from going; the same as he told to Balak and to his messengers: '• I cannot do other- " wise than my God tells me," instead of saying to the angel as he did: " If it displeases thee, I will return." The doings and sayings of Balaam are recorded in the Bible in this enigmatical manner for the purpose of enabling man to develop an understanding of the powers that he possesses. It is agreed by nearly all the Jewish commentators, including the authors of the Talmud, that when man subjugates his will to serve his mind, and ap- propriates these two powers to study divine things, his mind is tiien called the Spirit of God. Maimonide says, and supports what he says by what others who preceded him have said, that by the spirit described, I>avid wrote his Psalms, Daniel wrote what he did, and all the writing that we find in the Bible, except the Books of Moses and the prophets; and they also say that when a man appropriates his mind wholly to serve his body, he is a beast in the shape of a man. And if we 96 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, consider what the Bible tells us of Balaam's sayings and doings after he came to the king of Moab, in accordance with what has heretofore been said, we can plainly under- stand what we are told and gain some knowledge from it. Three times, from three different places, has Balaam attempted to curse the Israelites, and thought that, by offering the bullocks and rams which he did, God would enable him to curse or injure the Israelites. The first two times, it tells us in the English Bible, that he went up into a high place ; but the word high place is translated from the Hebrew word " shefTee," silently or meditatively. It also tells us that each time that Balaam went off, God met him and put a word in his mouth. And the third time, it says: " And Balaam saw that it pleased the " Lord to bless Israel; he went not as at other times to ." seek for enchantments, but set his face towards the wilder- " ness." That is, he wanted to see the future of Israel, which is obscure, as a thing that is in or behind a wilder- ness, and enchantment can tell nothing of the future. So we see that he spoke of the Israelites' future. Hence, he did not go to seek enchantment. And it does not say that God put a word in his mouth as it does in the other instances; but it says: "And the Spirit of God came upon him." That is, the will and the mind; and thereby foretold the remote future of Israel. It says: "Which saw the vision " of the Almighty falling into a trance, but having his eyes "open. How good are thy tents, O, Jacob! thy taberna- "cles, O, Israel! Water shall flow from his buckets, and " his seed shall be in many waters." The above was spoken in the future tense, and we see that what was said is true. The word water is frequently used for the law of God, as " living waters will come out " of Jerusalem ;" " Ho, every one that is thirsty, come ye OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 97 **• to the waters. * * Incline thine ear and come to me." Isa. chap. 54. The law of God, the water that Balaam spoke of, or Moses wrote about, flowed and flows now from Israel's buck- ets, and nearly all the people on earth drink of it. It makes no difference whether Balaam said it, or Moses or any one else simply wrote it, the present time proves beyond a doubt that it is true. " According to time, it shall be said of " Jacob and of Israel, what God hath done." The only answer that the world has to the questions of the inde- structibility and endurance of Israel is, it is the work of God. 98 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XIII. THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION OF MAN. " And God said, let us make man in our image as our " likeness" — (Hebrew); " After our likeness " — (English). The account of the creation of man is replete with questions. First. To whom did God speak when he said, " Let " us create man?" Second. According to what we know and b?I:eve oC God, He has neither image nor likeness. The first question cannot be answered by saying there are now, or were at the time in question, more than one God, and that he said to the others, " let us make man in " our likeness;" neither can it be said that He spoke to angels, " because it right thereafter follows: " And God " created man in HIS OWN image, in the image of God " created He him." The consultation about the creation of man was with others, and the plan was given out that man should be made in the image of all with whom the consultation was held about the making of man. He was to be made " in " Our image." How comes it that he was made in the image of One only? God created the man in His " Own image." Third. In the same verse it says: " In the image OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 99 " of God created He him, male and female created He them." From the account it cannot apparently be ascertained whether God made " him," man, alone, or male and female at the same time. And it cannot be said that He made the male first, and the female after that, and the account of the creation of male and female applies to two separate creations, because we have a subsequent account which tells how the female in question came into existence. Neither can the cause of these questions be laid to the writer of the account of the creation by saying, " he wrote as he understood it," as is said by some in regard to the apparent questions about the earth and its luminaries, because the questions themselves show that they are not from a cause of ignorance or error, but are apparent and willful contra- dictions, if they are not subjects that have some hidden meanings within themselves. The key to the answer to all these questions is in man himself, and in the word creation. Every animal con- sists of and has within itself four elements, namely : earth, water, air, and fire or heat. Man, in addition to these four elements which he also has, possesses a fifth element which enables him to articulate, reason and invent, and that element is. called " soul" by the language of man. Suppose A, B, C and D are working-men, and work for a man by the name of E. The employer says let A do this, let B do that, let C do the other thing, and let D help A. Each of these workmen would, it is reasonable to be- lieve, know what their employer meant, and no one could reasonably find fault with the language that E used in placing his men to work. But if all the four men were to lOO A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, work together at one and the same thing, and E, the em- ployer, should work with them, he would certainly have to say : Let us do, or make, this or that — " Let us make man," or anything else. And these are the same words that the writer of the biblical account of creation says God hath used to His workers, though God used no words at all, any more than the heart of man uses words when it speaks to him. He said: '' Let the earth bring forth;" " Let the waters bring forth abundantly;" " Let the air (the firmament) divide;" '' Let light be in the firmament." Thus the employer (God) ordered each of His workers to attend to his own work, and when it came to the making of man, a work wherein the employer (God) Himself had to work with His workers, the four elements that have not only helped to make man, but have also donated of them- selves materials for the body of man, — to them hath God said : " Let us make man in our own image and likeness." An image is that which we can see with our eyes, as an idol or a statue or a likeness is something that we can see with our eyes. We can make a likeness from words that we cannot see at all, but can readily comprehend. Air and heat we cannot see. We can only feel it. We cannot make an image or a statue from air nor from heat, but we can make a likeness of it on the mind by proper words. So long as the four elements are together in man he resembles heat and resembles air. We can feel and understand that he has these elements in him, and when these invisible elements depart from man ana leave the image (the statue), we then see that it is earth and we return it. Thus we find that man was made in the image of those that helped to make him, and to whom God said: " Let us make man." But man was not only made — he was also created. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. lOl We say, Dr. Mott invented the telegraph; the men who dug^ the holes, put up the posts and wires, and have done all the work that is perceptible, we say made the telegraph. The work of the inventor is the invisible part thereof, or the power which performs the work. The difference between invention and creation is, that the former must have materials, or power; the inventor only regulates the power and appropriates it for a certain pur- pose; and the latter is without materials and without any power, except that of the Creator him self. It will be noticed that the word " made " is used in speaking of the firmament, of the sun and moon, and of animals in general, except when it speaks of man: " And God made the firmament. And God made the two great lights. And God made the beasts of the earth." In speaking of man, both the word " made " or " make," and the word " created " is used. In speaking of the visible part of man to the workers, the elements which had the power the Creator gave them, and which power the language of man calls " the laws of nature, the word " made " is used : " Let us make." But after the workers have performed their part, they have put up their visible part of the telegraph, it became necessary for the inventor. Dr. Mott, to put in the invisible part, to demonstrate whether it would accomplish what was intended, i, e.^ what the account of the creation in question says that God did after the elements had produced the visible part of man, God put into him the invisible part — the soul — which is not made, but created, because it was not made of materials, nor by any power which already existed, except the power of the Creator Himself. The reason why the word " created'* is used in speak- ing of the creatures which the waters have produced, and I03 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, not the word "• made," as in speaking of the creatures that the earth has produced is, because the latter had the productive power in itself, while it was yet under the waters. The Creator gave the power to the earth at the time it was created, as we are told hy the first verse of the chapter in question: " God created the heaven and the earth." The word created, is making and giving to it the power which it needs to perform the purpose for which it was made; but we do not find the word cre- ated anywhere in connection with the seas, except when they were ordained to produce the creatures which they (the seas) did produce. Therefore is the word created used in speaking of the creatures that the waters have produced. The power to produce animals was given to the earth on the sixth day; therefore the word made was used in speaking of the animals which the earth had produced. Man is an animal and an element. He is an animal in his body, therefore the word made is used in speaking of his body: " Let us make man." And he is an element in his mind. His mind j^roduces ideas, and with the ideas which it produces, he appropriates powers which are not within himself, nor his, and makes them serve his will nnd purpose. And it is this that makes man a type of his own Creator. In sjDeaking of that elementary power which was given to man, the ^word created is used instead of the word made. The next question, in the biblical account of the cre- ation of man, is: Did God create " him " (man) first, or did He create " them," male and female, at one and the same time? The pronouns of the third person, masculine and pos- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. IO3 sessive, which stand for the names of the creatures in the first chapter of the English Bible, are mistranslations. " And every winged fowl after his kind.'* The words " after his kind," are translated from the Hebrew word " Lmin hw," (pronounced leminahow). The " h " denotes the feminine pronoun her, and the " w " denotes the mas- culine pronoun his ; and when the " h " and " w," as pronouns, are joined to one word, then they represent the common gender, " its." The phrase in question should read: "After its kind," instead of " his kind." " Let the earth bring forth living creatures after his kind." The last three words, " after his kind," are trans- lated from the Hebrew word " L-m-in-h," pronounced leminoh; and the proper translation of the word into . the English language is, " after her kind." The Hebrew word that denotes the English words, " after his kind," is " 1-m- i-n-w," and is pronounced " leminow." The pronoun of the masculine gender, third person, singular number, pos- sessive case, is not used in the Hebrew Bible to represent any of the creatures that the waters and the earth have brought forth. In the twenty-fifth verse, speaking of cattle and other living creatures (except creeping things), the pro- noun " her " is used in the Hebrew Bible; and in speaking of creeping things, it uses the pronoun " its." To make a proper translation, it would read : " And God made the beast of the earth after her kind, and cattle after her kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after its kind." It certainly cannot be reasonably disputed that, if ani- mals were ever created as the Bible says they were, they must have been created male and female, and why the masculine pronoun is not used is for the reason that the male parent of an animal cannot be traced, and does not I04 A COLLEC'lION OE THOUGHTS, even seem to know or ever recognize his own offspring, as the female parent does for a while, and the first-born is also counted from the mother; and as it is imperceptible to the eye which is the male and which the female of creeping creatures, it therefore uses a pronoun of the common gender, or " its," which, in the English language, is used in the place of a noun of the common gender. Male and female of mankind were also created at one and the same time, but as the genealogy of man is traced after the father, and he, the male parent, is the head of the family, therefore the masculine pronoun is made use of in speaking of mankind in the subject that we are now con- sidering, instead of the feminine as it does in speaking of other animal creatures ; and the reason that it says : " male " and female created He them," after it says: " He created " him," is that the male and the female of all other creatures were created separate from one another, and that is why their male parents have no natural attachment for their offspring, or for the female parent of their offspring ; and the body of the man, Adam, and the woman^ Eve, were at first made in one — they were both together — therefore it says: " created He him, male and female created He them,' and thus it is that the male parent of mankind has a natural attachment for his offspring and for the mother of his off- spring. " And He took one of his ribs " and made a woman, as we learn in the second chapter of Genesis, refers to the separation of the female from the male. The word " rib " is also a mistranslation. It is trans- lated from the Hebrew word *' Zle," (pronounced " Tzella,") and denotes a side. The same word is used in the Hebrew Bible to apply to sides of the Tabernacle, as " Shimei " went along on the hill's side" (2d Sam. 16:13); "The OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. IO5 *' door of the middle chamber was in the right SIDE;" " He covered them on the inside;" "And he covered them " on the inside with wood;" " The two leaves of the door." (i Kings, chap. 6.) The words "side" and "leaves" are translated from the same word that " rib" is translated from. If the English version of the Bible would read : " And He (God) took one " of his sides," instead of " one of his ribs," which, if prop- erly translated, would read so, the idea that Adam and Eve were created or made in one body, and were so until they were separated and a soul put in each of them, it would not seem so strange to those who know nothing of the " Tal- mud," as it may seem to them, because they may think that man always did believe and understand that part of the Bible as they do now. Maimonide, in his " Moureh Nebuchim," part 2d, chap- ter 30th, says the same thing, and further, that their backs were joined together; and that all this was done during what is called the sixth day of creation; and that nothing was changed after the time which is called the sixth day of creation. We may have occasion to speak more upon the same subject in the next chapter. The fact that the taking of the part, or rib, from Adam and the making of the woman thereof, is told in the second chapter, and the creation of the man is told in the first chapter, may be taken, by some, to contra- dict the idea and belief that they were both created at one and the same time; we therefore call the attention of the reader to the fact that the second chapter is a brief of and reference to the first chapter. It says: " These are " the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 106 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " they were created in the day that the Lord God made " the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field " before it vs^as in the earth, and every herb of the field " before it grew^." The garden of Eden, the eating of the tree of know^l- edge, and the sending out the man from the garden, was all done before the time that is called the seventh day of creation. (The author refers to it briefly for the pur- pose of coming again to the man and of giving his history up to that time, and to continue it further.) Nothing was added to or changed in the creation after the day of rest nor during that day. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I07 CHAPTER XIV. THE GARDEN OF EDEN; THE SERPENT; THE EATING FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE; THE TREE OF LIFE. The subject which we are now to consider is one of the many biblical subjects that have a visible body (the words of which it is composed), and a soul — the invisible meaning that the whole subject has, and, we may say, elements of that of which the words are composed. It is one of the subjects of which Maimonide, in the preface to his " Moureh Nebuchim," says: " Language is unable to " supply words to express what little the human mind is " able to perceive." And being that it is as that great philosopher has said, we will not attempt to convey to the reader the little knowledge which we believe that we pos- sess in regard to the sublime and infinite subject in ques- tion, by commencing to speak of, or examine, its invisible or infinite part; but we will first examine the body (the words as they show from their outside), and see if we cannot reconcile it with the human understanding of the subject in question, and that may aid us in our attempt to make a key-hole to the invisible part thereof. Let us, therefore, for a time, assume that God did plant a " garden eastward of Eden;" and that there was in it " the tree of life, and the tree of knowing good and " evil;" and that God placed the man in the garden and Io8 A COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, told him that he (the man) might eat of all the trees which were in the garden except " of the tree of the knowledge " of good and evil;" and that the man disobeyed the order of God and ate of the tree of knowledge; and that our ancestral Adam, because he ate of that tree, became as we are — mortal, and had the knowledge or power to discern between good and evil. Let us question none of these things. But what follows? " And the Lord God said, Behold, " the man is become as one of us to know good and evil; " and now he may put forth his hand and take also of the " tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore the " Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to " till the ground from whence he was taken." Here are questions which cannot be overlooked. Ad- am, after he ate of the tree of knowledge, became what we are now — mortal — and understood the difference between good and evil; but we are not as God; neither can we be as God, if we could live forever! If living forever, in our present state, could make us be what God is, why are we not what our moral perception tells us He is," while we do live? Our powers can certainly not be compared to His powers. We know that we, or our powers, grow in us stronger until we reach the middle age, and after that, we and they — our powers — become weaker and weaker each and every year. And when one of us lives a few years above the natural or usual age of man, he becomes a mere living skeleton, and the longer he lives, the weaker he grows. And if Adam was as we are, which we have great reason to believe, was not like God while he did live, how could he become like God, if he could or would have lived for- ever? According to the laws of nature, he could only be now a living skeleton. Hence we do not comprehend why OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. IO9 God prevented Adam from enabling himselt to live for- ever. If Adam had been alive to-day, he would be a living witness of all that the Bible says; and that, of itself, would have been of great benefit to man, whom God had and doth now desire to benefit. Wanting him to know of His — God's — doings, and through this knowledg^e of His doings know Him, as He commands us in the Bible: *' And thou shalt know the Lord." And for that purpose, the prophets were sent to man. (The garden of Eden is connected with the belief of a future life, and of which we will speak in a subsequent chapter.) The key t,o the questions, why God prevented Adam from living forever, and how he (Adam) could be " like one of us," or like God, is found in man's well-founded and more than reasonable belief in a future life, or in a life after the death of the body. Let us therefore reason this belief under a supposition. We will first consider the neg- ative side of the question and see in what condition man could be upon the earth, if he would positively know the thing, of which he now only thinks and believes, the same as he is positive of death. Suppose that the sight and comprehension of man are illimited, we will say he knows that there is no future life for him after the death of the body, and that he is as sure of it as he is sure of death itself. His condition then, while he is on earth, could be no more exalted than the condi- tion of one who is to be hung, and is sure there is no hope to escape the calamity, and knows the day and hour when he is to suffer death. The more protracted the time is from the period that he becomes sure that he will be executed, to the day of his execution, the more he becomes reconciled to his fate, and the less he thinks of it, and the more care must be taken not to give him an opportunity to take his own life. Give lim a pistol, knife or poison no A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, and he will make the day of execution come at once. Man would even be worse than the case just cited, if he could be as sure of his end and have no more hope in the future than the man in the convict's cell, for the latter has no need ot troubling himself for the necessities that are required to sustain life, while the former must. In short, man would no more stay upon the earth and await the day of his natural death, than the one that knows that he must be executed on a certain named day. He would not wait for that day, if he had a chance to take his life before the day designated by law comes. Life would, in general, be a burden to man; a mother would see all the trouble that her child would have to endure during this life, at the time that she gave birth to her babe, and the best thing that she could do for the child would be to take its life at once, and thus deliver it from pain and suffering. Death would be considered a relief to man, the same as when one suffers from a long sickness, and it is known for a fact that there is no other relief for him but death; and when the latter comes, it is accepted by all as a welcome visitor. We may be told that there are some men who say they do not believe in a future existence, yet life is very dear to them though they do not believe in any happiness after death. There are two answers to this view. First. They only say they do not believe it, because they are unable to explain or understand how a man can live after he is dead, and they do not desire to form, or to say they form, a belief upon biblical doctrine, because that class of men are anti-biblical, and their desire for life is sustained by the belief of the majority, or the gen- eral belief of mankind. Secondly. The subject is only a belief, and not a OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. Ill universally known or positive fact, the same as death is, upon which our supposition is based. Let us now consider the affirmative side of the ques- tion and learn what the chances for man to remain on earth would be. Suppose that man is as sure of a future as he is of death, (and he is as sure of it as he is that there is an inhabited country beyond the ocean, though he was never there,) and as these arguments are based on the supposi- tion that the sight and comprehension of mankind are illimited, we can therefore say that man could communicate with his friends who have departed from the earth and are living in the land of our belief, and would know that their happiness is greater than the human mind can compre- hend,- — would man, under these circumstances, stay long on the earth? Would he not at once separate his soul from the body and migrate to the world of everlasting bliss? Would not a mother as soon as she gave birth to a child send it to the land of eternal happiness rather than to keep it upon the earth subject to all the woes and troubles to which the body is heir? Would there be a mother foolish enough to stay on earth long enough to bring forth a child? The answers to these questions are so obvious to every one that we need not answer them. Thu? we see that, whether there is or there is not a future state of existence for man, he would not stay on earth where his Creator placed him if he could know all that he is now unable to know. The power of discrimin- ating between good and evil, which man naturally possesses, would cause him to abandon the place where his Creator placed him and journey to a place where his condition would be improved. -112 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Adam knew of the place that we, his posterity, believe in, for it is said that he was in it, but did not know how to separate the soul from the body. He never saw a dead person and did not know what death was, and we do not know of a tree the fruit of which can give to man eternal life. God said that if Adam should by chance eat of the fruit of the tree of life he would be as *' one of us," — spirits — and being a fact that we do know there are trees whose fruit is what we call poisonous, it separates the soul from the body. It is everlasting life to the soul, which is a part of God, but is death to the body. Consequently we say that the tree of life or its fruit was what we call poi- sonous, and if Adam had eaten of.it would have separated his soul from his body, and thus live a spiritual life and be as " one of us " (a spirit), and thus nullify part of the pur- pose of God's creation. He (God) therefore sent Adam out of the garden and placed " the Cherubs and the Flaming " Sword, which turns to watch (or keep) the way to the " tree of life;" and the fact that we are told that Adam was to die on the day that he ate of the tree of knowledge, and he lived nme hundred and thirty years after he was sent out of the garden of Eden, proves that the word " life " means a spiritual life, and the word " day " does not mean the time that is required for the earth to revolve around the sun, neither the day that is known to man on earth; and yet Adam died on the day that he ate of the tree of knowledge. To describe what death is, would be to say that man loses his sight, the mind forsakes him., the body becomes inactive and cannot remain in the land of the living, but must be returned to the ground from whence it was taken. That change took place in Adam on the very day that Adam ate of the tree of knowledge, or in the time OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. that Adam took for a day, that is, during the time that the sun was visible to man. As soon as he ate of the tree in question he became as we are, possessing the sensations of good and evil and the power of vision and comprehension was taken from him, he was afraid, it was said, and hid. The power of comjDrehension and . sight left him. Hence he hid himself. He no longer saw or comprehended that there was no place in which he could hide from God. The feeling of evil came upon him, and he was removed to the ground from whence he was taken. He could no longer stay in the land of the living spirit, any more than a dead body can stay in the land of living bodies. He became dead in spirit. Hence, as far as Adam was con- cerned, or knew of death, he was dead in spirit. He knew nothing of a bodily death, for the simple reason that he never saw one, and hence thought himself dead the same as we do when the body dies. The fact that he lived a bodily life of nine hundred and thirty years, is evidence that God meant an epoch, or time, which he calls a day, and a'S no man lived one thousand years. It may therefore be pre- sumed, as King David did presume, that a day of the Lord is at least one thousand years. Hence, as far as Adam knew of a day, he died, or the- change took place in him, on the day that he knew of, and the death of his body took place w^ithin the day of the Lord, which is no less than one thousand years, and the life that man now lives on earth, is the spiritual death that Adam died. Genesis 6:5 reads: " And the Lord saw that the evil of Adam (man) " is very great in the earth, and that every formation of " the resolutions of his heart is only evil the w^hole day." We have here given the Hebrew text: First. Because the English version of the Bible reads: " Evcrv imagination of the thouo:hts of his heart." 1 14 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, and we know that the heart neither imagines nor thinks. Secondly. In the Hebrew Bible it reads: " The " WHOLE DAY," and the Enghsh Bible reads, "continually." The words " all day " are expressed in the English Bible by the word "continually," and the words " all day," or " continually," embrace the whole time from the period that Adam was created until the time that God resolved to bring the flood, which was after Noah was five hundred years old, and that embraces a period of one thousand five hundred and fifty-six years, viz: From Adam to Seth one hundred and thirty, from Seth to Enos one hundred and five, from Enos to Cainan ninety, from Cainan to Mahalaleel seventy, from Mahalaleel to Jared sixty-five, fromjared to Enoch one hundred and sixty-two, from Enoch to Methusaleh sixty-two, from Methusaleh to Lam- ech one hundred and eighty-seven, from Lamech to Noah one hundred and eighty-two, from Noah to the time he had his three sons five hundred, and the whole of this time is called a day. From that we may contemplate what is meant by a day of the days of creation! And the fact that the account of creation tells us that there had been three evenings and three mornings before the sun was created, is evidence that the days of which the biblical account of creation speaks are different epochs than which it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. If the epoch of a day is no less than one thousand years, then the night must also be of an equal length of time, consequently the six days and six nights spoken of in the biblical account of creation could have been no less than six thousand years of day and six thousaud years of night, or twelve thousand years in all, and probably a great deal longer time, as we see of the day spoken of in the time of Noah, which is one thousand five hundred and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. fifty-six years, and that may be but part of a day, for one thousand years are but a part of the day spoken of by the Creator Himself, or known but to Himself, and spoken of by man; and during the unknown length of time that the six days of creation includes, but which can be • no less than twelve thousand years. And during that^ time, and the time that the earth was under water, which is, from the time that it was created until the waters were gathered off from it — could form itself in the water — all that the science of geology has discovered and which proves that the earth and some creatures that were on the earth, as well as plants, have existed on and in the earth longer than six thousand years or less, which time is counted from the time that man has lived upon earth, and no relics of any human being have as yet been found which scientifically prove that man existed on the earth before the biblical ac- count of creation; and therefore we maintain that science, instead of disproving the Bible, simply disproves the pre- tended knowledge that some men say they have of the Bible. The ancient biblical Jewish scholars have said that, without the knowledge of natural science, man cannot un- derstand the Bible, and therefore they have understood the former as well as the latter. We have wandered away from the subject of this chapter for the purpose of fulfilling the promise we made in a former chapter, as to the length of the days of crea- tion, and to see how it agrees with the scientific geological discoveries. Having had an opportunity to fulfill that promise in connection with the subject of this chapter, we have done so, and will now return to our subject proper. We have shown from the outside part, or the body of the subject in question, that if Adam had eaten of the tree of life his posterity would not be on earth to tell the fact that there ever was ©n earth such a creature as man, and have I l6 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, also explained the death that Adam I'icd on the day that he ate of the tree of knowledge; and that everything took place as the words or body of that part of the biblical ac- count says; and if we or any man could, or ever did, know the place where the garden in which the tree of knowledge and the tree of life were planted, we would say that Ave have accomplished our purpose, and abandon that subject. But as the garden in question is unknown to man, of the present age, we will endeavor to open up the subject upon which the main body of argument Is built, and demonstrate if the spirit thereof will indicate to us the location of the garden in question, and make that the subject of the chap- ter followino:. OR KEY TO SCKIPTUKE. CHAPTER XV. WHERE THE GARDEN OF EDEN IS, AND WHAT IT IS. WHAT THE SERPENT IS, OR WHAT THE HIDDEN MEANING OF THESE WORDS IS. " And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden." This is the way it reads in the Enghsh version of the Bible. We will have to refer to the Hebrew words as we proceed, hence we will not insert them here. To say that there is a garden eastward in Europe, would be evidence that he who said or wrote it must have meant either east of Europe or in the east part of Europe. The Hebrew text of the Bible reads: "A garden " in Eden of the east," or " from the east." The word eastward is translated from the Hebrew word " K-d-m," (pronounced kedem,) with the prefix of the letter M, which means of, or from. The word " Edn " means time. In Daniel, 7:25, it says: " Until a time and times." The word time is there translated from the Hebrew word " Edn," and the word times from the Hebrew word " Ednin," (pronounced edo- nin.) The " in " forms the plural, times. The word "Ed" is an adverb of time, until, and a repetition of the same word with the letter I after the first one, as " Edi-ed," means forever. Hence we say, and we have no fear of being successfully contradicted, that the word Edn means time. We write the word as it is in Hebrew, without the E after Il8 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the D.) Hence we say that the bibhcal account of the garden in question says that " God planted a garden in time." The word " Eastward " is translated from the Hebrew word " Mkedm " (pronounced Mekedem). There are no vowels m that word in the Hebrew lans^uaoe. The oriof- inal word is '' k-d-m," which means, before. The letter M which is prefixed to the word means " from." The prefix and the word itself mean " from before," instead of eastward, though that word is sometimes used for and with the word east, because the sun is seen in " M-s-r-h," east, and that word comes from the word " S-r-h," shining. M is a prefix to the word, and the meaning of the word is from, shining. It is, we believe, theretore, very reasonable to con- clude that the biblical account of the garden in question says that man came into existence, or means to say that before man came into existence God planted a garden " In Time " (Mekedem, Heb.), and in that garden God placed the man, and that the tree of life and the tree of knowing good and evil were planted in the garden. That garden still exists and will exist in all times that man shall remain on the earth. A garden is a place wherein different plants, fruits and flowers are growing, and usually an enclosed place. Man's mind is very productive; the finest ideal plants, fruits and flowers are growing in it, as well as the tree of spiritual life and the tree of knowing good and evil. It has been demonstrated in the former chapter that the power of discriminating between good and evil would make man remove himself from the earth into the habitation of spirits, if he could see or know the way to the tree or place OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I19 of spiritual life, and for the purpose that he (man) shall not know thereof, so long as it is the will of his Creator to keep hiin on earth, the Cherubim with the flaming sword which turns every way was placed " to keep the way o^ the tree of life." A cherub is represented to the eye as a bird with long wings; it represents swiftness. No man ever saw one, dead or alive, except what the prophets have seen in their prophetic visions, and the golden Cherubs that were placed over the mercy seat. However, it always represents swiftness , and there is not a thing within the knowledge of man that is swifter, or that can fly as high as mans' mind can. In chapter thirteen, while speaking of the " angel and the sword in his hand," which stood in the way of Balaam, we have demonstrated and explained that the mind of man is called angel and sword, and will not therefore enter into it here; but say that the mind of man is the " Cherub and flaming sword that turns every way and keeps the way to the tree of life," hidden from man, as was demonstrated in the preceding chapter. If man could be as sure of the tree of (place of spiritual) life as he is " of the tree of knowing good (the life of the body on earth) and evil," (the death of the body), he would not stay on earth. The instability and the turning of man's mind on the subject of spiritual life, or future existence, is what makes man choose the good of the bodily life, and dread the known evil of the bodily death. Had it not been for this, and for the fear of disobeying the order of the Cre- ator, that man shall till the earth until he shall have to be returned to it, mankind would, long before this time, have migrated into " the tree of (place of spiritual) life." Man " dresses," (tills or cultivates) his mind, (Eden, the garden of time), the same as he does the ground. If he neglects to cultivate the latter, it produces bad fruit, or 120 A COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, no fruit at all, and the result of his neglect is, the body has nothing to live upon, and if he neglects to cultivate the mind, it produces no food for the spirit to live upon HI the everlasting garden of time (Edn). A penetrating key-hole may also be made into the four rivers which w^ent out of Edn, or the one river that w^ent out from " Edn " to w^ater the garden, and from thence it separated into four heads (as the " gold bdellium and the onyx stone, of the land of Havilah "). But w^e have seen no opening to it, made by any one that has pre- ceded us, and we cannot proceed further than they did. It IS twilight, and the eve before Sabbath — time and necessity for the mind to rest. We have opened a key- hole in the subject, large enough for the reader who has penetrative sight to observe and look into the subject as tar as his sight will enable him, and will conclude the subject by boring a hole into the word " Serpent," which is also a part of the body of the subject in question, and who. takes a very industrious part in the affairs of mankind. The word " serpent " is translated from the Hebrew word " N-h-sh " (pronounced nochosh), and is used in the Hebrew language for the word convinced, or experienced, as the English version of the Bible reads that Laban, in speaking to Jacob (Genesis 30:37) says: " I have learned by experience." The whole quotation is translated from the Hebrew word " N-h-sh-ti," the suffix, ti, stands for the pronoun I, and indicates the tense. And it also means foretelling, as we find Joseph's ser- vant told to the sons of Jacob, when he accused them of stealing the silver cup. Gen., chapter 44, verses 5th and 15th: "And whereby, indeed, he divineth " (foretells), and Joseph said to them: ^' Wot ye not that such a man OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 121 as I can certainly divine " (foretell). The word divine, in both places, is translated from the word " n-h-sh." In Num., chapter 24th, verse ist. Balaam did not go to seek for " enchantments," (N-h-sh-im). The im forms the plural number. And wherever the word enchant, divine or foretell is found in the English Bible, it is translated from the word n-h-sh. And the reason why a serpent is called, in the He- brew language the same name that is applied or used to express enchantment, divination and foretelling is, because these things come from within, and the injury that these things do to a person or thing is invisible. The sting of a serpent is the same; he takes nothing from the body that he, the serpent, injures. On the contrary, he adds to it his own poison, which comes from within himself. His sting is not like the bite of any other ferocious animal, which takes part of the body of the animal that he bites, and leaves an open wound in the body. Enchantment, evil counsel and the evil imagination of man's own heart, don't take anything from him who tries to be benefited by them, consults them, or on whom they, or either ot them, operate, but impart in him part of their own poison, the same as the serpent does. Eve, the mother of mankind, followed the desire of her heart, and she was stung by the imagination of her own heart. She felt the sting of re- morse. " Slander stings the brow." — Pope. Webster, in defining the word stung, says: "To pierce with a sting, or the weapon with which certain an- imals are furnished, such as bees, wasps, scorpions and the like. 2. To pain accutely, as the conscience is stung with remorse. Stinger; one who, or that which, stings, vexes 122 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, or gives accute pain;" and it is well known that anything which is deceitful, insinuating, cunning or sly, is called snaky. (See Webster's Unabridged.) The Bible has been given to man for his benefit; and the benefit which man derived from the biblical account of the allegorical account of the garden of Eden and all that it tells about it is, that man shall study it, ascertain its meaning, and by so doing he will ascertain the power of his mind, so that he may know what man is; and the knowledge of himself will and does create in him a desire to know his Maker, Gcd. To make an epitome of the whole would be thus: Man's mind, which is the machin- ery of the soul, is the garden which God hath planted " from before " (Mikedem, Heb). '* Time ', (Eden). The soul, which is part of God, did exist before time existed, or before the time that man came into existence. Man, or the body of man, is the ground from which everything grows or comes out. The mind of man produces ideas, the same as the ground produces everything that grows and the minerals which are found in the ground. The pro- ductive power of the mind, or the power of thought, is the one stream which it says comes out of the garden of " time " (Eden), and that stream or river, after it comes out of the power of thoughts, into the mind, it separates itself into " four heads." " The name of the first is Pison, which compasseth the land of ' Havilah,' and there is gold." The land of Havilah and the river Pison are un- known; neither are the meanings of the words known. But we do know that the natural, or first thoughts of man, are good. They are gold — " And the gold of that land is good." After it is refined, it makes no difTerence in what land gold was found, it is of the same value ; that is, one is as good as the other. The very fact that it says, " And the gold of that land 4s good," is self-evidence that OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I23 the author of the subject in question did not mean the gold that is found in the earth, but shows that the word gold is used allegorically ; and the reader will please take the trouble to ascertain what Bdellium is, which it says is also found in the land that is surrounded by the river Pi-. son, or the first head of the river that came out of Edn to water the garden. Let every man contemplate his own thoughts, and he will find out the four heads into which the river in ques- tion did and does part itself. We believe he will find that one of these rivers sur- rounds a land which has in itself more valuable produc- tions than gold is; and he will find that one of these streams is black enough to be the land of *' Ethiopia " itself, not only to surround that allegorical land ; and we are sure he will have no trouble to find the other two streams. And if the reader should — which we believe he will — find that the stream which waters his garden (mind) divides itself after it leaves the garden into more than four streams, we therefore w^ill inform him beforehand that each one of the four heads subdivides itself into more than one small stream, and these small streams ru.n in any and every direction that the possessor thereof wants them to run; and why the Bible divides it into four heads only, is because there are but four directions known to man, namely: east, west, north and south. And it makes no diflference in what part of the earth a man is, the great river that came out from Edn waters his garden, which God hath planted from before (Mkdm) God placed the man in that garden (con- dition), and brought and brings to him (to his understand- ing and sight) all that He hath created ; and what the man (Adam) " called " or calls it " was " or is its name. And in that garden grow all the trees that are pleasant to the 124 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, eyes or sight, and good for food (for the mind), '* and the " tree of Hfe (eternal) also within the garden, and the tree " of knowledge of good and evil." The same author, in the Book of Deuteronomy, chap- ter 30th, verse 15th, says: " See, I have set before thee " this day life and good, and death and evil;" and the 16th verse of that chapter tells what he did set for them, which is: " In that I command thee this day to love the Lord " thy God, to walk in His ways and to keep His com- *' mandments." And this is the tree of life and the tree of knowledge; and it is said in the same book, chapter 4th, verse 6th: "Keep, therefore, and do them; for this is " your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the "nations." The serpent is, as has heretofore been explained, the evil inclination of man's heart, which " was evil from his youth," that winds itself around the man and beguiles him to use the streams which flow from the great river that comes out from Eden (the soul which endures through all time), of which man has the control, to water and make grow the desire of the body, instead of watering the tree of life which is in the midst of the trees that are pleasant to the eye. The general inclination of mankind to care for his body is the allegorical eating of the tree of knowledge; and the female is an object to which the inclination of the body is more than to anything else, and which controls more and has a greater power over man than anything else, and to whom man is more subjected than to anything else, because she is of his own body. She is therefore made the allegorical object to speak with the allegorical serpent, and partake of the tree of knowledge herself, and give to her husband, too. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 12' The saying ot the woman, " The serpent beguiled me " and I did it," is the same as saying the desire of the body brought me to it. And what Adam said, " The ^' woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me " of the tree and I did eat," is the same that men say every day — " I have done this or that because I have to support " my wife and children." There are many evils which man does and lays the blame to, or makes it to have been an indispensable necessity for him to do so on account of his wife and children. Our explanation of the whole subject Is not new. It was well known to, and partly expressed by, those who have studied it. Maimonidc says it is not as it reads. The Talmud says that the serpent was as big as an ass. (We have in a former chapter explained that the ass which is represented to have spoken to Balaam was only the in- clinations of his, Balaam's heart.) And in speaking of the tree of life the Talmud says: " A man has to walk five " hundred years to reach the tree of life; and all the waters '' of the creation are under it, and from there separate and " go in every direction;" and concludes by saying that all the wisdom that a man can learn on earth is what is called the tree of life. And all this must have been well known to the Jews at all times, as it Is now to those who know anything at all of Judaism. (A brief quotation from It Is even found In their prayer-books, or prayers which they say on the second day of the feast of Booths.) And the placing of man in the garden of Edn don't mean that God placed him from one place Into another, but from one con- dition to another. The enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent which it speaks of, and which was to be and is, denotes the enmity that exists between good and 126 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, evil. The thief goes to steal and hiys his plans in disguise; he hides hiinself in any hole or corner where he can crawl in; he sneaks like a snake or serpent. The murderer does the same. The highwayman can accomplish his schemes in no other way. They injure the body (bruise the heel). Their deeds are the seeds of the serpent — the evil inclina- tions of their hearts. The punishment they receive for bruis- ing the heel of man is, they lose their moral and divine part of man — the soul, which is the head ot man And the punishment which these serpents receive comes from the head of man. The laws which man enacts, by which these serpent-like evil doers are punished, come from the head of man. Laws are enacted by man according to his moral comprehension between right and wrong; and that power is in the head, or in the soul. Thus, evil doings (serpents) come from the body (the inclinations of the heart) and injure the body (bruise the heel); and the punishment it receives comes from the head, the soul, which is always spoken of in the feminine gender, and is therefore repre- sented by the name of the woman (Eve), and bruised the head of the serpent, wickedness. We will now turn our attention to the sons of Adam, and see how and why Cain killed Abel, and why Seth, and not the others, was born in the likeness and image of his father, Adam. OR KEY TO SCKIPTURK. 1 27 CHAPTER XVI. CAIN, ABEL, SETH, ENOS, AND ENOCH, UP TO NOAH. Adam had, and man has, three sons, Cain, Abel and Seth. One, Cain, tilled the ground; the other, Abel, raised stock; and the third, Seth, was in the image of his father, man, Adam; and that son was born when Adam, man, was already one hundred and thirty years old, and after Cain killed Abel. Cain represents the man who tills the ground and depends on the soil for his support in the world.* When he got him at his place in the field he killed him; and Cains, or such men, are fugitives and vagabonds in the land. Abel is the representative of the man who has under- standing, and don't depend on the ground or his strength * Wo don't roprc'scnt, nor doc? the subject itself represent, the educated and scientitic agriculturist of America, or of the present time; it means the agriculturist of the dark ages. In our young days, we have known men in Russia who have plowed the ground, but knew as much of anything else besides plowing the ground— as much as the oxen knew, with which they plowed; he represents the power which it requires to plow and till the ground. An ox has more of that power in him than man has. He knows nothing of the Lord (reason and understanding, which is of the Lord, the; Lord or of the Lord), he has no respect for reason or understanding, and reason don't respect his or him. Hence He (the Lord) had not respect for the offerings of Cain, and Cain was wroth." The very picture of wild ignorance. If any of our readers doubt this analogy, lee them try to show disrespect to an Indian, where the latter knows that he is at home, as Cain was, in the flc d. He will not only be con- vinced of our analogy, but he will also find out why the name of serpent (n-h- s h) is used for ihe word convinced, as Laban did in speaking of Jacob. 13$ A COLLECTION OP' THOUGHTS, of the body, for his support, as Cain does. His mind brings forth ideas. He is a " herder of sheep." He appro- priates his entire mind for the use of his body. He makes the Bible and laws which God hath designated for the soul to perform wdiile it is in man, to serve his body, bus- iness. He takes it all to Cain (the body), into the field. He respects reason (the Lord), and the Lord respects his offering. It helps him. Reason serves him. But while he is attending the body (Cain), the latter kills him, the man. The soul is the thing that makes man; and that part of man is killed by the body, Cain. (Maimonide and oth- ers say that such men are brutes. They are a little above an ape, and far below man.) God and reasonable men protest against the killing of the soul of Abel by his body (Cain) in the field of the body. Seth, the third son of Adam (man), who was born after the killing of Abel by Cain, and after the father, Adam (man), was one hundred and thirty years old, is the representative of man, who is the agent of God the Cre- ator of heaven and earth, and everything that is in it, as well as everything that belongs to it, and to what it be- longs. An agent, overseer or superintendent must know and understand the thing of which he is the agent, overseer or superintendent. Hence man must understand the earth, what he sees from it or wdiat belongs to it, and what it belongs to others from it; because all belongs to the same owner, God, the Creator of all. And above all, he must know the proprietor, the owner of all, his principal, and must keep a record of all the transactions in the business of which he is agent, overseer or superintendent; and as such officer, he is accountable to the proprietor, not only for himself, but also for what he allows others to do. The man OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I29 to whom God hath given the most understanding, is the highest officer, and is therefore responsible for the doings, or non-doings, of his subordinate officers (fellow men). The Bible is the inventory of all that man has in his pos- session or under his control, as well as the official record of his predecessors in office, and the biography of his principal, God. A man who is neither a Cainite nor an Abelite, but is what Seth represents, attends to his body, the same as he does and must do to his house, in which his body lives, or which his body must have to live in; and the rest or all of his time he spends to the business of his principal in his official capacity. Man's position on earth is the same as the position of a minister, sent by one government to represent that gov- ernment at the court of another government. The minis- ter that represents the government of the United States at the court of England, France, Russia or any other coun- try, is considered, while there, as if he had been in his own country. Whatever he does, is the doings of his gov- ernment; and what is done to him, is considered as done to the government that he represents. If he violates the laws of the country wherein he is, he may be punished by the laws of that country, if his government gives its con- sent to it. And if he violates the laws of the government which he represents, while he is representing it at the court of some other government, his home government calls him home and there it deals with him according to his deeds. ' God hath given man the right and power to make laws and regulations in conformity with His (God's) laws for the government of man, which laws are to protect the rights of each and every man. If the representative of 130 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, God, man, violates any of the laws made by man, or any of the laws of God which He made for the protection of man's rights, such as murder, theft and the like of it, he, the one that violates any of these laws, is punished by the government of man, by and with the consent of God, whose government man represents on earth. And if man violates any of the laws of God, such as observ- ing the day of rest, or in any way neglecting the duty which he owes to his government, God, by which the rights of any other man are not injured, his government, God, brings him home and deals with His representative, man, in accordance with his doings. And this is the teaching of religion; and if religion is wrong, as some scientific men say, then the scientific and civilized govern- ment of men is also wrong. The Bible is the document or credentials of man's title to his office, which he holds while he is on earth. It makes no difference by what name man calls the ideas which the Bible conveys to him. Religion, or what man calls religion, teaches man to elevate himself and be equal to the position that he holds while he is on earth, and to make himself worthy to be the representative of the great government of God. That idea is represented in the biblical history of man in speaking of Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth, up to Noah, and that is what the Bible means by telling us that God brought everything to Adam, man, " and whatever Adam (man) called it, that is its name." Let us now return to our subject, Seth. His mother called him Seth, says the Bible, " because God gave me other seed, she said." It may be asked, how did she know that he might not be the same as Cain or Abel? The same question may be asked, how did Lamech know to call his son Noah, saying *' This same. shall comfort us concerning- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 13! " our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground " which the Lord hath cursed." The same may be asked, how did Eber know to call his son Peleg? But the last answers all. It says: " For in his days was the earth divided." The last quotation shows that the name was given to him after the act which his name designates took place. But if the act took place before he was born, then it could not have taken place in his days; consequently we say that the record is self-evidence that the act after which he was named took place some time after he was born, and he was named after the act subsequent to its taking place. The same may be said to have been the case with Noah. He may not have been called Noah until after God told him there was going to be a flood, and it was going to destroy the whole earth on account of the wickedness of man. Otherwise how could his father know to call him that name, and state the reason for naming him so? It is the same as we are told the case was with Jacob; he was named Israel after he prevailed over the angel. The same is the case with Esau; he was not called Edom until after he sold his birthright to Jacob. And that must have been the case with Seth; his mother could not have said that God gave her other seed in place of Abel until she saw that his actions were different from the actions of Abel or Cain; and we are told that Adam had a number of sons and daughters besides the three that are named. There are four words in the Hebrew language which designate the noun man, namely : Adam, Enos(or Enosh), Ge- ver and Ish. The first (Adam) means man in general ; the sec- ond (Enos) is, as if it had an adjective of the positive degree joined to it. " What is man that thou art mindful of him?" — Psalms, 8. The word man in the quotation is translated from the word *' Enos." The third, " Gever," is a higher degree. " Blessed is the man that trusteth in 132 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, God." The word man in this quotation, is translated from the word " Gever." It is a higher degree. He trusteth in God. And the word '•' Ish " is the highest de- gree of man. Wherever the word man is connected or joined to the name of the Deity, as " the man of God," the word man is translated from the word " Ish." Moses is called "Ish" the (man Moses); or when the adjective righteous, or just, is joined to the word man, the word man, in the Hebrew, is Ish. Noah is called " Ish." We will now review the historical names ot the Bible from Adam till Noah, or only those that are of some im- portance, or have some bearing upon the subject in ques- tion. The name of " Adam " denotes ground. Cain comes from the word purchase. Eve said, " I have purchased a man from the Lord." (The word gotten in the English Bible is a mistranslation.) A thing 'that is purchased is a chattel, not a man, a mere power, as his occupation des- ignates, a tiller of the soil. The word *' Abel " is the only word that designates vanity. The man that appropriates his entire understanding to the service of his body is certainly vain. Hence he, Abel, is the representative of that class of men whose vanity kills their manhood. Seth was the aj^pointee, that he shall be the father of man. He was called Seth, because his mother said, " God hath appointed me another seed." His son was named *' Enos," which is the lowest degree of man. There are eight generations from Enos till Noah. And there are four generations from " Enos " to " Enoch," and four from the latter to Noah. The word " Enoch, " in the Hebrew language, means training. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I33 " Train up a child the way he shall go." — Prov. 22. The word train is translated from the same word that the noun Enoch is. Enoch is the man who walked with God, and the account says that he " walked with God after he begot Methuselah," or when he was sixty-five years old. And when he was three hundred and sixty-five years old, God took him. From what it tells of Enoch, and from the position in regard to the number of the generations between Enos and Noah, that is ascribed to him, and be- ing that it don't say that he was just or righteous, as it does of Noah, is to be implied that he was in the com- parative degree to Enos; that is, he was of a higher de- gree than Enos, and lower than Noah, or was of the de- gree that is expressed by the noun " Gever," which is between " Enos " and " Ish." Noah is called " Ish." We think that it is due to the reader that we shall make him aware of the purpose for which we went into the examination of the names of men named in the within chapter, and the object or use of knowing whether the English word man is translatad from the Hebrew words " Adam, Enos, Gever," or from the word "Ish." We have three purposes for it: First, — It will be indispensable for the reader to know of it, when we come to speak of the Levitical laws. Second. — To show that the Bible is a school-book and was given to man for the purpose that he may learn to be what his position requires him to be, and what his Creator gave him power to make himself to be. Third. — For the purpose of enabling ourselves to prove by the histories of other nations, and by newly made scientific discoveries, the truth of the fiicts which the J^ible tells us, though it speaks enigmatically. The last will appear when we come to inquire into the fiood, in the daya of Noah. And the second we will 134 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, explain here, and with it conclude this chapter, as well as the biblical account of the creation. Enoch (or train), who occupies the middle position in jDoint of time, and the comparative or middle degree in quality between Enos (of the positive degree) and Noah (of the superlative degree), " walked with God " after he became sixty-five years old, or after he begat his son Me- thuselah, and when he became three hundred and sixty-live years old he " walked with God, and he was not, for God " took him." The questions which the world, or the men in the world, ask, are; What is the meaning, "he walked " with God "? What does it mean, " God took him" ? If he died at the age of three hundred and sixty-five, why don't it say so? If God took him alive, the same as the Bible tells of Elijah, why don't the Bible inform us of it, the same as it does of the latter? The answer to these questions is, he (Enoch) did not die at the time he was three hundred and sixty-five years old, neither did God take him from the earth into the heavens alive. When he was sixty-five years old he began to walk in the way that God desires man to walk. It is the same as it tells of Abraham: " And when Abraham was ninety-nine years " old the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, WALK BEFORE ME, " AND BE PERFECT." Gen., chap. 17. And that was the case with " Enoch;" when he was sixty-five years old, or after he begat Methuselah, he began to train himself to be or to become perfect, and was then or there called Enoch, which means training. A man who appropriates his soul for the use of his body, and for noth- ing else, is imperfect; he is an animal, but not a man. As has several times heretofore been explained and expressed, he is an Abelite and not of the posterity of Seth. And at OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I35 the time he became three hundred and sixty-five years old he became perfect, " and he was not;" that is, he was not what he had been, nor what his generation was; as it says of' Noah: " Noah was a just man, perf^'ct in his gen- erations " And Enoch became perfect in his generation when hf became three hundred and sixty-five years old. The word God, used in connection with Enoch and with Noah in the quotations of the latter, is translated from the Hebrew word " Alohim," which means power. He, Enoch, w.ilked or followed the dictates of his mind and not ihe evil desire of his heart; hence "he was not " what the rest of men of his time were, " for the Alohim (the power of his mind or soul, which is of God,) took him." This subject will have to be referred to when we come to speak of the death of Moses, hence we will now turn our atten- tion to Noah, and to the flood which is said to have taken place in his days. 36 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XVII. NOAH AND THE FLOOD. In the preceding chapter we have demonstrated that the names by which certain men are called in the history that the Bible gives of them are not the names that were given to them to distinguish them one from the other, as John or James, but they are names which designate their position, character or occupation, as " Enos," man, not a child. It differs from Adam, because the latter includes men, women and children. Next to Enos is " Gever," which means a man who possesses some qualities, either of strength or character, of which " Enoch " is the represent- ative. He was above Enos and below Noah. The appel- lation of the latter is " Ish," from w^hich the noun man in connection with Noah is translated; and that is the highest degree of man. And that appellation is not given to Noah without being qualified. It says: "Noah was a iust man," (Ish, Heb.) Next comes the qualifica- tion: " Perfect in his generations." Had he been in the generations of Abraham, Isaac, Tacob or Moses he might not have been considered perfect. All these and the like of it has been inserted in the Bible that man may study and know what he has to be. If man has now more knowledge, or better facilities to obtain it, than what Noah had, he must be more perfect than Noah was. But he must have had another name than Noah; that name desig- nates comforting or rest, as the Bible tells us his father said : OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I37 " This name shall comfort us concerning our works and " the toil of our hands because of the ground which the " Lord hath cursed." We have no history nor any other evidence that God ever told to any man before He told Noah that He, God, would or did destroy the earth and all the work that is on it; and God did not tell it to Noah until after the latter begat his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, who, as the account says, were not all born before their father was five hundred years old, as we are told by the last verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis. How could his father know to give to his newly-born son a name which should designate a circumstance of vvhich nobody knew, before it was told to the child in question five hundred years after he was born, and which did not take place before that child was six hundred years old? See Gen., chap. 7th. And not only does the account say that he was called Noah, but it gives the reason why he was so called, and the reason which it gives designates the condition in which the child in question was after he was more than six hundred years old. He was six hundred. It says, when he went into the ark, and he was more than a year in the ark before he was safe on dry land again. Columbus Is called the discoverer of America. Wash Ington is called the father of this country, %he United States. But it is certain that the former was not called the discoverer of America until after he had discovered it, and the appellation of father of this country was not given to the latter until after he proved himself by his acts to be a father to It; and it is also certain that the name of Noah was not given to the person in question until the action, acts, which that name designates took place, or be- came known to him or those who o-ave him that name. « 138 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, We have thus far shown the meaning of " He walked with God," which the Bible tells us of Noah as well as it does of Enoch; and that he whom the Bible calls Noah must have had another name by which he was known besides the name of Noah, which he could not have had before he or any one else knew anything of the flood, and that he would be saved therefrom, which was not known to any one nor to him before he became five or six hundred years old. We will now direct our attention to the flood. The flood of Noah, as it is often called, is one of the biblical points at which the " Abelites," who appropriates their manhood (Ish), which designates or comes from the soul, to their body (Cain) who kills their soul, while they are witli him (Cain) in the field. They, and every one of them, attacks the Bible upon the question of the flood. The author of the " Age of Reason " says that if there had been such a flood, and if Noah had been saved, as the Bible says he was, the name of Noah would have been in every family. Bishop Colenso', in his attack upon the Pentateuch, says that he told the " flood story " to a simple minded African domestic boy, and he could not make him believe that there could go into the ark a male and female of all kinds of beasts and fowls that are in the world. Hence, he concludes the Bible is not true. But let us ex- amine the b^lical account of the flood, irrespective of what this dignitary of the Church of England, or any one else of that class had said or says. Let us first examine what the Bible itself says about it, and see if it is as unnatural and unreasonable as they, the Abelites, say. " And the Lord said, I will destroy the Adam (man), " Whom I have created, from the face of the earth. The " earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was " filled with violence. God looked upon the earth, and be- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE, ^k* i5S ^^^'^ 1^9 " hold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way " upon the earth." " And behold, I will destroy them with the Earth." Gen., chap. 6th. From what we have here quoted from the Bible, it is plainly perceived that the flood was brought upon the earth to destroy man (Adam) and the earth with it. " I will destroy them with the earth," because of the wicked- ness of man. And Noah (who was an " Ish," not an " Adam"), " found grace in the eyes of the Lord " and was saved. America is the western half of the earth; and if an historian would say that the Romans or any other nation had control of the whole earth, and was speakino; of a time before America was known to the world, it could certainly not be construed that he, the historian, meant to say that the Indians of America were also con- trolled by the Romans. But the historian would, never- theless, be justified in saying the whole earth, though one -half of the earth was then altogether unknown to the Romans. And it is the same with the flood. It was brought upon the earth because the men that were then upon the earth were wicked; they were only Adams (ground); they only went after the formation of their hearts, like any creature. Hence they are called " flesh," in common with all other creatures; and Noah, who was not an " Adam," but an " Ish," was saved. " For thee I have seen right- eous before me in the generation." Thus because he was not as wicked as the rest he was saved. Man was the one that " corrupted " the earth ; conse- quently the earth, or the part of it that was not inhabited by man, was not corrupted, and was therefore saved from 140 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the destruction of the flood, the same as Noah was, because he was not wicked .* Bishop Colenso says that the third generation of the seventy IsraeHtes who came with Jacob into Egypt could in two hundred and fifteen years have been no more than five tliousand, including men, women and children, allow- ing four and a half children to each. According to the same calculation and ratio, the generation of Noah, which was the tenth generation from Adam, could have been about five hundred thousand. That is, Adam was one; the generation of Seth, four and a half; of Enos, twenty, which is the product of four and a half by four and a * The stress or distinction which we make between the word man, that is translated from the Hebrew word Ad:im, and the same noun when translated from the word "• Ish," is not our own idea; neither is it a new idea. All the He- brew commentators on the Bible use it; and it is as much an established fact in the Hebrew language as is the fact that the word man don't mean child in the English language. (See " Moureh Nebuchim," part first, chapter fourteen, and the comments of Abarbanell and others en the same.) The 49th chapter of Psalms demonstrates the difference between "Adam" and " Ish," especially the second verse of that chapter; but that verse is sadly mistranslated into Eng- lish. It reads: "Both low and high, rich and poor, together." The word low is translated from the Hebrew words " children of Adam;" and the word high is translated from the words " children of Ish." The first part of the verse reads in Hebrew thus: " Gam benay Adam Gam benay ' Ish.' " A proper translation of it into the English language would read thus: Also the children of Adam, also the children of " Ish." But the English version, even as it is, conveys the idea that Adam is low, and "Ish" is high; and where man is compared to beasts in that chapter, as in verse l;2th; and last, the word man there, and wherever the noun man is used in connection with some low state, it is translated from the word Adam, all through the Bible. But we will have to refer to it in the next chapter, and also when we shall speak of the Levitical law. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the flood was only on that part of the earth that was inhabited by man which could not have been a very great portion of the earth, because the inhabit- ants, men, could not have been very numerous then; and the historian, the author of that account, is justified in saying that it was upon tha Avhole earth, the same as the historian that would relate a thing that took place before America was discovered, would be justflied in saying that it prevailed over the whole earth, meaning what was then known or inhabited. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURP:. I4I half;ofCainan, ninety; and to continue multiplying each gen- eration by four and a half until the generation of Noah, will make a total of about seven hundred thousand of the ten generations, including Adam and Noah. That em- braces an epoch of over one thousand five hundred years; and as no man lived one thousand years, we must there- fore subtract from it all those that were born during the first five or six hundred years of that epoch; and that would leave about five hundred thousand of people. Hence according to the folly, ignorance or wilful mis- representation of the Bishop and his unthinking echoes, the flood was only upon as large a portion of the earth as would accommodate five hundred thousand human beings; as large a piece of ground as Cook county would certainly be more than enough, and the ark would unquestionably be big enough for two of all the unclean, and fourteen of each of thp clean beasts that are, by nature, adapted and live on the quantity of land in question, in that part of the world where the flood was. We beg the reader to bear in mind that this is only brought up by us as a key-hole to the folly of the Bishop, and we will leave it for him and his disciples to contem- plate to its bottom, if the bottom of folly can be reached. And we will conclude by saying, as the history thereof indicates, that the flood was only upon that part of the eiuth that was inhabited by man. And the proof that there was a flood grows st?'onger as time and science advance. Until the present century the world had no other proof of the flood besides what the Bible says, then what Joscphus says. And this is what he says in the third chapter of his first book: • " Now all the writers of the barbarian histories make 143 A COLLECTION OK THOUGHTS, " mention of this flood and the ark, among whom is Be- " rosus the Chaldean; for when he is describing the cir- " cumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: ' It is said there " ' are still some parts of the ship in Armenia, at the moun- " ' tain of Cordyaens, and that some people carry ofl" " ' pieces of the bitumen, which they take away and use " ' chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs.' Hier- " onymus, the Egyptia.i, also who wrote the Phenician " antiquities, and Muasaes and a great many more, make " mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his " ninety-sixth book hath a particular relation about them " where he speaks thus: ' There is a great mountain in "' Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is "' reported that many who fled, at the time of the deluge, " ' were saved, and that one was carried in an ark came " ' on shore upon the top of it, and that the remains of the " ' timber were a great while preserved.' This might |be " the man about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews, " wrote." The reader will now perceive the purpose of our attempt — and we believe with success — to prove that Noah must have had another name, and was known by that name long before he was named Noah, which last name he could not have had before the coming of the flood became known to him, and through him, to others; and it was not known to him before he was five or six hundred years old. He was six hundred years old, says the Bible, when he went into the ark; and it says that he was informed of the flood after he was five hundred years old. Hence, from the time that he was born up to the time tliat he acquired the circumstantial name or title of Noah, he was called by some other name. The name of Moses is found in the ancient writings OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I43 of Egypt, and the name of Abram is found in the writings of the Chaldeans, because these names were given to them when they were babes, and the name of Noah is no where found, though the flood is spoken of by the writers of several nations, as is seen by what we have copied of Jo- sephus in this chapter about the subject in question. Tiic archaeological discoveries by the late George Smith tell of the flood. The discoveries are called the Assyrian Clay Library. It tells that in the time of Hysuthrus, the tenth king of Chaldea, a great flood took place. Noah is of the tenth generation after Adam; and it tells that the deity whom the Chaldeans call Cronos told Hysuthrus in a dream that on the fifteenth day of the month Dasius would come a flood and destroy all mankind; and that Hysuthrus wrote it all down and buried it in the city of Sippara, and built a vessel for him and his friends and was saved thereby. And the present discovery by Mr. Rassam, which is a chest of records found by him at the same place or city in Chaldea — the very place where the biblical account says the survivors of the flood or the descendants of Noah lived. And he, having been the head or the father oi those that were saved from the flood, was naturally considered by them and by their descendants as their ruler or king during the three hundred and fifty years that he lived aAer the flood; and as his sons and their wives knew that he, Noah, had foretold the coming of the flood, he was by his posterity looked upon as a deity, which is in accord with the idea man had of the Deit}-; as the Egyptian writers ascribe the account of the flood, and what took place before the flood, to Thoth, whom they, the Egyptians, kept as a deity. And the name of Noah is not found in any of their writings, because he was called by his sons and by those who lived with him in the same time by the familiar name which he had and was known by before the circumstance 144 ^ COLLECTIOxV OF THOUGHTS, which gave him the name of Noah happened. The father- in-law of Moses is called by seven different names in the Bible, and all the names are derived from actions which he had done and from circumstances in which he was. We believe that the biblical account of the flood is fully sustained by other evidence, and that the flood was but local, or only there where the few human beings were living; and it is more than evident that they were all in one part on the earth. When the records which Mr. Ras- sam has lately discovered in that part of the earth where the flood was are explained and known, the world will have more evidence of the flood and of what took place before that time. OR KEY TO SCRIPTUHE. I45 CHAPTER XVIII. THE SONS OF GOD, THE DAUGHTERS OF MAN, AND THE REDUCTION OF MAN's LIFE, OR THE TIME OF man's life. " The sons of God saw the daughters of man that " they were fair, and they took them wives of all which " they chose." The word God, in the above quotation, is translated from the Hebrew word " Alohim," and we have several times heretofore remarked and demonstrated, especially in speaking of Balaam, that the word " Alohim " is ap- plied to describe the position of man, as well as a name or attribute of the Deity. And for the purpose of show- ing that that is the case all through the Bible, we will not refer to what we have said and proven about the word in question, which could answer our present pur- pose, but will quote from the eighty-second chapter of Psalms, wherein the word in question is used for both the Deity and man, and which will also corroborate and sus- tain our definition of the word Adam, given in the pre- ceding chapter. *' God standeth in the congregation of the MIGHTY; c' He judgeth among the gods." The word mighty is translated from the word ale 146 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, (power); and the word gods (with a small g) is translated from the word Alohim. It certainly cannot be supposed with any degree of reason that the author of the Psalms believed in, or meant to convey an idea of more than one Deity. Neither can Trinitarians reasonabl}^ claim that the word gods has reference to the ideal Trinity. First. Why is the word written and printed with a small g, while the name of the Deity, at the commence- ment of the quotation, is with a capital G? Secondly. The contents of the chapter does not allow such a construction or supposition. The sixth and seventh verses of the same chapter, which is a continuation of the same subject, reads thus: " I have said ye are gods, and all of you are children " of the Most High, but ye shall die like man." The word man is translated from the word " Adam," which is expressive of the lowest degree of man. The idea which that chapter, or its author, means and does convey is, God stands in the congregation of the mighty or great men (which is expressed by the word " Ish "), and judgeth among the mighty. The word Ish cannot be used in the plural, and is therefore often substituted, as it is in this place, by the word Alohim, which is the plural of might or power.* *The killing of Abel by Cain is like the answer given bj' Professor Porson ■ to a question asked of him by an unthinking young man at a dinner party, which was, whether Captain Cook died at his first voyage or at his second. To Which query the Professor replied: he died at his first voyage, but he did not mind it much, for he made another immediately after the first. And Cain did not remove to the unknown but mistaken land of Nod, but remained a " vaga- bond" (which is the meaning of the Hebrew word Nod) in the land, where he was boiin or where his father Adam was, and very likely took one or more of his sisters for a wife or wives, as we are told in the fourth or fifth chapter of Genesis that Adam had sons and daughters besides the three representative sons which are named in the account. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I47 We can only find the word " Ish " used in the plural in the- one hundred and forty-first chapter of Psalms and in the eighth chapter of Proverbs. We can find it in no other place in the Bible; neither can we find it in* our Hebrew Lexicon; and in the two places where it is used, is done so under cover of a poetical license. And that is the case of the subject in question. The sons of God; Hebrew, " Alohim," the substitute for the plural of " Ish." Thereby meaning to convey the idea that the posterity of Seth, or " Enos," who is two de- grees below an Ish, and still more the posterity of" Enoch," who walked with God (as has been explained in a former chapter), and was one degree above Enos, and one under Ish, which is expressed by the noun Gever, their sons are called the sons of Alohim (God), and they took the daughters of Adam, Cain and Abel, which are the repre- sentatives of the animal part of man. There were GIANTS in the earth in those days, " and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the *' daughters of man, and they bare children to them; the " same became mighty men which were of old men of " renown." The word giants in the above quotation is translated from the Hebrew word " N-f-l-im," pronounced Nefeelim, and which designates the verb fell or fallen. The im denotes the plural number. The word fallen ought to stand in place of giants, which means, or would express the meaning, the men who have fallen from the position of the manhood designated by the word Ish, single number, and by the word Alohim, in plural, in which position man was, or was designated to be, and would have been if he had not eaten of the tree of knowledge — to the position of Adam, which is the desig- 148 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, nation of the animal part of man, which the eating of the allegorical tree of knowledge caused him to fall from. It was not given to man wisdom enough, says the Talmud, to find out the meaning of the tree of knowledge. And the idea or information which that part of the biblical account of man conveys is, that the offspring of the amalgamated races of posterity of Seth with that of Cain and others were reasonable beings, and some of them became renowned in olden times for the ability of their minds^ as Enoch and Noah, and others who were also of that race^ and not foi the prodigious growths of their bodies, as some have sup- posed and have taught the same to others, which supposi- tion and belief Maimonide explains by quoting frotn the Book of Proverbs: " The simple believe everything," and reason as well as the text itself compels us to acquiesce in the explanation that the heretofore named great and un- equaled philosopher has given. Og, king of Boshon, is said by some to have been of the giants, and that he was of a prodigious height; but the Bible refers to his bed, and says that his bed was nine cubits long. It follows that if the bed was nine cubits long, the man could not have been much more than NINE cubits high, and more certain, not more than six or seven cubits high. The third verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, which is the chapter that contains the subject of om' present review, has been greatly misunderstood and misconstrued, and a great many erroneous ideas have been planted by man upon the misconstruction of that verse, which verse reads as follows: " And the Lord said. My spirit shall not strive with " man forever, because he is also flesh; and his days shall be " one hundred and twenty years." (Heb. text.) i OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I49 Men have construed this verse to mean that God hath reduced the Hfe of man from nearly one thousand years, as man Hved before the flood, to or to about one hundred and twenty years after the flood, and that the death of the body of man is a punishment to him for his sins. These and all the ideas and beliefs w^hich follow therefrom are erroneous. For the purpose of an illustration of what we say, we will apply the language of the verse in question to an- other subject, and see whether it is or can be construed to mean the same that the verse in question is said to mean. If A, while talking to himself, or some one else, while speaking of or about an unruly child and of the punish- ment it had already received, would say: " I will not strive with him forever, because he is, " after all, but flesh." Would it be reasonable to construe that A meant, be- cause, " It is but a child, " he will therefore " not strive with him forever," but will increase the punishment and be done with him at once? Or B, seeing A punishing a child, would say to the latter: " It is also but a child." Would it be reasonable to say that B told A to pun- ish the child more, and has described the object that A was punishing, for the purpose of making A, who was a powerful man, not to waste his time in " striving " with the child " forever," but punish him at once more severely and be. done with him ? Would not such a construction of the supposed saying of B to A be considered by all reas- able and thinking men as the central part of folly? — that is, if folly has a central part, which we believe it has not, 150 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, for if it had a middle part it would have an end also, and we can find no end to folly. Let us for a moment lock up our understanding and knowledge of the fact that the whole biblical account of man is figurative, and that it speaks of the invisible as an idea or a thought is, and the author of that account was as necessitated to personify it by representing it to us through the body, the same as we are compelled to per- sonify our ideas and thoughts by a23plying to them persons, adjectives, and active transitive verbs. Let us, we say, lock up all the knowledge, while we will consider what the Bible tells us of the punishment with which God hath punished man for his misdoings from the time of Adam until the time of Noah, at which time God said what the verse in question tells us. Adam was punished by having been compelled to work, and by the sweat of his face to earn the bread which he ate. His wife, Eve, was punished by the unenviable pain of giving birth to a child, and the power of keeping herself from giving birth to a child was taken from her, because her " DESIRE " is made to be to her " husband," and that desire rules or controls her. Cain, the son of Adam, made to live the life of a vagabond and fugitive, his brother Abel killed, and a decree rendered to drown every man except Noah, who was left to regenerate the human race upon the earth. These show that up to that time man was punished with the utmost severity. And there can be no greater punishment than total annihilation, which was the last punishment which man received; and at that time, and about the new race, of men, God said what we are told by the verse in question, and that can not be construed to mean that God said he would punish OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I^I man by a more severe punishment because " he is also but flesh." There is not, and cannot be, a more seve^^e punish- ment than the nine generations which preceded Noah had received. Therefore the shortening of the time of man's hfe upon the earth, by reducing it from about one thou- sand years, w^hicli was the length of the life of the genera- tions that preceded Noah and he included, to about one hundred and twenty years, of the generations that have succeeded him, must be, is, and has been so understood by men who are not represented by the word Adam, and are not the representatives of Cain, to mean a relaxation of the punishment and a great favor to man, as will be per- ceived from the following illustration: Suppose A and B made an agreement that the latter shall work for the former for a term of ten years, for which the former agreed to pay him (B) the sum of one thousand dollars after the expiration of ten years. And after the agreement was made and B entered upon the performance of his part of the agreement A, his em- ployer, would r-fiy to him : " B, you cannot carry out " your part of our agreement, because you cannot afford " to work ten years for one thousand dollars, and not " receive any part of the thousand dollars until after the " expiration of the ten years; I will therefore reduce the " time specified in the contract from ten ye^rs to two " or less, and will pay you the full one thousand dollars " at the expiration of the two years; but you must do the " best you can for me during the two years." Would it not be considered as the bottom of folly for B or any one else to say or suppose that A had done an injury to B by giving him the same pay for two years that he was to receive for the same labor of ten years? And that is just the case in question, God hath em- 152 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, ployed man to work for Him during the time that man is on eartlj, and he is to receive his pay after the expira- tion of the time of service, which is the time that man is on earth, which was first about one thousand years; and a certain time God said, " man is als(5 but flesh," he cannot afford or stand to work so long for what he is to receive for his work. I will therefore reduce the time that he is to work from one thousand to one hundred and twenty years, and will give him the same compensation that he was to receive for the labor of one thousand years. Hence, to take the shortening of the time that man has to labor on earth as a punishment to man, is as unreasonable as the saying that A has injured B by giving him one thou- sand dollars for two years labor, instead of making him work ten years for the same thousand dollars. And the benefit which man receives from the reduc- tion of his stay upon the earth is a great deal more than what B received from A in the case 'given for the illus- tration, because B was sure to receive the one thousand dollars at the expiration of the time ot his service. He did not have the risk of finding himself at the end of his time indebted to A, as man has of finding himself to be in- debted to his employer or principal, God, after the time that his earthly labors expire. The condition which man occupies or^ earth, is that of an agent (as has been said in a former chapter), who is to defray his own expenses, but uses the money of his principal, and has to keep debtor and credit account between himself and the principal. And if he (man) don't look out and strictly attend to the business for which God placed him upon the earth, he may expect to find himself debtor on the day that he will be called to bal- ance his account. The man who claims he has to and does attend to his OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I53 own business (of the body) while he is on earth, and draws from the general funds which the principal hath appropri- ated as an advance for the necessary use of his agents, he, the man that does business for himself on earth, will certainly find himself indebted for all that he drew from the advance fund of the universe. Hence the sooner he is recalled, the less he will be indebted to his principal, God, and is therefore benefited by the shortening of his stay on the earth, upon which he did not come of his own accord, and upon which he could not maintain himself from his own resources. And the man who does attend to his offiicial duty on earth is also more benefited than B was, in the illustra- tion, because " HE IS ALSO FLESH." And so long as he is in the flesh on earth, he is liable to violate his offi- cial duty by attending to his fleshy (bodily) business. The shorter his stay is on earth, the sooner he gets released of his risk, and has fulfilled his part of the agreement, for which he will receive the same consideration as if he had stayed and labored on earth one thousand years longer. Hence the shortening of man's life upon earth must, is, and always has been, taken by reasonable men, who understood the Bible, which is (as has been said) the in- voice of what God placed in the possession and for the guidance of man, and the official record of his office, to be a great benefit to man. And being that we know that the reader will ask if that is so, that man has, is and ought to consider the death of his body to be of great benefit to him, why don't we find man now, or in history that there ever was a man, who did not desire to live on earth as long as God would let him? Why did Moses pray to God that He may let him live longer? 154 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, We therefore must continue this subject for the pur- pose of answering these questions; and while we are doing this, we can at the same time explain the command to the Israelites to destroy the nations of the land that they were to inherit, so that not a soul shall be left of them alive; w^hich we thought, and in a former chapter have said, we will answer, when we shall reply to what Mr. Paine says about it in his Age of Reason, but being that we can ac- complish two purposes at once, we will consider that ques- tion here. Mr. Paine says: "Having thus shown, as grammatical " evidence implies, that Moses was not the writer of those " books " (we will consider the grammatical evidence of which Mr. Paine speaks, when we come to consider the question of authenticity of the Bible; at present we are only consid- ering the Bible itself, irrespective of the question w^ho the author of it was), " I will after making a few observa- " tions on the inconsistencies of the writer of the Book of " Deuteronomy, proceed to show from the historical and " chronological evidence contained in those books, that *' Moses was not, because he could not be the writer of " them ; and consequently that there is no authority for " believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men, " women and children told in those books, were done as those " books say they were, at the command of God. It is a " duty incumbent on every true Deist, that he vindicate the " moral justice of God against the calumnies of the Bible." We have copied a good deal more than is needed to present the question about the inhuman butchery of men, women and children, which is the question that we wish to consider; but we have copied it all for the purpose of exposing the folly of the manner in which the question is asked, and re-echoed by such minds as that of our friend Ineersoll. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 1^^ Suppose that the Bible does not tell of the total de- struction of those nations, or that it is proven beyond a shadow of doubt that God did not command the total de- struction of them, would that indicate that God don't kill off men, women and children each and every minute of the day? We may be told that they die a natural death, and in answer to that we ask: Is not nature itself also the agent and creature of God, and the acts of agents the acts of the principal? It would be just as reasonable for one to say that it is " incumbent on every true Deist to vindicate the moral "justice of God against the calumnies" of men who say that nature, God's agent, has killed every man, woman and child that has until now existed upon the face of the earth. It may be a proper question to ask: Does the Bible tell the truth to kill all those nations? But to say it is incum- bent to vindicate God from the accusation of killing men, women and children, is not even fit for a foolish infidel to ask, who don't see further than nature, and which certainly kills. And how a Deist who knows enough to believe in a God, how he comes to make the foolish expression of vindicating God from the accusation of killing man is more than we can account for, if it is not for the purpose of accomplishing the object which we ascribe the Age of Reason was written for. It has heretofore been shown that death itself is no punishment and no cruelty. It is the predestined end for which every man, woman and child is born, and the sooner it pleases God to remove man from the earth the better it is for him, as has been explained before, and there are several reasons why each and every man wishes to be on earth as long as he can. First, man's heart tells him that when he will come to settle up his account with his prin- 156 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, cipal, God, he will find himself bankrupt, with no assets whatever, and greatly indebted; and that is a condition which man tries to delay as long as he can in all his busi- ness affairs on earth; he waits until his creditors declare him to be a bankrupt and take of him what they can, and it is not known whether the bankrupt law that governs the estates of souls sets aside a homestead or makes any exemption for the bankrupt soul. Hence there is even less desire amongst men to wind up their business of the soul and be declared bankrupts than they have to wind up their bodily affairs and be declared bankrupts. It is true some men do go into voluntary bankruptcy, but it is equally true that some men kill themselves. And there is another reason why man don't want to leave the earth, and that is, he has an object to accomplish before he leaves the earth, which he believes it his" duty and pleasure to see accomplished before he leaves the earth, such as the taking care of children who are not yet capable of taking care of themselves, and the like of it. The reason why Moses did not wish to die was, he desired to see his nation settled in the promised land, as we find he prayed to God when he found out he had to die: " And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying. Let the Lord, " the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the " congregation, which may go out before them and which " may bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord " be not as sheep which have no shepherd." Num., chap. 27. It was his pleasure and certainly his duty, for God commanded him to lead and take care of the Israelites; hence he did not wish to die before he brought them into the promised land. The nations in question were insolvent in their busi- ness of their souls. An inventory was taken of their spir- s. i OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 157 itual stock by their Creator, God, four hundred years be- fore, they were closed out, and appointed an assignee by the name of Abraham, but an extention of time was given them until the fourth generation came and took possession by the right vested in them, as assignees of their earthly estates, and sent the bankrupt souls to the court that had proper jurisdiction over them, and the bodies, which are but earth, were left on earth. Idolatry brought the souls ot those nations to their bankrupt condition. They have squandered all the wealth of their divine souls upon idols; and it makes no difference on which idol a man squanders away the priceless wealth of his soul, whether he worships an idol of the Egyptians, of the Amorites, Midionites, or he idolizes his own body, as all those who find fault and detest the laws of God, Moses, and all who have executed these laws. It would be con- trary to nature if they should not do so. It is indeed nat- ural and reasonable that a convict should detest the laws under which he is or is to be convicted, and hate the exe- cutioners who execute the law upon him. Their own heart tells them that they are guilty and that they will be executed according to the laws which they hate, detest and abhor, and no man ought to blame them for it. We certainly do not, any more than we blame the violaters of the laws of the land for finding fault with the laws of the land which inflict upon them the punishment they receive. It is true they are fully aware that they are doing wrong when they violate the law. The thief knows that he has neither legal nor moral right to the property that he steals; but it is equally true that habit has as strong a power over man as nature has, and he who, either from necessity, choice or ignorance has become a wrongdoer, is as hard for him to wean himself off from it, as it would have been if it had been natural. 158 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Poverty is mostly the cause of crime which is com- mitted against the body, and for which the bod}- is pun- ished, and ignorance, which is the poverty of the soul, is the cause of the crimes perpetrated by the soul, for which the soul will be, is and was punished. These haters of the laws of God talk of morality and humanity. The only morality and humanity which they can possibly know of or practice, is what appertains to the body; that is, if morality is a quality that belongs to or is a part of the body, unless we call the feelings of man's heart morality. But be these as they may, even in that morality they could find a lesson for them to study and practice, in the treatment that Moses has treated the Mid- ionites, about which their ignorance makes them raving mad and they talk about Moses. Death is no punishment in itself. The only reason why man dreads death, is because his own conviction tells him that he is behind in the account of his soul. A child who cannot contemplate its condition, and cannot be much, if anything, behind in its religious account, has no such dread for death as aged persons have. And therefore death is no punishment at all. The death of a child is only a punish- ment to its parents. The seven nationsof the land of Canaan were under sen- tence for over four hundred years, that is, from the time of the covenant with Abraham until the time of Joshua, to be utterly destroyed for the purpose of cleansing the land of their abominations and wickedness. The Midionites were not included in the seven nations of Canaan. Hence the officers that were sent to avenge the Midionites for what they had done unto the Israelites, only destroyed the men, and left the women and children alive and took them as captives of war, which was the custom of war in those OK KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I59 days. But the women were the cause and the actors of the sin for which the IsraeHtes wore punished, and for which the latter avenged themselves against the former; hence they, the women, who participated in the cause, ought also to participate in the punishment. But if the children, both males and females, had been left alive and brought by their captors, the Israelites, into the land ot Canaan, they, the children, would have intermarried between themselves and revived the worsiiip of their idols and their god Peor in the land which was long before dedi- cated to the worship of the Only One God of Israel. This idol worship would not only have brought a total destruction uj^on the posterity of the Midionites, but would also be a stumbling-block for Israel too, the same as it was when they were by Midion. The mode of worship by which the idol Peor was worshiped was a very win- nin' ipei religiously commanded to commit whoredom, for the pur- pose of increasing the worshipers of the idol — that was the practice of those nations, and such practice was danger- ous for the Israelites. Thus the women were destroyed because they partici- pated in the crime for which they were avenged or de- stroyed; and if the children, both males and females, had been kept alive they would have grown up among the Israelites and served their own idols, which would have caused, before long, not only their own destruction, but their j^ractice would also become injurious to the Israelites, who would also participate in the worship of the idols. And Moses and the laws of the Bible tried to remove all facilities for idol worship from the Israelites. But by destroying the males the females had intermarried with the Israelites and became happy mothers in Israel, instead of l6o A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, slaves and idol worshipers which they would have been if the male captives had been kept alive, and be utterly de- stroyed before long for their idolatry. Hence Moses, in- stead ef being censured for killing the male children of the Midionites, ought to be credited and praised for letting the females live, which he did by removing the cause for which they were to die. And let us bear in mind that death is only a prevention from wrong doing, and is not a punishment. Self-preservation is and always was a justification for destroying life. It is a national as well as an individual jus- tification. And there is another side to that question, which is: Is it true that the Israelites have destroyed the nations which the Bible tells us they did? The infidels bring up the question of the total destruction of the nations in question for the purpose of showing that the historical ac- count of the Bible is not true. We will therefore examine the purpose for which the question is brought up, which is this: It the Israelites have not done those things which the Bible says they did, then the Bible is not true; and if they have perpetrated all the atrocities which the Bible says they did, is a question, could they have done all these things if God hath not commanded them to do it, and aided them to carry out His commands as far as their desire was to obey His commands. Is it natural or reasonable for a man to publish to the world that his ancestors were slaves for generations and centuries long; that they have ran away from their masters by making them believe they will only go the distance of three days' journey for the purpose of serving their God there, and have borrowed from their masters all the gold, silver and costly garments they had; and that they h^ve OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. l6l escaped to a country beyond a certain river, which country was but eleven days' journey on foot from the country from whence they escaped; and that they have lingered forty years within that sj^ace which could be traveled on foot in eleven days; that they have asked permission of one nation to let them peaceably pass through h's domain, which he refused; then they asked the same of another, and that nation also refused them; but instead of going away from the second nation, as they did from the first, they not only forced their way through the counft-y which belonged to the second nation, but have utterly destroyed that nation by killing men, w^omen and children, and have done the same to another nation whose domain w^is joined to the domain of whom they asked permission to cross; and have not only possessed themselves of all the wealth that these two nations have possessed, but five twenty-sixths of them have settled themselves on the domain of the tvy^o nations which they have utterly annihilated, and without any fear for the nations around them, and their masters who were also a mighty nation but ten or eleven days' journey behind them, have left their wives and children as well as the wealth they have robbed of the nations that they have killed, and they have crossed the river with the rest and have there destroyed seven strong nations by killing men, women and children, and have possessed themselves of their wealth, and the five twenty-sixths have again re- crossed the river and joined their wives and children, and the rest have settled themselves on the domain of the seven nations which they have robbed and murdered on the other side of the river. Would it be in accordance with reason for a man to say that his ancestors were slaves, thieves, robbers and cut-throats, and for no other purpose than to make the world believe a falsehood, which is, that God, of whoni l62 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the world knew nothing, did command them to do all these atrocities? We believe, and we think that the reader will also believe the same, namely: that the man who says it is reasonable for a man to publish to the world all these for the purpose of telling to the world the falsehood that 'God told them to do it would be a fit cell-mate in some lunatic asylum with the man that said all these for such purpose as herein stated. That is just what the Bible tells the Israelites have done. And the Bible is the publication wherein the Israelites have pub- lished all these to the world; and the infidels are the crazy men who say that the Israelites have said all these in the Bible, have said so themselves for the last twenty centuries, and about nine millions of them say so now to the world, they proclaim it in all the languages that are now spoken in the world. We ask, when, where, and how could the Jews as a nation have been made to believe and accept such a his- tory of themselves as the Bible, which makes them the descendants of those who have perpetrated all these atro- cious acts, if they and the world had not known it to have been as the Bible says it was? They whose brains are deranged on biblical subjects say that the Jews were unanimously made to accept such history of themselves, and believe in it, by Ezra, the scribe, after they returned from. Babylon. Leaving out the ques- tion, how a nation would without a dissenting voice accept such a history of themselves if it had not been known to themselves and to the world that it was true, we only ask how comes the same Bible or accounts to be and be be- lieved in by the Jews or Israelites that were carried away to Assyria about two hundred years before Ezra was born? Next to the belief in but one God, is and has been OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 163 the belief of the Jews in a spiritual Messiah. And whether it is as the Jews believe, that he will come, or as the Christians believe he has come, he is to be or was, accord- ing to the Bible, of the family of King David. And the biblical account of the actions of David and of his ances- tors is a great deal more and better proof that the biblical history is true than all that the defective brains of infidel writers and orators have produced. The telling of King David's actions in the matter of Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, which is so defamatory to the character of the kins:; and his genealogy, first from Tamar and Judah, father-in-law and daughter-in-law, then from Boaz and Ruth, shows beyond a doubt or question that the object of the authors of the Bible was to record true facts, without gloss, favor or shame. Where or when did ever a nation exist that would have accepted, maintained and published to the world a history containing such defamations upon the character of its royal and through the whole time most respected and honored family, if the things in question had not been universally known facts, so much so that the trying to keep them out of the historical annals of the nation would falsify the history of the nation, and would expose the historian to the charge of recording the glossy part of the history of those he wrote of, instead of recording truth. No reasonable man will or ever did say that the history of a nation is not true because it records disgraceful acts of the nation, and the latter does not deny the actions in question, but confirms them by telling that its history is true, as the Jews say and always have said that the biblical history is true. Nothing else but insanity could be ascribed as the cause why a nation should accept and maintain a history 164 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, which defames their origin, as the Bible does the origin of the Israehtes, if the defamatory subject stated therein had not been true, and known to the world to be so. Would it not have been more in accordance with rea- son, if the author or authors of the Bible wanted (at any time, we care not when) to make the Israelites accept the history, of which they knew nothing till that time, to tell them in that history that God sent angels who destroyed the men, women and children that have constituted the nine nations, which were the owners and inhabitants of the land which they, the Israelites, were occupying then? Would not that also be a better inducement to make them accept their religion and belief, of which they knew noth- ing until that time, as the insane infidels say it was? We believe that every reasonable man wmII coincide with us, that if the Bible had stated something like what we have said, namely: that God sent angels to destroy the nations in question, and had given a glossy picture of the character of the Israelites as a nation, that it would then be reasonably subject to questioning the truth of what it says. But being as it is telling that the father of the nation and the founder of the belief, Abraham, told his wife to say that she is his sister, so that he may be rewarded for her sake (which will be the subject in the next chap- ter), that his posterity were slaves for generations long; that they ran away from slavery, killed men, women and children of nine nations, and possessed themselves of their land, which last fact cannot be denied, for it is well known without the Bible telling us, that the Israelites did possess the land in question, and that it was formerly occupied by other nations, and the fact of the existence of the nation and its indestructibility until the present day, proves be- yond a doubt, and leaves not a reasonable ground to ques- tion its truthfulness. OR KEV^ TO SCRIPTURE. 165 " Ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me ? " Isaiah, 44 :8 The existence of the Jews is evidence of the truth of the Bible, and the latter is the evidence of the former. No one but a brain-defective man on biblical subjects, whom language designates by the name of infidel, ever did does or ever will question the truthfulness of the Bi- ble with all these facts before him, and we ought not to abuse nor misuse them, for they are in a measure a reli- gious necessity. They are to religion what death is to the body. There are a great many people who, if they would not be afraid of death, would never use a doctor when they get sick, but would suffer weakness and pain, and wait until the sickness would pass away itself, if people would have no fear of drifting into the death, infidelism, they would remain in their religious weakness, rather than go to a religious doctor to have their weakness and pain cured by administering to them some religious truth. And they answer another very necessary and indispensable pur- pose for the body of religion, which is that of cleaning it, they are the discharging organs which all bodies have, and without which no body can exist. There are a good many ideas which came out of the body of religion through them. Each and every question that they ask compels man to discharge some erroneous and false ideas or practice from the body of his religion, and replace the vacuum with biblical truth. Every new sickness of the body compels the doc- tors to search the laws of nature for a cure of that sickness, and in that way the world becomes wiser and better. So each and every question that this class of unfortunate men bring up to afTect the religious body compels the religious doctors and chemists to search the l66 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, laws of the Bible for the purpose of curing that defect. Hence this class of people, who are called infidels, are as hard to dispense with, and are as useful, and are to be loved and esteemed the same as death and sickness are. We will conclude this subject by letting them be what they are; and they are what they always will be; and always will be what they always were! OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I67 CHAPTER XIX. ABRAHAM — WHY HE LEFT THE PLACE OF HIS NATIVITY, AND WHY HE TOLD HIS WIFE TO SAY THAT SHE WAS HIS SISTER. The biblical history apparently gives no reason why Terah, the father of Abraham, left " Ur of the Chaldees." But if the word " Ur " had been translated and the mean- ing, of the word became known as it is in Hebrew, and of which we have a brief historical account in the Talmud ; and Maimonide, in the thirty-ninth chapter of the third part of his " Moureh Nebuchim," names several Chaldiac books which were translated into the Arabic language and were in existence in his time, which gave the full history of Abraham and the reason why he and his father left Chaldee and went to live in the land of Canaan. But before we will quote what the Talmud and Maimonide say about it, we will first examine the language in which the Bible itself tells us about the subject in question. It says: " And Terah lived seventy years. And he begat " Abram, Nahor and Haran." In the next verse it repeats thus: " Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah be- " gat Abram, Nahor and Haran ; and Haran begat Lot. " And Haran dved before his father Terah in the land of l68 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and " Nahor took them wives; the name of Abram's wife was " Sarai, and the name of Nahor's w4fe was Milcah, the " daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and the father " of Iscah." The word " Ur" is apparently the name of a place in Chaldea. But if that had been, or if it w^as intended to convey the idea that it means the name of a place, it would say "Ur in Chaldea," not "Ur of the Chaldees." The definite article " The " and the word " Chaldees " make it in the plural number. It is no more proper than to say, in Washington of the Americans. But it certainly would be very proper to say, he died in the flames of the Americans The word "Ur" means flames. The history of it is this: The Chaldees worshiped the visible bodies of the skies; the sun was their greatest deity, and they served it with fire. They used to cause their children to puss through fire, and punished by fire for irreligious deeds. Abram began to question the correctness of their ideas. He per- ceived that they were but creatures, and that there was or must be a Creator, and at last became convinced that there was a Creator, and had begun to convince others of the same facts, and he had demolished some images, for which he and his brother Haran were thrown into the flames (Ur) of the Chaldees by the order of their ruler, Nimrod, wherein Haran perished and from which Abram was saved. And because Abram was saved from the flames, Nimrod feared that this fact would convince his subjects that Abram was right. He therefore banished Abram from - his do- minion and his father, Terah, went with him. And both Abram and Nahor married the daughters of their brother Haran. Iscah and Sarai is the same person. " Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of " thy country and of thy kindred, and from thy father's OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 169 " house, unto a land that I will show thee. And Abram " took his wife Sarai, and Lot his brother's son, and all " their substance that they had gathered, and the souls " that they had gotten in Haran, and came into the land " of Canaan. And Abram journeyed, going on still to- " ward the south. And there was a famine in the land, " and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there." Gen., chap. 12. The above quotation from the Bible also confirms the Talmudical and other historical accounts of Abraham, which say that he was traveling from place to place as a mis- sionary, and persuading people to believe in the One God, aided by his wife and her brother Lot, whose father per- ished in the flames " (Ur) of the Chaldees," '^ and the souls that they had obtained in Haran." That is, those whom they had converted while they were in Haran. The souls that they had gotten in Haran means those whom they had converted into the belief in the One God of Abraham. It cannot mean children, for the Bible tells repeatedly that they were childless at that time. Neither can it mean servants; the latter are desig- nated " trained servants born in his house." Gen., chap. 1 4. And for that purpose they now started for Egypt, and as they were about to enter Egypt, the subjects of the thoughts and conversation naturally was, how to com- mence to operate upon the minds of the Egyptians. What method or circumstance could best bring them before the learned men of Egypt. To which Abraham said to Sa- rai, his wife: " Behold, now I know that thou art a fair woman in appearance," and I believe you will be the cause which will enable us to accomplish our purpose. But if you will say that you are my wife, they may kill me, and you lyo A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, they will let live. Hence, " I pray thee, say thou art " my sister; that may be well with me for thy sake; and " my soul shall live because of thee." Abraham knew that, through Sarai his wife, he was to accomplish the object of his mission, but was afraid that if it should be known that she was his wife, he could not accomplish his purpose, and that would have been the de- struction to his soul, whose desire and purpose of being upon the earth, was to save mankind from the destruction of their souls by reclaiming them from idolatry. And it was as he foresaw. The appearance of Sarai attracted the attention of the Egyptians; and it was reported to the king of Egypt, where she w^as taken to; and that was the cause which brought Abraham into the house of the king and among the wise men of Egypt, and discussed with them, as it is related by Josephus who, in speaking of Abraham, says: " Berosus mentions our father, Abram, without nam- " ing him, when he says thus: ' In the tenth generation " ' after the flood, there was amongst the Chaldeans a man " ' righteous and great and skillful in the celestial science. "' But Hecatseous does more than barely mention him, "' for he composed and left behind him a book concern- " ' ing him.' And Nicolas of Damascus, in the fourth book " of his history, says thus: ' Abraham reigned at Damas- "' cus, being a foreigner who came with an army out of "' the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chalde- "' ans, but after a long time, removed with his people " ' from that country and went to the land then called Ca- " * naan, and now, Judea. Of his posterity, we relate their " ' history in another work.' Now the name of Abra- " ham," says Josephus, " is even still famous in the land of OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I7I " Damascus; and there is shown a village named from " him the Habitation of Abraham." We copy all what Josephus says about Abraham, be- cause it is about the same that is found in the Talmud and what Maimonide says he saw in Chaldean books, trans- lated into Arabic. And being that what Josephus says, is either known to the reader, or he can find it in the books of that author, we therefore copy from that author, instead of translating what the others say. And in speak- ing of Abraham being in Egypt it says: " He (the king of Egypt) also made him a large pres- " ent in money, and gave him leave to enter into conver- " sation with most learned men among the Egypt! ans^ " from which conversations his virtue and reputation be- " came more conspicuous than they had been before. He " communicated to them arithmetic and delivered to them " the science of astronomy ; for before Abraham came into " Egypt, they were unacquainted with this part of learn- " ing, for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt " and from thence to the Greeks." We ask any and every father whether he would not rather die childless, than to have a child and know that his child and his posterity, five or six generations, should be " strangers in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve and be afflicted for four hundred years," as Abraham was told, before he had a child at all. And, indeed, it is apparently not in accordance with justice and mercy. Abraham, a pious and upright man, so much so that God tells him, " Fear not, Abram ; I " am thy shield; thy reward is exceedingly great." To which Abram replied: " Lord God, what. " wilt thou ofive me? I am childless. To me thou hast 173 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, "given no seed; and lo! one born in m}- house, is mine « heir." To which the Lord said to him: ** This shall not be " thine heir; but he that shall come out of thine bowels t* shall be thine heir." And told him that his children would be as numberless as the stars are. " And he (Ab- " ram) believed in the Lord; and He (the Lord) counted it " to him for righteousness." But why were his children to be afflicted for four hundred 3'ears? It certainly cannot be said that the afflic- tion of the unborn children of Abraham w^as for some transgression of Abraham; we are nowhere told that he ever did transgress; and in this instance w^e are told it was counted to him a righteousness. Neither can it be said that it -was for some w^rong that the unborn children w^ould do, for it most certainly would not be right to decree a punishment and punish before the crime was committed, and still more so, before the committer of the crime was bom ! But Abraham seems to have been perfectly satisfied with the causeless affliction of his children. Neither is it reasonable to suppose that the promise that the fourth or sixth generation, at the end of the four hundred years, would come out with great \vealth from the land of their affliction. What father would like that his son, grandson, great grand-scm, and so on up to the sixth generation from him, should be afflicted and enslaved, for the purpose that the last may be made rich? And again, if it was the wdll of God that the poster- ity of Abraham should be afflicted, why were they^ who afflicted them, to be judged for afflicting them ? There is but one answer to all these questions, and that IS this: The posterity- of Abraham were not to be OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I73 afflicted for their sins, but for the •»Ins of others, or more properly speaking, to save others from their sins. They were to do the same that their father Abraham was doing, and that is, to ser\-e God by saving His creatures whom He hath created in His own image and given them each a soul, which is a part of Himself. The only way in which a man can ser\-e God is to benefit mankind in what he cannot help himself. Each and even* man and woman can help themselves, if they are in good health and not out of usual circumstances, to what they know they need for their body ; and if they are not in good health, or out of usual circumstances, then helping them in what they need for the body is also serving God. But the greatest help that one man can give to another is in that of which the other don't know that he is in need; and because he knows not that he is in need thereof he don't try to help himself. The soul is imperceptible to man; hence he knows not her want or desire; and that want must be supplied to each man by some other man; and not only must he whocojz, help another with what the other needs for his soul, but he must also demonstrate and convince the other that he needs that help, the same as a doctor must convince a person w^ho don't know that he is sick; he not only must tell him what to do to cure himself of the sickness, but must also con- vince him that he is sick, or he will not do what he tells him to do to get rid of his unknown sickness. Bodfly sickness comes from neglecting or violating, either know^- ingly or unknowingly, the laws of nature which are en- acted to be obserAed by the body, and sickness convinces man that he has \-iolated the laws for the body ; and just as sickness demonstrates to man that he has \-ioljfted the laws of nature which the body must observe, and he seeks relief from the laws of nature for his suffering body. So is trouble convincing to man that he has violated the natural 174 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, laws which the same legislator, God, hath enacted for the soul that hath enacted the laws of nature which govern the body. And there are four good reasons why God don't at once punish man for his violation of the laws that He hath enacted for the soul to observe, as He doth pun- ish the body when it violates the laws which it (the body) has to observe. First. The soul is wholly invisible to man, and not fully comprehensible; hence it would be contrary to justice to punish one for a thing that he has done, which he could not see nor understand. The moral justice of man even, is not to punish a man for killing another man if he killed him without seeing him, and without knowing that he did kill him; and that moral justice which man has in him comes from God, and consequently God Himself will not do an injustice to punish man for violating the laws which the invisible soul is . to observe. Secondly. If God would punish man for his viola- tion of the laws which his soul is to observe, it would be compelling man to act contrary to his will, and would make man a mere brute instead of the image of his Maker. The power that man has to choose and reason are parts of what makes man the image of his Maker. Third. The next reason is, God is too merciful to punish a man for not doing a thing which he cannot see and comprehend, without an object from which the mind can delineate. Fourth. And the other reason is, if God would punish man for his violation of the laws of nature that his soul has to perform, the same as He doth punish him for violating the laws that his body is to observe, He would have to punish every man each and every time OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I75 he violates one of these laws, the same as the hody is punished. The suffering that one man suffers in the body is no relief to another man who suffers from the same cause. And if the laws of nature were to punish man for his violating the laws which his soul is to observe, the same as he is punished by the laws of nature for his violation of the laws which his body is to observe, it would be out of the power (so to speak) of God to forgive him for his mis- doings, and man would have nothing to pray to God for, and would not be subject to the mercies of God. There- fore God holds out an object to man, from which his inind can delineate and reason ; and when man becomes convinced that he is spiritually sick or defective, and refuses to cure himself by repenting, then no doctor can help him; he must die a spiritual death. And Abraham was, and his posterity were to be and are, the objects from which the human race were to delineate and convince themselves of their spiritual infirmities, and cure themselves by the cure of repentance. And that is what Abraham agreed with God. He agreed that they should be afflicted for the term of four hundred years, for the purpose that the nation whom they would serve and that would afflict them should either be saved, or cease to be a nation when the seed of Abraham were amongst them. The power of the Roman Empire grew and pros- pered until they brought the seed of Abraham amongst them ! Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, had possessed himself of the land of Israel — the land that was given to Abraham and to his seed for the service that they had served God — and had endeavored to settle it with nations who knew not the service of the God of Abraham. 176 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Shalmaneser, king- of Assyria, endeavored to settle na- tions who knew nothing of the service of the God of Abraham in the land which God gave to Abraham and to his seed for their services, but did not succeed in his en- deavors, for they whom he sent there to settle were de- etro3'ed, until he found out the cause of their destruction, which was, they could not live in that land without serv- ing the God of Abraham, which service they learned from the afflicted seed of Abraham, the captives whom the king took to his country and was compelled to send some of them back to their land for the purpose of teaching the nations whom he had sent to inhabit that land the service of the God of Abraham. And where are now the nations who took the seed of Abraham from the land which God gave unto them for their serving Him, and took them into their own land, but did not take upon themselves the service of the God of Abraham? They are all utterly destroyed, except those who took the service as well as the seed of Abra- ham. The history of the world corroborates the history of the Bible, and shows that no nation could successfull}^ live for any length of time in the land which God gave to Abraham, without serving the God of Abraham; nor could any nation successfully keep the seed of Abraham in the land of the former without betaking themselves to the service of the God of Abraham. Abraham made a covenant with God wherein he agreed that he and his seed should serve that God, and the land was part of the consideration for the service; and it is cer- tainly no more than right, just and proper that he who takes the consideration must perform the service for which the consideration was given. Hence, whoever takes the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 1 77 land that God gave to Abraham and to his children in consideration for their service, must either perform the service or be punished for taking w^hat does not belong to him. The service that Abraham did, and that his seed were to perform, vs^as to teach mankind the knowledge and the service of their God, They and their land were appro- priated to this service. Had they faithfully carried out their part of the covenant by serving God, as they had agreed, and as is specified in the covenant, the service would have been performed, and they would, to this day, have been successfully and prosperously in their land. The world would have inquired for the cause of their prosperity, and would have easily ascertained that it was the belief in, and serving, the true and only God, which were the causes that made them prosperous. And the re- , suit of that knowledge would have been that the whole human race would have accepted the belief in and ser- vice of that same God. And the Bible tells, and reli- gion teaches, that this will be the result at the end. (Last chapter of Isaiah.) But Israel, instead of teaching the nations of the world the service of his God, while he was in prosperity and peace in his own land, has himself forsaken the service of his God, and has served the gods of the nations that were around him. Had they been allowed to remain in their land and serve thfi idols of the nations, the knowledge and service of the God of Abraham would have been forgot- ten. And therefore God, who by virtue of the covenant with their father, Abraham, and with them, was entitled to their service, caused them to be removed from their land, and caused them to be divided amongst the whole human race, and in that condition God made them serve J3 lyS A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, him up to the present time, and will continue to make them serve Him in that way until the whole human race will acknowledge and serve the God of Abraham. And the progress that the human race has made in the knowledge and service of God from the time of the dis- persion of the seed of Abraham amongst them, until the present time, makes us believe that the purpose of their service will soon be accomplished, and that all flesh will soon come to the worship of the Lord of Hosts. The subject of this chapter will be more fully explained and will be more perceptible when we shall come to speak and explain. Why God said and did harden the heart of Pharaoh not to send the Israelites out of his land, which might be very proper to make the subject of the succeeding chapter; but, that is a subject which extends itself to the present time, and will continue until the time that the purpose of tjie covenant that God hath made with Abraham, and with his posterity will be accomplished ; and, as we have said in our preface, that that is to be the finishing subject of this work, we will theretore drop that subject for the j^res- ent, and make the family of Judah the subject of the suc- ceeding chapter, which is one of the questions raised by Bishop Colenso In his attack upon the historical veracity of the Pentateuch. oil KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 1 79 CHAPTER XX. WERE HEZRON AND HAMUL, THE TWO GRANDSONS OF JUDAH, BORN ABOUT TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF JUDAH, AS COLENSO SAYS THEY WERE? The Bishop assumes and asserts that all the children of Jacob, except Benjamin, were born during the second seven years that Jacob served Laban for Rachel, and that Jacob was but twenty years in Haran. It is true the Bible tells us that Jacob served Laban twenty years, but telling how long one worked for another one, is not telling how long the worker lived in the place where he worked for the other one. And from these two assumptions, the Bishop concludes that Judah was but three years older than Joseph, and Joseph was, as the Bible says he was, about eighteen years old at the time his brethren sold him. Hence, says the Bishop, Judah, who was but three years older than Joseph, was at that time twenty-one years old, at the time Joseph was sold, and the Bible tells of Judah's marriage after it tells of the sale of Joseph. Consequently, says the Bishop, that Judah was married after he was twenty-one years old, and that he was about forty-two years old at the time he came with his father into Egypt. He derives the last conclusion from l8o A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the fact that the Bible says Joseph was thirty years old when he explained unto Pharaoh his dreams; and the seven years of plenty which followed, makes thirty-seven years; and the Bible says that Jacob came into Egypt at the end of the second year of famine; or Joseph told Jacob that there were then to be five yearsof famine, which makes the age of Joseph thirty-nine years at the time his father came to him. And the Bishop says Judah was but three years older than Joseph, consequently, the former was forty -two when the latter was thirty-nine, or at the time the former came with his father into Egypt. And in the biblical account of the seventy who came with Jacob into Egypt, it names Hetzron and Hamul, the sons of Pharez, and grandsons of Judah, amongst the seventy. And he knows enough to say that it is a natural impossibility for one to have two great-grandchildren born from the same grandson in about twenty years from the time that their great-grandfather was married. It is true ilelzron and Hamul were grandsons of Judah, but, under the circumstances, they were equal to great- grandchildren, because Judah was the third husband ot Tamar. Her first and second husbands were the sons of Judah. She first married Er, the first born son of Judah, He died, and she married Onan, the second son of Tudah. and he died. She was then sent away to her father's house and wait until Shelah, the third son of Judah, will grow up. And the Bishop concludes that it must have at least taken four years from the time that she was married to her first husband, Er, until she deceived Judah and conceived of him. (The last calculation or assumption may be reasonable.) Hence, if she had conceived of her first husband, Er, and begat Pharez, or any other child, that child would have OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 15I been the grandson of Judah, and could have been born about four years before he was born as the son of Judah. And if that child, or the son of Er, had begat Hezron and Hamul, they would have been the great-grandchildren of Judah, and could have been born four years before they were born as grandsons of Judah. And four from twenty-one leaves seventeen years from the time of Judah's marriage for Hamul, the youngest of the two grandsons in question to have been born; and say thiit there was but one year difference in the age of the grand- sons, would leave but sixteen years from the time of Judah's marriage until Hezron was born; and the circumstances heretofore stated, and which are found in the Bible, make him, Hezron, equal to a great-grandson of Judah. It is true, we are compelled to admit, that it is impossible for one to have a great-grandson born to him as the legitimate ofF- springof a marriage that was consummated sixteen years before the grandson was born. But we must ask the Bishop if he knows enougii to say, vvhich he does say, that it is a natural impossibility to be so. Why did he not know enough to know that he will be laughed at for assuming and making others believe that it is so? The Bible does not say so. Let us now see \vhethcr the Bible leaves a vacuum for such assumptions as the Rev. Bishop assumes. We judge a man's ability and motives by his actions. Hence it would be useless and improper for us to say that the Bishop's ignorance or insincerity caused him to draw such conclusions. The Bishop's ability as a mathematical calculator exhibits itself in the sixth chapter of this work. We will now examine the biblical account of the subject in question, and see from what he draws his hypothesis, and let the reader draw his own conclusions from the bib- lical history which we will present to him, and conclude l82 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, for himself whether Colenso is entitled to bishopsy, knav- ery or gross ignorance. We are told in the twenty-fifth chapter of Genesis that Isaac, the father of Jacob, was forty years old when he married; and in chapter twenty-six, in the same book, we are told that Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, also married and had two wives when he was forty years old. Joseph, the son of Jacob, was married and had two sons before the years of famine begun, at which time he was but thirty-seven years old, as w^e are told. (Genesis, chapter forty-one.) His brother Benjamin, who was at least seven years younger than Joseph, because Joseph was born be- fore Jacob began to serve for the spotted sheep, for which he served six years (Genesis, chapter thirty), and Benjamin was born by Beth Lehem, after Jacob came back from Laban and dwelled sometime in the city of Shechera. Gen. chap. 34 and 35. Allowing but a year for his journey, the time that he dwelt in Shechem^ and that Joseph may have been born before his father began to serve for the spotted sheep, and the six years that he served makes seven years at least that Benjamin was born later than Joseph; hence Joseph was thirty-nine years old, which was the time his fiither came to him into Egypt, as has heretofore been shown, at which time his brother Benjamin, who was seven years younger, could have been no more than thirty-two years old, at which time he, Benjamin, was the father of ten children. Gen,, chap. 46. And every one of Jacob's children, Reuben, the oldest, could according to Colenso's calculation have been but six years older than Joseph, for he says that Reuben was born at the end of the first year of the second seven years that OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 183 Jacob served for Rachel, and Joseph was born at the end of the same seven years. Hence, when Joseph was thirty- nine years old Reuben must have been forty-five years old, and they were all married and had children. Thus we see that Isaac, his son Esau, and twelve grand -children of the former, were all married between the age of thirty (as in the case of Benjamin) and forty years. Let us now see how old Jacob must have been at the time he was married, if he was no more than twenty years in Haran. If, as Colenso says, Jacob was but twenty years in Haran, and Joseph was born six years before he, Jacob, left that place, then Joseph was born fourteen years after Jacob came to that place, or after he served Laban fourteen years. We find that Jacob was one hun- dred and thirty years old at the time he came into Egypt, (Gen., chap. 47,) at which time Joseph was thirty-nine years old. Add to the thirty-nine years, the age of Joseph, the fourteen years that Jacob was at Laban's house before the former was born, fourteen and thirty-nine make fifty- three. Subtract this fifty-three years from the hundred and thirty, the age of Jacob at the time he migrated into Egypt, leaves seventy -seven years as the age of Jacob at the time he came to Laban's house. Thus seventy-seven at the time he came to Laban. In fourteen years after he came to Laban Joseph was born; fourteen and seventy -seven make ninety-one, as the age of Jacob at the birth of Jo- seph. Add the ninety-one years to the thirty-nine, the age of Joseph at the time his father came to him in Egypt, ninety-one and thirty-nine make the one hundred and 'V^^T^^^>^ UFI7EESIT7] 184 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, thirty years, the age of Jacob at the time he came into Egypt. Colenso assigns no cause and gives no reason why Jacob did not marry between the ages of thirty and forty years, the same as his father, twin brother, and his twelve sons did. There can be no cause or reason found for it in the Bible, because the Bible shows a plain im- possibility to have been as Colenso says it was, which will appear before we close this subject. Isaac, the father of Jacob, was born when Sarah, his mother, was ninety years old, and a year before he was born the angel told her that " at this time next year " she " will have a son." She did not believe the angel, and mockingly said: " Shall I return to the time of bearing " after my old age?" (Heb. version.) " And Abraham "and Sarah were old and well STRICKEN IN AGE; " and ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. " Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, after I " am waxed old shall I have pleasure, and my lord (hus- " band) being old also?" Gen., chap. 18. And not only did Sarah disbelieve what the angel said in regard to her bearing a son at the age of eighty-nine years, and laughed because he said so, but Abraham him- self laughed and could not believe when the "Alohim " (which is a name that sometimes designates God and some- times it means an angel) told him that Sarah would have a son. " And God said unto Abraham, as for Sarah, thy wife, " I will bless her and give thee a son of her, and she shall "be a mother of many nations; kings of people shall be " of her. And Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, *' and said in his heart. Shall a child be born unto him OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 185 "that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is " ninety years old, bear?" Now if Abraham and Sarah have laughed at the idea of giving birth to a child at the age of eighty -jiine years, and have said eighty-nine years old v^^as vvrell stricken in age; and it says that nature has forsaken her (" it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women ") at or long before the age of eighty-nine, and did not believe it pos- sible even when God and an angel told them of it; the question is, what else can the reader do than laugh at and disbelieve what Colenso says about Jacob coming to Laban at the age of seventy-seven years, and propose to serve seven years and did serve seven years for Rachel before he married her, which would have made him eighty- four years at the time of his marriage, and which is but five years younger than his grandmother Sarah was, and she laughed at the angel for telling her something similar to what Co- lenso tells to the world now, which can't help but make the reader and the world laugh at Colenso for saying such an unnatural and unreasonable thing. We believe that it is very reasonable to suppose and assume that Rachel would have said: " If I am to marry " a man, at all, that is already seventy-seven years old, I " will rather marry him now than wait for him when he " will be eighty-four years old." And Jacob, if he had been as old as Colenso says he was at the time in question, he would have pro2:)Osed to marry first and serve the seven years after the marriage, as he has served the second seven years. And it cannot well be said that Laban would not have given his daugh- ter to Jacob before he obtained the service from the latter, because we find that the former has himself made the 1 86 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, proposition that Jacob shall marry his second daughter a week after the consummation of the marriage of the first daughter, and serve him seven years for her after he mar- ried her, w4iich j^i'oposition was accepted and performed by Jacob. We must stop to investigate that unreasonable part of the subject further, because it is too ridiculous and too laughable. We will now see how the biblical account of the birth of Jacob's children coincides with the account that Colenso gives, and see what the Bible says on that subject. Colenso says that all the sons of Jacob, from Reuben until Joseph, including the two named, and his daughter Dinah, twelve in all, were all born during the second seven years of service that Jacob served for Rachel. Let us see what the Bible says about it: " And when the Lord saw " that Leah was hated he opened her womb, but Rachel " was a barren." This plainly tells us that Leah did not conceive until after she was hated, and until after Rachel was considered a barren. Hence it cannot be supposed that Leah conceived within a week, a month, or two, even within a year after she got married. It cannot reasonably be supposed that she conceived until after Rachel was sup- posed and believed to be a barren, and if a women does not conceive within a year or two years after she gets married, it would certainly be very unreasonable to sup- pose and believe that she was a barren. Isaac did not con- sider and believe that his wife Rebecca was a barren until after twenty years from the time they were married, at which time he prayed that God may open her womb. We come to that conclusion from the fact that we are told in the Bible that he was forty years old when he got married, and that he was sixty years old when Jacob and Esau were born, and they were born shortly after he prayed for children. OR KIJY TO SCRIPTURE. 187 However, there is nothing in the Bible nor in reason which can dispute, that some considerable time of the second seven years that Jacob served Laban had elapsed before Leah conceived and begat her first son, whom she called Reuben, because she was afflicted and God saw her affliction. And she begat another, and called his name Simeon. And she conceived again and bare a son, and she called his name Levi. And she begat an- other, and she called his name "Judah; and left bearing." " And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no chil- " dren, Rachel envied her sister. And she gave her hand- " maid, Bilhah, unto Jacob for a wife. And she begat " Dan ; and she conceived again and begat another son, and " she called him Naphtali. And when Leah saw that she " stopped bearing, she took Zilpah, her maid, and gave " her Jacob to wife." And Leah's maid also begat two sons. At about that time Reuben was big enough to be out in the harvest field, and must have already understood and known the use that women made of mandrakes, for he picked up some and gave it to his mother* And Leah conceived again and begat a son and called his name Issacher. And she conceived again and she be- gat Jacob a sixth son, and she called his name Zebulum. And she afterwards bare a daughter, and called her Di- hah. *Mandrakes were used by women as a perfume, as we are told by Solomon in his songs, " The mandrakes grave a smell. And they were also used as a help to the lack of fecundity, a child of three or four years, which is the ago that Reuben must have been, if he was born at about the close of the first or the bcginninj? of the second year after his parents were married, as Co- lenso says he was, could know nothing of the use of mandrakes. l88 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, And then it says: " God remembered Rachel and " opened her womb," and she bare a son, and she called him Joseph. And it says: " And it was as, or when, Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said unto Laban, * Send me away, "* that I may go unto my ov/n place, and to my coun- ut try.'" Here may also be asked: What had the birth of Jo- sejDh to do with the service which Jacob had to serve La- ban? If the time of service had expired, why did he not say, the same as he said when the first seven years had ended, "Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled," the birth of Jo- seph co.uld certainly not be used by Jacob as a cause why Laban should send him away, if they had not expired; and if it had expired, at or about the time, it would have been more reasonable and forcible if Jacob had used the expira- tion of the time as a cause for his desire to be sent away, instead of the birth of Joseph and the plea "When shall I provide for my own house also?" This is very strong proof that the second seven years ot service had expired some time before Joseph was born, and Jacob lived in Haran and probably worked for his father-in-law; but when Jo- seph was born, which was at the time that Jacob was ninety-one years old, as has heretofore been shown, and as Jacob was sent away from home for the purpose that his brother Esau might forget what the former had done unto him, and then his mother was to send for him, as the Bible tells us: "Now, therefore, my son, obey my advice, and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother, to Haran; and tarry with him a few days until thy brother's fury turn away; until thy brother's anger turn away from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done to him; then I will send and fetch thee from thence." Gen., chap. 27. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. At the time that Joseph was born she may have sent him word that it was safe for him to come home, which we think is very reasonable to suppose; or Jacob being then ninety-one years of age, and having been away from home between forty and fifty years, concluded that that was time enough for his brother to forget what he had done to him, and wanted to return home. (Look for un- noted quotations in Genesis, chap. 39th and 30th. We have brought all these biblical facts to the notice of the reader for the purpose that he may see that there is not the shadow of a spot that can be used as a support, or upon which a shadow of a support can be placed, that would support the Bishop's theories that Jacob was but twenty years in Haran, and that all his children, except Benjamin, were born during the second seven years that Jacob served Laban for Rachel. The fact that Rachel was considered a barren when Leah gave birth to or conceived with Reuben, is proof which cannot be successfully disputed that Leah did not conceive, or that Reuben was not born, before Rachel was considered a barren. And no one except inspired Bishop Colenso, or any one like him, will consider a woman a barren if she don't conceive before or at the expiration of three months from the time that she was married. The word barren means one that cannot be fruitful or produce, in whom the pro- ducive nature is defective, and not one that does not pro- duce because some causes work against nature and stop nature from producing, which external causes can be removed. A field that does not produce because it is not drained, but can be drained, is not a barren field. It may be reasonable to consider a wcnman a barren if she has 190 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, been married from five to ten years and has not conceived, but not before. And the fact that Reuben was big enough to be out in the wheat field when the wheat was harvested, and knew the use that women make of and value they set on mandrakes, which is a thing that never was in abundance, proves that Reuben must at the time have been a lad of at least twelve or fifteen years old, if not more. And above all, the Bible plainly tells that Rachel did not give her maid to Jacob until after Leah had her fourth son, Judah; and that Leah did not give her maid to Jacob until Rachel's maid had her two sons; and it also tells that Leah stopped bearing while the two maids were bearing; and it tells that Rachel did not conceive with Joseph until Leah had her fifth and sixth son and her daughter Dinah- Leah had seven children, and if she gave birth to a child each and every year of the seven years in question, the entire seven years would have passed while she was bear- ing her children, and Joseph could not have been born until the end of the first year that Jacob served for the spotted sheep. And when were the children of the maids born ? We believe we have produced proof enough before the reader, from which he can, without trouble, conclude to which title Colenso is entitled : To the title of Bishop, Knave, or Ignorance. Suppose that a teacher tells a pupil to find out how much eight-ninths of ten times eleven is, and multiply the eight-ninths by twelve; the first thing the pupil w^ould have to do would be to find out the product of ten times eleven; and if the pupil would conclude that ten times eleven is ninety, or any other number than 1 10, can the pupil ever obtain the right answer to the problem? Certainly not. The OR KEY TO SCKIPTUKE. I9I multiplying of the wrong answer will only increase the error; and the larger the multiplier would be, the larger would the error be, and if he should divide it, the quo- tient would contain a part of the error, in proportion to the divisor. The teacher would be blameworthy for giving the pupil an example in fractions when he, the latter, did not know the multiplication table; and they who gave to Co- lenso the bishopric are indeed blameworthy for giving that position to one who does not know the difference between serving a certain man in a certain place twenty years, and living twenty years in the place wherein the one in ques- tion served the other one. Mathematic is a science by which all other sciences are demonstrated, but there is no other science that can dem- onstrate or prove the science of mathematics; the only way we have to demonstrate mathematics is by itself. The Bible is the same; it proves everything and ap- proves of and agrees with every science, but there is nothing that can prove it; the only way to demonstrate the Bi- ble is by itself, the same as the science of mathematic. A thing that is subject to proof, is subject to negative as well as to affirmative proof. Suppose that one would disbelieve that grass grows out of the ground; is- there anything by which we could demonstrate to him the truth that it does, if not by the fact itself? The best and the only proof would be to show him the fact that g^rass does grow. So is the Bible. It is a truth. And that is what the Psalmist meant by saying: " Truth grows out of the earth, and " righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord also *' giveth the good; and our land yields her fruit." (Heb. version.) 192 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, It can be seen that to compare the Bible to the pro- ducts of the earth is not a novelty. He who has a proper mind, which is from heaven, can ascertain ♦^he truth of the Bible without any outside proof than the Bible itself, as he can prove everything that is or can be done with the ten figures, by the figures themselves; or prove anything that grows out of the ground by the thing itself that is in question. If the reader will look in chapter 6th, we have there assumed that Jacob was fifty-three years old at the time he came to Haran, or to Laban, and that he was sixty years old at the time he got married; also, that it took him seventy years to raise his family of seventy. We have there claimed that Jacob was but about forty years o*ld at the time he came to Haran or to Laban. But the Bible tells us that Esau was married before Jacob left his father's house, and that his mother was displeased with the wives of Esau, or " the daughters of Canaan." We therefore must allow some reasonable time to pass between the time that Esau got married and the time that Jacob was sent away. We have in this chapter produced proof enough that between the ages of thirty and forty years was the matrimonial age at the time in question. And knowing that Esau, who was of one age with Jacob, mar- ried at forty; and we also know that Jacob was not sent away from home until after Esau was married, and that Rebecca was displeased with the wives of Esau, we will allow two years to have passed from Esau's marriage until the sending away of Jacob to Laban, and say that the former was forty-two years old when he came to his uncle, and got married after he served his uncle seven years, which made him forty-nine years old at the time he got married. The Bible don't tell us the age of Jacob at the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I93 time either one of his children was born; neither does the Bible tell us the age of either one of his children at a certain time, except that it tells the age of Joseph at the time he was brought before Pharaoh; hence the age of Jacob when either one of his children, except Joseph, was born, cannot be ascertained. We know and it was heretofore shown that Jacob was ninety-one years old when Joseph was born, and allowing three years to have elapsed between the tniie of Jacob's marriage and the birth of his first son, which would make Reuben to have been born at the time Jacob was fifty-two years old ; that leaves thirty-nine years between the birth of Reuben and that of Joseph, during which time the rest of the children oif Jacob were born, instead of seven years as Colenso says; and it is impossible to ascertain the age of Judah, or the age of any one of the children of Jacob from the age of Joseph. Judah may have been born three years after Reuben was, and in that case he would be nearly as old again as Joseph was at the time Jacob came into Egypt, at which time Joseph was thirty-nine years old, and Judah, being thirty-six years older, was or would have been seventy-five years old. And no one who has read history and knows how history is written, and will not say or suppose a thing which will justify the world to charge him with being a fool, will ever say or suppose that Judah got married after Joseph was sold, because the marriage of* Judah is related after the sale of Joseph. It is true that from the English version of the Bible one may suppose that the sale of Joseph took place before Judah got married, because it reads: "And it came to pass at the time that Judah," etc. It can be seen that that is mistranslated. The words "And it came to pass" are a 194 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, grammatical contradiction to the words "At the time." The former alludes to time past, and the latter to present time, and both phrases are predicates of the same time and allude to the same circumstance. The Hebrew text is this: "And it was m that time," alludmg to the time that Jacob dwelt in the land of Canaan, which is the first verse of the first chapter, which gives the history of the life of Joseph, his dreams and everything else; and at the time, that is, the time that Jacob dwelt in Canaan, Judah got married; Joseph dreamed, he grew up and was sold. It may be said that we have assumed, when we were calculating the increase of the Israelites during their stay in Egypt, that Jacob was sixty years old at the time he was married, and that it took him seventy years to raise his family of seventy; and now we have assumed that he could have been at the utmost but forty-nine years old at the time in question, and that will make a great difference in the number of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, because if we take forty-nine years, the age of Jacob at the time of his marriage, from one hundred and thirty, wnich was his age at the time he came into Egypt, it leaves eighty-one, and that number will not go as many times in two hundred and fifteen, the time that the Israelites stayed in Egypt, as seventy will; and having referred the question of Jacob's age at the time of his marriage to the question of the family of Judah, which is the subject of this chapter, we will therefore review the question here. Say that Jacob married at the age of forty-nine, and say that the first child was born to him a year after his marriage, which will make even eighty years as the time it took Jacob to raise his family of seventy. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I95 Eighty in two hundred and fifteen will go twice and 55- So or 11-16 remainder. Multiply seventy, three times by itself, that is, multiply the seventy tha-t migrated with Jacob three times by seventy, will make 24,010,000. But they did not stay in Egypt three times eighty years, which would make two hurwilred and forty; they were there but two hundred and fifteen years; hence we can only take 55-So or 11-16 of the 24,010,000, the number that they could have been if they had stayed there three times eighty. And 11-16 of 24,010,000 is 16,506,875, which is the number that the Israelites could have been at the time of the Exodus if each father and mother had on an average 41^ children, (the last number is Colenso's ratio,) that is, if it took Jacob eighty years to raise his family of seventy. The English word " harnessed," that is used in Exodus, chaj:). 13, verse 18, is translated from the Hebrew word " chamushim," which means five, or a fifth part, and a fifth part of 16,506,875 is 3,301,375, and that agrees with the number that the Israelites must have been at the time of the Exodus. If every one of the 600,000 from twenty years upward was married, and all had on an average 4^ children to each father, they would have been about 3,900,000; but it cannot be supposed that every one was married at twenty years of age; hence the fifth part of 16,506,875 is a reasonable number to suppose they were. Thus we see that a truth demonstrates itself, which- ever way it is taken; but it must be taken with the " righteousness of heaves " (the soul), and not with the folly or malignity of Colenso and Ingersoll, or the like of them. However, the truth of the subject in question is yet in its growth; it will develop itself and become ripe at the end of the next chapter. 196 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXI. THE NUMBER OF THE FIRST BORN, IN COMPARISON TO THE WHOLE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES AT THE TIME THEY WERE FIRST COUNTED IN THE DESERT. Could there have been, at the time, no more mothers in Israel than the number of the first born? Was there a necessity for every mother m Israel, at the time in ques- tion, to have as many children on an average as the quo- tient would be if 603,550, the whole number of the Israelites, be divided by 22,273, which was the number of the first born, the quotient of which is between 27 and ^8, and more, as it will hereinafter appear, that each mother in Israel was compelled to have, if the male population from twenty years and upward were 603,550, as the RT. REV. BISHOP COLENSO and as the man of circum- stances — the Orator! The Lawyer! The Politician! The Statesman! The Liberal man! The Benevolent man! The echo of senseless thoughts of other men! The man whose empty but glossy words draw together unthinking crowds of men and women, who congregate to hear and applaud him whose words poisons their hearts and minds, by which means he acquired the fame of. his name and by which he makes his money! The no man, for man con- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. I97 sists of soul and body, and the former he says he has not got! The gentleman of the fine bodily appearance and abundance ot flesh! The man who says that when his body returns to its dust the whole of him, the man, will be lost! The man whom we believe to be honest and sincere, but whose mental theological stomach has entirely lost its power of digestion because it was, in its youth, overloaded with indigestive theological tood, which it now throws out in an undigested state, and cannot digest the religious nourishment or theological food it inhales now! In short, the man IngersoU — say it is? The Bible is to religion what the books of a business are to the business; everything that appertains to the busi- ness is to be and must be found in the books in which the transactions of the business are recorded. And a Bishop is supposed to know and understand every transaction that takes or took place in his business, the same as a book- keeper does and has to know and understand the books in which the transactions and accounts of the business are kept. The conclusions of a Bishop, which he draws from the several items that are recorded in the books of his business (the Bible), are the balance-sheets which every book-keeper has to make out of the items which are recorded in the books that contain the record of the trans- actions of said business. He w^ho examines, criticises, approves or disapproves, coincides or confutes the conclusions of the Bishop, is the expert accountant, to whom the balance-sheet of the book- keeper of the business in question is often submitted. What would, could, and should any reasonable business tgS A COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, man, or any man, nay, even any bootblack or newsboy who has to pay his own board and other expenses out of his earnings, think of a book-keeper who kept an account of the cash that came into the business, but kept no ac- count of the cash that went out of the business, such as the necessary and reguhir expenses and circumstantial losses, which were equal to four-fifths of the profits of the business? The only account that he kept was the quantity and cost price of the goods sold and the profits it brought, which were equal to twenty-five per cent, of the first cost of the goods. And his balance sheet for the first month would (according to the items of the book) be something like this : January Ist, stock on hand $2,000 31, " " $1,000 Sales 1,000 $3,000 Cash price of goods sold during January $1,000 25 per cent, profit on goods sold 250 $1,250 Showing a profit of $250. Total amount of cash as per balance-sheeti, $i,'J50. But in counting the cash he only found $1,050, which could be no otherwise, because four-fifths of $250 profits (which is $200) went away for expenses. But the book-keeper, instead of making that result the measure or weight of his ability and fitness as a book- keeper, would report to the proprietor of the business that there are some dishonest clerks in the business; and to prove what he said would produce his balance-sheet, which would show a loss of $200, which must have been taken out by some unknown hands from his cash-drawer (brain). We ask, what could even a bootblack or a newsboy think of such a book-keeper? OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. [99 And what could he think, or to what conclusion could he come, of an expert accountant who says he has thor- oughly examined the books as well as the balance-sheet, and finds no other way to account for the loss of the $300 than that there is dishonesty among the clerks of the business? To whatever conclusion any one could, would, or should come about the fitness and ability of the book- keeper as a book-keeper, and of the exj^ert as an expert accountant, may, can, and must be the conclusion of every one of Colenso as a Bishop, and of Ingersoll as a practical critic of biblical subjects! The book which the Bishop has produced and deliv- ered to the religious community of the world, who are in fact the party and the only party that has an interest in the religious business, of which a Bishop is the head book- keeper, is the balance-sheet of the business in question ; and in that balance-sheet the Bishop reports a great deficiency in the sum total, which he ascribes to the dishonesty of some of those that were employed in the business. Inger- soll says he is an expert accountant, and that he had thor- oughly examined the books of the business (the Bible), and corroborates the balance-sheet of the Bishop, and also says that dishonesty is the only cause which accounts for the biblical deficiency shown by the balance-sheet produced by the Bishop. And we, who claim to be no more than bootblacks and newsboys, are compelled by the circum- stances and facts of the subject in question to say that Colenso is less fitted to occupy the position of Bishop, and Ingersoll the position of biblical critic, than a bootblack or newsboy is. And we will now produce the facts and figures of the subject in question to the reader, who is one of the pro- 206 A COLLECTION OF* TtiOtJGItTS, prietors of the business, that he may judge for himself. And we will be exceedingly thankful to the friends and followers of Bishop Colenso and Ingersoll if they will take the trouble to examine our report or balance- sheet of the business and books in question, and point out to us any error that they may find in our report. We woulH ask the Bishop and Col. R. G. Ingersoll to do the same, but we are strongly inclined to think that they will not want to condescend from their empty dignity to cor- respond and dispute with a bootblack or newsboy, which position we justly ascribe to ourselves, because, if we should place ourselves or be placed by others in juxtaposition to any one of those who have made the record of the Bible, our position would indeed be far lower than the position of the ordinary bootblack compared to the position of even Bishop Colenso. And we propose that the reader shall measure our position with the position of the last named, or with any one or all of his congenial crew. The reader is to decide the case between those who have entered the accounts in the Bible and those who accuse them of dishonesty. And we are the attorney for the defendants, and the Bible itself is the witness for the defendants. And although we could clear the defendants by simply showing the entries of the expenses and losses that were made by the defendants, which are all found in the Bible, and the apparent deficiency is caused by the stupidity of the present head book-keeper, Colenso, and expert accountant Ingersoll, by not subtracting it from the profits or sum total; nevertheless we will first examine Bishop Colenso and see if we cannot benefit our client by cross-questioning him, which it is the right and duty of every lawyer to do, and which every lawyer does for the benefit of his client and for the purpose of finding out OR kEY TO SCRIPTURE. 201 the character of the witness, which may, as it often does, lead to results that are of great benefit to the community. A witness can and often does testify to an untruth of which he is not aware, such as making a mistake of a date or circumstance. But when it is proven by the evi- dence of the witness himself that he testified to a thing of which he could not make a mistake, such as telling that he was in New York, or in any other far away place, and his evidence shows that he never was there, then his own evidence shows that he has wilfully misrepresented the case; and more especially when it appears from his evidence or from the evidence in the case that he, the wit- ness, has derived a benefit or a consideration for misrepre- senting the truth of the case, then the witness is not only condemned by the community and debarred by law from giving evidence again, but may be and very often is pun- ished by law for perjury. We, therefore, will cross-question Colenso and see if we cannot benefit by it our clients and the community, so that the latter may condemn him and impeach him, that he may never again offer himself as a witness in a theological case. But the reader may accuse us of changing our position. We have introduced ourselves to the reader as an inde- pendent or unsectarian biblical critic; and we have in the present case already assumed the positions of practical book- keeper, bootblack, and now that of a lawyer. Hence we think it is due to the reader and proper for us to define and. explain our position before we proceed further, or be- fore we call Colenso on the witness stand. Every party is, at the trial of its case, bound by 202 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, its own pleadings. The preface of a book is the plead- ing of its author; in it the author sets forth his plea and indicates his modus operandi. Our preface shows that the Bible is our plea, and that Solomon is our method. And he says: "A treble twisted thread is not easily torn;" hence we have a right to assume a trebled posi- tion. And Solomon in Proverbs, chap. 36, v. 4, says: " Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou " also be like unto him." (Verse 5.) " Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be " wise in his own conceit." What Solomon meant by the two apparently incon- sistent and contradictory verses is this: If a foolish ques- tion is asked of you, and you see and believe that the questioner is indeed sincere and honest, and only asks be- cause he desires to be informed, then says Sdlomon : Answer him not according to his folly, for you will be consid- ered as big a fool as he is. It will be said or supposed that you don't know how to answer any more than he, to ask, hence you will be like him, a fool. Therefore give him a proper answer. But when you have reason to believe that the question is not asked with sincerity and for the purpose of being informed, but you have reason to believe that it was asked because the questioner considers himself wise in his own conceit, then answer him "accord- ing to his folly," because the more you will endeavor to give him a proper answer, the more wise will the ques- tioner consider himself; because he will naturally suppose that he must be a wise man if he succeeded in making you believe that he asked the question in earnest; and that you who gave him such a wise answer, consequently you OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 203 must be a wise man, yet you did not know that he was only asking the question for the purpose of finding out whether you were wise enough to know that he asked the question from a motive of folly. Hence, before a question is to be answered, the motive of the questioner must be as- certained. Suppose one man asked another: How can salt be preserved from becoming wormy and rotten? To which the other replied: The only way to preserve salt from being decayed is, to preserve it in the after-birth of an animal that is a barren and its mother was a barren. That would be answering a fool according to his folly. Had he told him that salt preserves itself, the questioner would have considered himself wise in his own conceit. Thus the reader sees that all the positions which we have assumed are in accordance with the Bible, and according to the Bible we are compelled to answer Colenso accord- ing to his folly, which is, as the answer to the question of the salt is given; and to the honest seeker for truth we will give the wise and true answer of the Bible, which will be the closing part of this chapter and subject. Our answer to the foolish question of the Bishop: How could the Israelites have been over 600,000 men from twenty years upward, when according to his conjecture they could have been no more than about 5,000 in all, in- cluding men, women and children; believing and seeing that that question was not asked from a cause of ignorance or for the sake of gaining information on the subject, we have therefore answered him that question according to his folly by showing him that even if it took Jacob seventy years to raise his family of seventy, while the Bishop says it took him but twenty, the Israelites could have reached at the time of the Exodus to the incredible and unnatural numl)er of 144,060,000, instead, as his ignorant or hypo- 204 ^ COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, critical conjecture made him say that they could have been but about 5,000 men, women and children. And that is the mathematical result if it took Jacob, as we, for the purpose of then and there answering to the reader the folly of the Bishop and separating it from biblical truth, have said that it took him seventy years to raise his family. And for the purpose of exposing the folly or ignorance of the Bishop, we will now see what the result would be if it took Jacob but twenty years to raise his family of seventy, as the Bishop says and insists. In twenty years from the time Jacob came into Egypt each one of the seventy could, at the rate of 4^ to each father and mother, also raise a family of seventy, which would be seventy times seventy, which equals 4,900. And in forty years after Jacob came into that country, or in the second twenty years, each one of the 4,900 could at the same rate also raise a family of seventy, which equals seventy times 4,900 and makes 343,- 000. And in sixty years from the time in question each one of the last number could at the same ratio also raise a family of seventy, which equals 24,01.0,000. And in the fourth twenty years each one of the last number could do the same as his predecessor did, raise a family of seventy in twenty years, which would have been seventy times 24,010,000, and that equals to 1,680,700,000. And in the fifth twenty years each one of the last number could, at the same ratio, do the same thing, which would equal sev- enty times the last number, and that equals to the unnatural and unhistorical and unreasonable — but complies with the foolish or hypocritical conjecture of Colenso, — to the num- ber of 117,649,000,000 in the short time of but one hun- dred years from and after the time that Jacob came with his family of seventy into Egypt! And if the reader wishes to measure or weigh the folly of Bishop Colenso, OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 205 by ascertaining how many the Israehtes could have been, at the same ratio of increase, at the end of the 315 years which the EngHsh prelate says they (the Israelites) were in Egypt, (which is five years more than they actually were there,) let him multiply the last number by seventy as many times as twenty goes into one hundred and fifteen, and that will give him an insight to the bottomless folly, ignorance, knavery or hypocrisy of the Rev. Bishop Co- lenso and of his disciple Ingersoll. We have there an- swered that question to the Bishop according to his folly. And the question raised by the Bishop's conjectured impossibility for Hetzron and Hamul to have been born before the time that Jacob came into Egypt, we answered that to the Bishop also according to his folly, by bringmg out scores of circumstances that are recorded in the Bible, each and every one of which shows that nothing but folly or ignorance could or would suppose that Jacob married when he was eighty-four years old. And that was an answer according to the folly of the questioner, because that part of the answer exposed his folly. And we have answered the same question to the seeker for truth, that it took Jacob no less than eighty years to raise his family of seventy; and as far as the Bishop and Ingersoll and their congenial crew are concerned, we would answer them ac- cording to their folly only, so that they shall not consider themselves wise in their own conceit. But for the sake of the honest seeker for truth we will here dispense with the folly of the Bishop, and all that we can do with it is to dispense with it, because we can come to no end of it, for there is no end to folly; hence we dispense with it, and betake ourselves to the subject in question, and apply our answer to the seeker for truth. But we find it to be a duty which we owe to the 206 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Bible and the friends of it, as well as to ourselves, to say to the reader that whatever question he may find in our answer to the Bishop, which we give for the purpose of exposing his folly to the public and convincing him (the Bishop) of the same, the reader should not lay the ques- tion on the Bible nor on us, but should lay the same to the incompetency of Colenso, the English Bishop at Natal. The Bible is no more responsible for what the Bishop makes it say than the figures an incompetent mathemati- cian uses are responsible for the result which the ignorant accountant makes the fisfures he uses bringr out. And we are making use of the Bishop's figures for no other pur- pose than to convince him of his folly and ignorance, which is the same as we are doing with our pupils in school. Consequently, we are not to be blamed for the stupidity of the Bishop, We will now direct our attention to the question, and answer it in a reasonable and mathematical way, for which we hold ourselves responsible, and will answer each and every question the reader may ask us about it. All that we have heretofore said about the number of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, or at the time they were first numbered in the desert by Moses and Aaron, was our answer to Colenso according to his folly. The assumption that the 603,550 that the Bible says Mxre over twenty years, were all married, is not ours, neither is that idea based upon anything that is or can be found in the Bible. So is the conclusion that the Israelites must have been, at the time of the Exodus, the incredible number of 144,000,000, including the four- fifths that died in Egypt before they left; and that must have been the number, according to Colenso, if it took OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 20*J Jacob seventy years to raise his family of seventy, as we, for the purpose heretofore stated, said it did; and the~ greatly more unreasonable number if it took Jacob but twenty years to raise his family in question. All of which the reader must lay on Colenso and his echoes, not on the Bible nor on us. A mother may have twenty or more children, but no mother can have more than one first-born, and if that first-born dies its mother may have twenty children after her first-born died, but she can never have another first- born. Suppose that ten newly-married couples have settled in a settlement by themselves; a child was born to each family at the end of two years after they were married, and each family continued to bring forth a child every two years; the increase of the ten families would be equal to five children every year. In twenty years from the time of their marriage and settlement the ten families would give birth to one hundred children, among whom would be ten first-born. But their decrease, which was equal to four-fifths of the increase for the first and second twenty years after they had entered that settlement, was from the children that were born and before they reached the age of twenty years; which left but one-fifth that reached the age of twenty and upwards. One-fifth of one hundred is twenty. And among t4ie four-fifths that died was also four-fifths of the first-born, hence there were but two first-born alive; and the popu- lation of the settlement in the twenty-first year after the settlement was made by the ten families was forty in all. Ten fathers, ten mothers, twenty children, and among the latter were two first-born, which represented ten mothers and a population of forty. But one first-born to five mothers and to twenty not first-born! Hence we 208 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, perceive that there can be five and more than five mothers to one first-born. That is the result that would follow at the end of the first twenty years from the time of the settlement, at which time the first settlers were but forty years old; and it is natural for a woman to bear children until she is fifty years old, and even longer. Hence, during the second twenty years after the settlement the ten female settlers would, during the first ten years of the second twenty years, produce five children each, or fifty childrent among the ten; and the second generation would, during the sec- ond twenty years, produce one hundred children, the same as the first settlers did during the first twenty years after the settlement. That would have made 150 children that were born in the settlement during the second twenty years, of whom four-fifths died, and that equals i3o; and that would leave but thirty children who survived from those that were born during the second twenty years, and among whom were but two first-born; that is, one-fifth of the ten first-born of the ten mothers of the second genera- tion. That would make but four first-born to twenty mothers. And the population of the settlement would be twenty fathers, twenty mothers, and fifty children, or a total population of ninety; among whom would be but four first-born, or about one first-born to about twenty-two or more not first-born. And if the reader will take the trouble to carry out the same process until the time when the first settlers became seventy years old, he will see that there is a very reasonable and natural possibility to be one first-born among thirty and even more non-first-born. And he will perceive that the further, in point of time, he will extend his calculation, the greater will become the proportion of the non-first-born to one first-born. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. —^ 209 It has been shown in the previous chapter that but" one-fifth of the increase of the Israelites in Egypt came out of that country. Hence the 22,273 male first-born were but one-fifth of the male first-born; and to find out the number of the mothers in Israel by the number of the first-born, we must add an equal number of first-born females to the given number of first-born males, which would make 44,546. The last number would have been the whole number of living first-born, including males and females. And that would have been one-fifth of all the first-born, because four-fifths died. Multiply the 44,546, the first-born that were living, by five, would make 222,730 as the number of all the first-born, including both the dead and the living. And that 222,730 would have been the number of mothers at the time and among the people in question. Which shows that but a fraction more than one-third of those that were numbered, or were above twenty years, were married. 2IO CHAPTER XXII. THE TRUE AND PROPER BIBLICAI. ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS; OR, " ANSWER NOT A F^OOL ACCORDING We have heretofore, on a former occasion, said that " Science proves the truthfulness of the Bible, and that " it proves the ignorance of those who say that science " disproves the Bible." To prove what we have then said, and what we say now, we will for a short time .change the name of Bible into the name of Mathematic, and the name of Israel into the name of sheep, which will relieve the reader from the tiresomeness that we anticipate he may feel from reading the same names too often, and relieve ourselves from the unavoidable, but nev- ertheless well-founded, charge of tautology; and see if the science of mathematics will not give the same answer to the questions before us that the Bible does or will give. We will therefore reduce the whole subject to the simple mathematical problem which follows: A and B had a flock of sheep in partnership. One- twentieth part of the whole flock, or one sheep in every twenty was white, and the other nineteen were black* oil KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 211 They have at a certain time dissolved their copartnership," and divided the sheep between them. A took one-half of the sheep and B the other; but B took in his half all the white sheep that were in the flock, that is, he had one white sheep in every ten, and A took his half in black sheep. A butcher bought all the sheep that A had, and four-fifths of all the sheep that B had, who kept one-fifth of his sheep, and in the one-fifth of the sheep he kept he retained all the white sheep which he had, and which for- merly belonged to A and B; so that the one-fifth which B kept consisted of as many white sheep as there were black, or the white and black were equal in number. At last B sold one-half of the sheep that he had left, but agreed with the purchaser that he should take the black and leave to B the white. And it was counted and ascertained that the sheep which B sold the second time, and which took all the black sheep that B had, were 603,550. The ques- tion is: How many white sheep did B have left? How many did he have when he dissolved with A, and before he sold the four-fifths of his half ? Solution: We will suppose that the whole flock be-" fore it was divided consisted of 400 sheep, of which B took his half, 200, or 180 black and 20 white, which makes one white sheep in every ten, of which he (B) sold four- fifths to the same butcher that bought A's half of the flock ; four-fifths of 200 is 160; hence he sold 160 black sheep, for he sold none of the white; take . 160 from iSo leaves 20, and these twenty were black ; consequently B must have had 40 sheep, 20 white ones and 20 black; the last, the black, as well as the former, the white, were each equal to one- tenth of B's half, or the half he had before he sold the four-fifths; and the one-tenth of the black sheep which he subsequently sold, and which left him no black sheep at 213 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, all, equaled 603,550; then the white sheep which he had left must also have been 603,550, for they were also one- tenth of the same one-half. And if 603,550 is one-tenth of a number, the whole number must have been ten times 603,550, which equals 6,035,550. ^et us now substitute Egypt for A, and those that were brought out of Egypt for B, and Israel for the sheep, and the biblical problem in place of the mathematical one, which is all one and the same, and see whether the result will not be the same. In doing a certain work, the time that it will take to do the work is governed by the number of men that are employed to do the work. For example: If it will take one man ten days to do a certain work, ten men can do the work in one day; and five men, which is one-half of ten, will do the work in two days. Time is therefore coincident to, or with, the number of men in doing a certain work. If it will take four hundred men four hundred days to do a certain work, and if that number of men have worked at it one-half of the time, but one-half of the work is considered done, and the whole number of men have to work the other half of the time. The work which the Israelites had to do in Egypt had to take them 400 years, or four centuries, and four generations were to work at it; and each generation was to consist of four special generations, namely, father, son, grandson and great-grandson, as the generation that came to Egypt and began the work did consist of Jacob, his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 21 3 For the sake of convenience, we will call those who" came to Egypt with Jacob a common generation, and each one of the four that helped to make up that genera- tion we will call a special generation, and do the same with the generations who succeeded them. And we will for convenience sake say that each common generation consisted, on an average, of four hundred men, and each special generation consisted of one hundred men, or one- fourth part of the common. And each generation had, during the hundred years that it worked, (each genera- tion had to work one hundred years, for there were only to be four generations in the four hundred years that they were to be in Egypt,) produced its substitute who was to take its place and work during the succeed- ing hundred years. In 200 years from the time that Jacob came into that country, one-half of the time, and two generations had passed. The third generation had begun its work and had worked ten years, which made up the 210 years that they were in Egypt, and which we would prove if we did not believe it is a well-known fact that needs no proof. During these 210 years 210- 400 parts of the work was done. The last two genera- tions are represented by the sheep of A and B. During the first ten years of the third lOO years, or century, the third generation had produced one-tenth part of the fourth generation, who were to do the work during the fourth 100 years, and were to be to the fourth genera- tion what Jacob was to the first generation. And they are represented by the white sheep, which were one in twenty, because ten is 1-20 of 200. But at that time A and B had dissolved and the sheep were divided. A, or Egypt, took his one-half of the 200 and sold them to the butcher. Death. Half of 200 is too,; and B sold 2 14 A COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, four-fifths of his half or loo, which equals 80-100, to the same hutcher at the same time and in the same place that A sold his. Thus the butcher, Death, took off eighteen out of every twenty sheep that A and B had, or 180 out of the 200 that they had; and B kept twenty sheep, which is one-fifth of his 100, and one-tenth part of the 200 that belonged to him and A; and in his twenty sheep he had ten white and the same number of black sheep which he, B, brought away from A, or Egypt. He, B, subsequently and in another place (in the Desert) sold half of his sheep that he then had, which half was equal to one-tenth of his half that he had in the flock owned by him and A, and one-twentieth of the whole flock, and ascertained that the number of his black sheep, (for he only sold the black and kept the white for himself,) or the half of the sheep that he had in the Desert, were 603,550, and that was the number of the black sheep; then he must have haa an equal number of white sheep. Hence, the whole number of sheep that B had in the Desert, at the time he counted his black sheep which were sold, must have been twice 603,550, which makes 1.207,100. Consequently, the whole number of the male population of the Israelites, including those that were counted, or that were over twenty years old, and who are represented by the black sheep, because they had to die before they reached the promised land, for they were the one-tenth part of the third common generation, that consisted of nine black sheep that had to die in Egypt, eight-tenths of which did die there, which are represented by the four-fifths of the sheep that B sold to the same butcher that A sold his one-half to. And the reason why they had to die before they reached the prom- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 215 ised land is because the eight-tenths or four-fifths that died- in Egypt and the one-tenth that died in the desert were of the second and third common generations, and the land was not to be delivered to any one before the fourth com- mon generation, as specified in the covenant: " And the fourth generation shall return hither." The second and third generations, or the nine-tenths of the whole that were- at or before the Exodus, had no more lawful or equitable right or title to the land of Ca- naan than the children and grand-children of C or any one else would have if C made a will and placed his property in the hands of trustees, to be delivered to his great-grand- children when they became of age, at or before the expira- tion of, say forty years. The children and grand-children of C could certainly have no right whatever to the prop- erty in the hands of the trustees, and either one and every one of the g^reat-grand-children could, when he became of age, claim his share of the property from the trustees, irre- spective of the forty years time specified in the will. He could claim his share by the right of his own age. And at the expiration of the forty years specified in the will the minors could also claim and establish their claims by the expiration of the time of forty years that was specified in the will. If a minor would present such a case in one of our probate courts, the judge of that court would, as it is his duty to, appoint a lawful guardian for the lawful claimant of the property. And that Is the very thing that God hath done. He had appointed guardians over the heirs who were lawful heirs but could not get possession of the land be- cause they were not of age and the specified time had not 2l6 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, expired. Nine-tenths of those who were in Egypt at the time in question would have Had to die in Egypt, the same as the generations that preceded them, and if the work and purpose for which they were brought and kept in Egypt had not been accompHshed before the expiration of the four hundred years, which was to make the Egyp- tians know God, they would have had to stay to the end of the four hundred years, or would have died there within that time. But God helped them to finish the work and ac- complish the purpose at the end of two hundred and ten years. As the Bible tells us: " I will harden the heart " of Pharaoh that he shall not send you, so that I may " place my signs and wonders within him, and he (or the " Egyptians) will know that I am God." (See Exodus, from 2d to 5th chapter.) Which the Egyptians did at the Red Sea, saw that God was fighting them for the Israel- ites. Hence the object for which the time was specified in the contract, or will, which God had made with Abra- ham in regard to his posterity was accomplished, and the time itself had no bearing on the case, but the lawful heirs were not of age. Consequently God appointed a guardian for each heir until he should become of age. He, God, caused but four-fifths or eight-tenths of the nine-tenths to die in Egypt, and the other one tenth, that is represented by the black sheep which B sold in the desert, to be the guardians over one-tenth of the white sheep, or the lawful but minor heirs, those that were^ under twenty years of age, and were, when they came of age, 601,730 in num- ber, besides the 24,000 who died because they served the god of the Moabites, and the indefinite number of them that died by the fiery serpents. And the difference between their number and the number of their guardians, which OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 2*7 would be if they had all been living at the time they who lived were numbered, is the natural increase during the thirty-eight or thirty-nine years that had passed between the numbering of the guardians, who were numbered in the second year after they left Egypt, and the numbering of the heirs, who were numbered at the close of the forty years that they were in the desert. And this answers one of Bishop Colenso's questions, namely: The impossibilty of the Israelites to be the same number the second time they were counted, that they were the first time; that they had neither increased nor decreased during the forty years they were in the desert. And it explains fully the cause why four-fifths had died and but one-fifth of them were lefl. Tlie one-fifth consisted of one-tenth of the lawful heirs and one-tenth of their appointed guardians. We will now return to the subject that we left off, namely : What the whole number of the Israelites was at the time of the Exodus. If the white sheep, or the heirs, who were counted when they became of age, or about thirty-eight years after the black sheep, or the guardians, were counted, and if each or either of them was 6,035,500, which is ten times 603,550; add to the 6,035,500 the same number of females, makes 13,071,000; add to this number the Levites, who were 23,300 males, (count each family by itself and you will find that number; the 300 were first-born and the families of Moses and Aaron into the to^^al who were to be exchanged for the first-born of Israel,) and add to them an equal number of females, makes 44,600; add the last number of the Levites to the 12,071,000 Israelites makes 12,115,600. That is the number they must have been be- fore they came out of Egypt. And one-fifth of 13,115,600 2lS A COLLECTION OP THOUGHTS, equals 2,423,120. And that must have been the number that came out of Egypt. But our figures as to the number of the IsraeHtes be- fore the Exodus, and the number of those who came out of there, do not agree and cannot agree with the figures we used and the conclusions we reached about the same ques- tions in the former part of our 'work. The reader who has followed us up to this part of our " Collection of Thoughts" knows that we have there used some of Colenso's figures, which do not belong to the figures of the Bible. We can never come to a right conclusion when we mix falsehood with truth and that was the method by which we came to the conclusion. But we have now drowned all the Co- lensonian and Ingersollonian figures and theories in the dark abyss of folly. We will now endeavor to demonstrate our last conclusions by biblical figures and items. And we are certain that if our figures and conclusions are , right we will succeed; and it will plainly appear if we are in error. Among the seventy who came with Jacob into Egypt were fourteen fathers: Jacob, his twelve sons, and one of his grandsons. Beriah the son of Asher had two sons. Gen. 46:17. Take away the fourteen fathers from the whole num- ber of seventy, leaves fifty-six children. Divide the fifty- six, the number of the children, by fourteen, the number of the fathers, the quotient will be four — that is, four children to each father. It will be remembered that we came to our conclu- sions by taking one-tenth of all that were in Eg} pt shortly before the Exodus, and have taken the fourth OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 219 generation, or those who came to the land of Canaan, as one-tenth of the whole that were in Egypt before they left. Let us now take the ratio of the increase of the sev- enty who came to Egypt and multiply it ten times by itself, and see how far we will be from, or how near we will be to our conclusion. The ratio of the increase of the gen- eration that came with Jacob into Egypt was four, as has heretofore been shown; 1,048,576 is the product of four when multijDlied ten times by itself. Those that went out of Egypt were divided into thirteen tribes, which equals to the thirteen fathers, exclusive of Jacob; hence we must multiply the product of ten times four by itself, which is 1,048,576, by thirteen, because the last number ■represents but one father out of the thirteen in question and the product of thirteen times 1,048,576 is 13,631,488; and that is the number of both males and females that were in Egypt shortly before the Exodus, of whom one- fifth came out of that country. And one fifth of the last number is 2,726,297; and the conclusion to which we came by taking the 603,550, the number of the Israelites at the time they were first counted in the desert, as a ratio of one-tenth of the wdiole number that were in Egypt at or shortly before the time of the Exodus, is 2,423,120, which is but 308,177 less than the conclusion we reach in the whole number at the time of the Exodjs; and our deficiency in the number or the dif- ference that can be made in the one-tenth that were counted in the desert, would be but 30,317, which is one- tenth part of 303,177. And the cause of deficiency is very obvious, and explains itself. It is this: In multiplying the ratio four by itself, or by any other figure that there is 220 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, that the multipHcand represents, we say, 4 limes 4 are 16. That is very right and proper in principle. But when we say a father has four children, which is a reasonable and natural number, it is therefore simply reasonable and natural to say that each one of his children may or can also have four children. But it is not sure, for one of the four may die, or be unproductive; hence it will not be 4 times 4; it will only be 4 times 3, which is but 12. And in multiplying four ten times b}^ itself, 4 times 4 are 16 when it is but I3, because one is dead, it is not 4 times 16, which is 64; it is 4 times 12^ which is but 48; and that imperceptible deficiency grows in proportion to the multiplier and to the number of times it is multiplied. But if we are told that two is one-tenth part of the grand- children that a man has, and all his grand-children are the children of his four sons, we can say with certainty that each one of his sons has on an average five children. Consequently we can and do say with certainty that the conclusion which we have brought out from the number of the one-tenth part of the Israelites that were first counted after they left Egypt, is the right and true number that they were at or shortly before the Exodus; and we are sure and certain that all vain titled Bishops or Colensos and the empty but glossy words of the Ingersolls are not able to point out any error in our figures, calculations and conclusions. Our faith is not in ourselves, but in the Bible. It is the Book which God hath created to guide man on earth and lead him to eternity! The only faith which we have in ourselves is, that we have no other motive while en- gaged in our work than to seek and find the truth, what- ever the truth may be, or wherever the truth will lead us to. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 22 1 We believe that our " Key to Scripture " has opened a door that has let out truth enough to confuse and baffle the " Thoughts " of not only Bishop Colenso and Inger- soll, but the thoughts of all the Colensos and Ingersolls in which all the streams of ignorance empty themselves. We believe that the Psalmist hath plainly and fully described the position and condition of Colenso and the like of him when he said: " He hath prepared for him the instruments of death ; t' he ordained his arrows against the persecutors. Behold, " he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, " and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit and digged " it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mis- " chief has returned upon his own head and his violent " dealing came down upon his own pate." Psalms, chap- ter 7. The above quotation speaks for itself. It needs no explanation or comment. Colenso has shot mathematical arrows at the truth of the Bible, and they fell upon his own head, and he now lies before the world in his mis- chievous ditch which he dug, and ponders upon the false- hoods which he brought forth from the iniquitous concep- tion of his heart. 222 A COLLECTION OE THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXIII. NONSENSICAL AND GROUNDLESS QUESTIONS ASKED BY COLENSO. If the reader of this work will become as disgusted with Colensonism as we are, which we have no doubt he will, he can skip this chapter; and we would gladly do so; for there is not even an apparent ground in the Bible upon which to base any of the questions he has raised against the truth of the Bible, all of which that we remem- ber are mentioned in this chapter, which is the one that is to rid our " Thoughts" of the Colensonian impious folly; which we gladly would avoid to bring before the reader. But if we should do as we ought and desire, to leave out these questions, the Colensos and the Ingersolls would say that these queries are unanswerable, and that we did not answer them because we were unable to answer them* And the reader who has not read Colenso's book of impious and wicked folly may to a certain degree be led to believe what they say; and that would give them, the Colensos, cause to think themselves " wise in their own conceit." We would thus wilfully violate a biblical precept, to give cause for the reader to be misled, and for the Bishop as well as for his devotees to consider themselves wise. Con- sequently, we are compelled to review the questions, and will only answer them according to the folly of the ques- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 223 tion, which will be in accordance with the biblical prover- bial precept, " Answer a fool according to his folly." Query No. i. When the Israelites were at the Red Sea, and saw that the Egyptians, their late masters, were behind them and the whole war power of Egypt with them, the Israelites became despondent and said to 'Moses, " Why hast thou taken us out of Egypt?" and were will- ing or spoke of returning to Egypt, without attempting to fight or offering a blow for their own liberty as well as for the freedom of their wives and children! It cannot be supposed or said, says the Bishop, that they had no arms. Where did they get the arms with which, but a few days thereafter, they had fought the Amalekites and overcame them? asks the Bishop. Answer according to query: They did not fight the Egyptians because they had no arms. The arms with which, in a few days thereafter, they fought the Amale- kites, they took from the drowned Egyptians whom the water brought up to the shore, as it does with all or most of those that are drowned. The Bishop says the word "harnessed" (Exodus 13: 18) means armed; hence, he says, they had arms of war with them when they left Egypt. Then he asks, if they had arms when they left, why did they not fight for their h'berties? And he concludes they could have had no arms; and as they had only asked to be allowed to absent them- selves for the time of three days and then come back, he concludes that the Bible is not true, because it says they were armed. We will make no reply to that, because we have in a former chapter shown that the word " har- nessed " is a mistranslation of th'^ Hebrew word Chamoo- shim, a fifth part. 224 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, And Colenso draws out another reason from the bibH- cal account of the Exodus, which, he says, shows conclu- sively that the historical account of the Bible is not true! And that is, because he, the learned Bishop, does not, as his own book shows, know the difference between asking to be allowed to go to a place that it takes three days to reach, and allowing to be absent three days! But we will tell him that he who asks to be allowed to be away three days must come back at the expiration of the three days, or the time that he was allowed to be away. And he who asks and obtains leave to go to a place that he may reach in three days, and has not definitely said what he will do there, nor how long he will stay there, neither when he will return, can stay in the place as long as he likes without violating the permission, and without creating a cause to question, why did not he, who gave the permis- sion pursue him to whom the permission was given at the expiration of three days, and not wait until the former had reached a distance of ten or more days; which is w^hat Colenso asks, and by which he shows that the biblical narrative of what took place at, and how the Israelites crossed the Red Sea cannot be true. The Israelites did not ask leave for three days time; they asked permission to go a distance of three days jour- ney into the desert to serve their God, and said, or Moses said for them, they did not know w^hat service their God w^ould require of them, and that they could not know it before they came to that place; hence they could not tell how long they would have to stay there, nor when they could or would return. And if they had even said they would stay there bur. one day, they could not have re- turned before the end of seven days; and that is the reason, Mr. Bishop, why the Egyptians did not run after the Is- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 225 raelites at the expiration of the third or some time during the fourth day, but waited until they did go after them, and that was when they were told that their slaves *:^.e Israelites did run away, and which they, the Egyptiar.:>„ could not have known for some time, because they h;oll reason to suppose they were performing their service, and would allow some reasonable time for it, say three days; hence the Egyptians could not have reasonably supposed that the Israelites had run off before the end of nine days from the time they left, and could only have started to overtake them on the tenth day; and if they had traveled with all the speed that such an army could travel, or with the speed that you, Mr. Bishop, make them move, which you say must have been three times as fast as the Israelites had marched, even then the Egyptians could not have overtaken the Israelites before the fifteenth day from the time the latter had left. And by that time the Israelites could already have been on the other side of the Red Sea and beyond the reach of their pursuers, even according to your own measurement of the distance from the place the Israelites started from, and as you make them and their pursuers travel, which is, you lay all of the impedi- ments and obstacles in the way of the flying slaves to make them move slow, and the entire army of Egypt with " all her chariots and horses," which you start out in no time at all, you move and make travel w^ith all the rapidity of your imagination, which you may succeed to demonstrate to yourself in theory, but you nor any one else never was and never will be able to bring into prac- tice. You see that with all the aid of your mind, which has become pregnant from the wickedness of your heart, and has "brought forth its falsehoods" to the world, and 226 A COI. LECTION OP^ THOUGHTS, which puts all the stumbling-blocks in the path of the Israelites, yet with all these the Egyptians, as you see, could not have overtaken the Israelites if it had not been that the Israelites had turned back from " Succoth at the edge of the wildernes" to Pi-ha-hiroth, and had encamped there and waited until their masters came to them (Ex., chap. 13), for whom they had waited; and the reason why they had waited for them was for the purpose that they should pursue them so that they should be drowned in the ocean of water, which punishment they were to and did receive for the wickedness of their hearts, the same as we are now reviewing and opening your foolish ques- tions for no other purpose than to drown you in the ocean of your own folly, for the purpose of punishing you, Mr. Colenso, for the wickedness of your heart, from whence your foolish mind draws its folly! Man gathers wisdom and knowledge from practice and observation. Physicians acquire the knowledge of how to cure a malady from the malady itself. And we must and do acknowledge that we have gained some knowledge during the time that we have been engaged in dissecting the body of the Bishop's foolishness. And the knowledge we have gained therefrom is this: It makes us think and believe that if the Bible would say that the Israelites, who were the descendants of slaves as well as they were slaves themselves, and, with the exception of Abraham, none of their ancestors, as well as they, had ever confronted an army or drawn a sw^ord on a battle- field. Human nature was then what it is now. Habit controls and governs the acts and temper of the human race as well as nature. The born and brought-up slave, who has been habituated to obey and whom circumstances and condition have compelled, and he who was taught by OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 227 his parents to be obedient and submissive, cannot possess^ and display the same courage that one would who never had the yoke of oppression upon his neck nor the slave- whip upon his back, was born free and was brought up without the knowledge of any other master than his own will. The master is to the ignorant slave what the will and mind are to the free and educated man! Can or will any man fight against his will and mind? Certainly not. Neither can an ignorant, submissive, and bruised up and weak slave fight or offer to fight his master! And it is certain that if the Bible would say that the Israelites did fight the Egyptians and possessed and used the courage of a free and warlike race who knew no other master than their own will, it would indeed have been a great and very reasonable cause to question the historical veracity of the Bible. That would have been of greater injury to the biblical truthfulness than all the Colensos and Ingersolls can invent. Having gained that much knowledge from or through the dissecting process of a part of the body of folly, we must proceed with our anatomical process and dissect the whole body of the Colensonian folly, or that part of it which we have retained in our memory.* Query No. 3. Where did the Israelites get *'Shittim wood" to build the tabernacle in the desert? No. 3. Where did they get sheep for the Passover sacrifice, which the Bible says they celebrated in a year after they left Egypt? The Bishop says it took a certain (incredible) number of sheep, one-half of which would have *We have not his book. 328 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, glutted and stuffed every Israelite with mutton, as Colenso's mind is glutted and stuffed with folly. The Passover sacrifice that the Israelites had made in Egypt was for the purpose of ridiculing the Egyptians, who worshiped sheep, and were therefore commanded to smear the blood of the Egyptian deity which the Israelites had sacrificed upon the doors of the latter, which was done for no other purpose than to plague and grieve the Egyptians, because they were made to believe that their own deity had saved the Israelites, who had butchered it, and it h^d not saved the Egyptians, who had prayed to and worshiped it. And for that and no other reason they were told to take the sheep on the tenth day of the month and keep it until the evening of the fourteenth day of the same month; and for the purpose of giving perfect pub- licity to the disgrace of the Egyptian deity, the Israelites were told to have one of these deities in each and every house and make a whole meal out of it. But all the sub- sequent Passover sacrifices were only annual commemora- tions of the event; the size of an olive was as much as any one needed to eat, and it was not every one that did eat it, or killed the Passover lamb after they came to the land of Canaan. He who lived at such a distance from Jerusalem that he could not reach that place in one day was considered in a far journey, and it was not in- cumbent upon him to come to Jerusalem for the purpose of the Passover sacrifice. It is true, the Bible says. He that is in a tar journey shall celebrate the Passover on the four- teenth day of the second month. But if he is at the same distance during the second month? What then? Then he is relieved from it. We have traveled away from our subject, because the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 229 Bishop very elaborately shows that it was impossible for all the Israelites to congregate at Jerusalem at one and the same time for the purpose of performing the killing of the Passover lamb, and shows that the Levitical law in regani to the Passover lamb is inconsistent, because in Egypt they were told to smear the blood of the lamb upon the doors, and the blood of the subsequent Passover lambs they were told to pour upon tlie altar. Hence he con- cludes that the historical account of it is not true. That is, because he, Colenso, don't know enough of the Bible to know that the Passover sacrifice after they left Egjpt became a national memorial celebration and was cele- brated at the capital of the nation; and for whom it was convenient to come there, came and participated in the celebration; and the blood of that sacrifice was to be poured upon the altar, as the blood of every sacrifice was to be; or he, Colenso, hides his knowledge of the fact for the purpose of accomplishing his mischievous end of showing that the Bible is false! We don't wish to fill up the space of our "Thoughts" and "Key" with the mischievous folly of an English Prelate, with which our mind is almost glutted; there- fore we try to kill as many of his flying birds with one "jerk" of the "Little Stone" as we possibly can; and whatever we omit here, in making out a complete answer to the subject in question, for the reader, we will make up when we come to investigate the law appertaining to sacrifices from a biblical stand-point. We will now resume our subject. Where did the Israelites get Shittim wood from for the Tabernacle, and the sheep they needed for the Passover celebration at " Horeb?" 230 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, If the Bishop is sure that the place around "Horeb" was as bare at the time in question as it is now, and he gives as an undisputed fact that it was, and therefore, he says, it cannot be said that they had sheep which they brought out from Egypt, because they had nothing to feed them on. Then we say they must have, could have, and did buy their sheep of the Midianites, whose land could not have been very far from Horeb; because we are told that Moses fed- the sheep of his father-in-law who lived in Midian, who was a priest (which means lord) of Midian, and who was at the time in question among the Israelites. (Exodus, chap. 18.) And if God did not know that the Israelites, in order to fulfill His command, will have to build a Tabernacle in that (present) barren place; and if He did not have the power to have " Shittim wood" or any other wood growing there for that particular purpose, if for no other, then the Israelites would and must have bought their Shittim wood where they bought or got their sheep. And we believe the fact of the present barrenness of the vicinity around Horeb is no more proof that it was so then, than the swamps of the Euphrates valley, which baffle the world to-day, as they have for centuries long, from locating the place where the great historical city of Babylon, with her impregnable walls and wonderful gar- dens, could have stood ! The existence of which is so well established that we have no need to bring the Bible on the witness-stand for the purpose of proving a fact which no history ever did or does deny. But we will bring up the undisputed and indisputable fact of the existence of Babylon for the purpose of proving the Bible; the book in which Isaiah has recorded not only the downfall of the great city, that was the monarch and wonder, the terror and envy OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. of the world, but has also recorded and described the man- ner in which it would fall, as well as called its destroyer (Cyrus) by name, between two and three hundred years before he was born; and recorded that it would be what it is, and "will never be rebuilt!" These facts prove be- yond a shadow of doubt the Divine truth and inspiration of the Bible, as the existence of Babylon is proven and cannot be successfully disputed. And that same Bible tells the world that Moses fed the sheep of his father-in-law in the vicinity of the place in question, which is very reasonable evidence that it was not as barren and desolate a neighborhood as it is now. The next question the mischievous and impious Bishop Colenso asks, and by which he endeavors to disprove the Bible is: How could Aaron and his two sons take care of all the sacrifices? To which we might reply: Mr. Bishop you yourself say and prove that they had no sheep nor cattle, though the Bible tells us they had oxen, and that some of them had devoted oxen and wagons to carry the Tabernacle with, after it was put up, and that was in the first month of the second year after they left Egypt, and in that month the Passover feast is and was celebrated; and having had an abundance of cattle in Egypt, which they took along with them, besides what they took from the Egyptians, (Exodus, chap. 9 and 10,) as there was but elevendays journey from Horeb to the land of their des- tination, it is reasonable to suppose that they had some of their cattle saved. And after the death of Miriam, when they were near the place of their destination, the Israelites spoke of their cattle not having water to drink (Num., chap. 20). But for all that, we say to Colenso: If you arc certain they had no sheep nor cattle before the Taber_ 232 A COLLECTIO>J OF THOUCillTS, nacle was erected, why do you make them bring and offer so many sacrifices as you do, since the biblical law not only did not make it incumbent on them to bring all the sacrifices you speak of, but definitely provides that the laws should not come into force until after they should be in their land; and it even provides that the law should not come into force until after the Lord should choose a place for that purpose, and that was not done until the time of Solomon! Even folly is subject to, and governed by the laws of consistency. Hence this self destructive inconsist- ency of the querist can only be accounted for by his mis- chievous motives! In the 30th chapter of Exodus it says: " When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel " after their number, then shall they give every man a " ransom unto the Lord. This shall they give: every one " that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel " after the shekel of the sanctuary; a shekel is twenty « gerahs." One who never saw a silver dollar can easily know the value of a half a dollar, as well as of a dollar, when he knows that one hundred cents make one dollar. But Bishop Colenso asks: How did the Israelites know what a shekel of the sanctuary was, before the sanctuary was built? And to prove his logic he copies from the Bible the same that we have above, but leaves out the part that describes what a shekel is — " a shekel is twenty gerahs." This he leaves out in his quotation. Hence he concludes that the biblical history is untrustworthy! That is a ques- tion which we don't venture to decide! Tlie reader must form his own opinion about it. We have ofteK sheltered OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 233 the Bishop under the cover of ignorance, for the purpose of saving the empty title from something worse, and would gladly do so now; but it cannot shelter him now. Prat- tling nonsense can be applied to folly; but the last named noun, tolly, is not able nor willing to take upon itself the act of lying and stealing for personal gain! The walls of the court of the Tabernacle were of cur tains, each side by itself (see Exodus, chapter 33). Bishop Colenso asks: How could Moses consecrate Aaron and his sons in the presence of all the Israelites, when the consecration took place inside ot the court of the Taber- nacle? Therefore the Bible is not true. That is, because Colenso does not seem to know that the curtains were but five cubits long and slid on rings, and could be moved to- gether or thrown over the bar upon which they hung. But there was even no need for that, for it is only Colenso who says the consecration of Aaron was to take place in- side of the court of the Tabernacle. Fortunately, the Bible simply says that it should be done and was done at the door of the Tabernacle, and not inside of the court: " Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the gar- " ments and anointing oil. * * * And gather thou all " the consrresation too^ether unto the door of the Taber- " nacle of the congregation. And Moses did as he was " commanded." (Lev., chap. 8.) Here is another question of veracity between Colenso and the Bible, which the reader must decide! But the criticism of the learned Bishop does not end here. The Bible says: " And Moses said unto the congregation. This is the 234 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " thing which the Lord commanded to be done. And " Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them " with water." (Same chap.) The Bishop asks: " How could Moses make himself be heard by all the Israelites?" We question if Colenso knows or has ever heard that the President of the United States addresses the people of the United States ev^ery four years. We base our question on the very reasonable sup- position that if he had known of the latter, which includes a population of over fifty millions, he would either not have asked how Moses could make himself heard by the assembly who had assembled themselves together at the time in question to witness the consecration of Aaron, or he would have asked: How can fifty millions of people at one and the same time get into the city of Washington, and how can the President speak so loud as to be heard by fifty millions of people? No prophet nor inspiration could make Colenso believe that! The reader may undertake to inculcate some faith, or invent some plan, to make the learned Bishop believe either one of the things in question; we can't! Though we would undertake, and we believe we would succeed, to convince an ordinary American mule that there is nothing of an impossibility in it, and tell him how it was and how it is done: but we will not undertake, because we believe we cannot succeed, to make the Right Rev. Bishop Co- lenso believe or understand such a. thnig. It is altogether above his learning, above his title, and above his disgraced dignity to believe these things, or the like of them! And certainly not in accordance with his interest as an author. An editor of a weekly newspaper had at the bottom of ^n editorial column: "These lines are inserted for no OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 235 Other purpose than to fill up this column." And we be- lieve that Colenso has raised these questions, and a good many others like them, for no other purpose and use than to fill up his book, which successfully sells in the book- markets of the world because it has the bishopric flag on its masts ! The Bishop, in hypocritical, pious words, at the con- clusion of his book, congratulates Christianity and the world that they are no longer obliged to believe in the horrible murder and heart-sickening butchery of the Midi- anites, their wives and children, which the Old Testament tells us that the Israelites and Moses committed, because he measured the time from the time when Aaron died until the first day of the twelfth month of the fortieth year, the day that Moses began to explain the law, (Deut, chap. 1,) and he finds there was no time left for the Is- raelites to engage in a war with the Midianites. And in- deed he does measure the time, as if it had been practicable to measure time in a quart measure. He concludes that during the thirty days that the Israelites were mourning the death of Aaron, nor durmg any other time which elapsed between the last date and the time when Moses began to explain the law, the Israelites could not send off 12,000 men to fight the nation in question, but were all engaged and occupied with the events he enumerates and the other work he lays out for them as the time in which they were to perform the same. But this case is not an exception to the old adage, " Many cooks spoil the broth ;" and " When crooks dis- agree among themselves honest people get their own." The expressed motive of Bishop Colenso and of Prof. 236 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Robinson Smith, as they say it is, is to establish Christi- anity — to be independent of the Old Testament; which is and always has been the expressed motive of every rebel chief. Independence has been the outcry of all of them that were in existence from the time of the rebels Baalze- bub and Antichrist, whose rebellion is described by the gifted Milton in his " Paradise Lost," down to the time of Colenso, Smith, and the Russian Nihilists. The motto of all of them was and is, Independence! But, while Colenso says it took Moses a month to make the Book of Deuteronomy, and consequently there was no time for the Israelites to light the Midianites, the other chief, Prof. Robertson Smith, in his twelve lectures that he lately delivered, because he was expelled as Pro- fessor from the College of Edinburgh for joining Co- lenso's rebel army, he says that the Book of Deuter- onomy was not in existence until after the time of Prophet Isaiah! Now, we ask the reader what are we to do? If we believe one, we cannot believe the other. If the Book of Deuteronomy was not in existence until the time the Professor says, then we cannot believe the Bishop, for there was a whole month's time during which the Israelites could have fought the Midianites; and had the Bishop known of it before he wrote his "Attack upon the Pentateuch," he would have employed the Israelites in some other work during that month. Under these circumstances we can do no more nor less than place both of them where Milton placed the chiefs of the rebellion he describes. And though they may be better satisfied to stay and rule there than to serve above, yet we know they OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 237 would rather eat one another than to say the other is right, and I am wrong! We will now let them be where they belong, and see what our own chief, neighbor and friend, R. G. In- gersoll, has to say of himself. 230 A COJ. SECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXIV. ingersoll's own thoughts. " Banish me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" The foregoing is the pniyer of Mr. Ingersoll. And if we had reason to believe that our friend is not yet so far gone but that prayer could help him, we not only would join him and pray for him, but we would call upon the praying communities to hold special prayer- meetings and fervently pray that our friend Bob shall obtain and possess himself of a little knowledge and un- derstanding, so that he may at least know enough to keep his tongue from speaking of things, of which the more he speaks the more he exposes his want of knowledge about the things he speaks of! But, alas! alas! He is too far gone! We might advise him a better remedy than eating of the " fruit of the tree of knowl- edge," which is the emblem of death; we would advise him to drink of the " River Pison which compasseth " the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And " the gold of that land is good. There is bdellium, *' and the onyx stone." (See index to " Collection of Thoughts.*') OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 239 But we hardly believe that will help him, unless he should take a very strong emetic that can relieve him of the water he has in him which he drank out of the " River Gihon, that encompasseth the whole land of Ethiopia," which is also one of the streams of the great river that came and comes out of the garden (mind) that God hath planted in Eden (time). But unfortun- ately the River Gihon, of which our friend has drank during his whole lifetime, contains all the impurities, maladies, and blackness (which last produces black-vomit) that are represented by and subject to the wild land of Ethiopia, but which cannot live and prosper in the well cultivated, civilized lands of Europe and America, whose inhabitants drink out of the stream of "Pison" and have enriched themselves with the "good gold," with "bdel- lium" and "onyx stone" of the " land of Havilah." To give Mr. IngersoU an emetic that would relieve him of all the impurities he has inhaled, and which are the causes of his black-vomiting, would leave nothing of him, or bring him to a worse condition than he is in now! Consequently we see no help for him, but offer the same prayer for him that the father did for his ungodly son : A father had two sons; the oldest one was a wise God-fearing and God-loving youth; the other one was just the reverse. The father took sick and was about to die. He called his oldest son to his bedside, begged him to be, and fervently prayed that he shonld be, a God-loving and upright man. The ungodly son stood at a distance, and expected that his father would draw fire from heaven and throw it at him when he called him up; but to his great surprise and disappointment his father simply said: " My son, the only prayer that I have or can make in 240 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " your behalf is, that you shall never have to become " better than you arc." The mother, who stood by her husband's bed while these things took place between the departing father and the son, thought the old man was de- lirious and did not recognize, or made a mistake between his two sons, and said: ••' My dear husband, this is our " youngest son; why don't you pray that he shall be as "our oldest son is?" To which the father replied: " I " know he is but I don't wish he shall be compelled to " better himself, because at present he is as bad as any man " can be in everything that is between God and man; and " it is as impossible for a man to return from his evil doings " without a compulsive cause as it is for a wiieel that has " been started to run down hill, without anything to hold "or govern it, to stop before it comes to the bottom; and " before our son could better himself he would perpetrate " all the evils and commit all the wrongs and crimes that " one man could do to another, he would first have to " reach the bottom ; they would have to imprison him for " his crimes, and that would be a disgrace to me in my " grave, and a disgrace and grief to you on earth. But if " he will remain in his present condition, it is no disgrace " to us, and he does no harm to the world. Every man, " woman and child that knows him, knows he is an un-, "godly child; and if they learn of him some of his evils " it is their own fault, because they know what he is. Hence, my wife, I do not wish that he shall better him- " self." For the same reasons we offer the same prayer for our friend Mr. Ingersoll. Everybody who knows him or has heard of him knows that he is an ungodly child. But he is not guilty of anything that injures man! Before he could turn from his course he would first have to become OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. guilty of the evils which one man is capable of doing -to ^ another; that might act as an emetic to cleanse him of the evils he has inhaled, and that would leave nothing of him ; hence the prayer that he shall never better himself! And if any man does learn of him any of his ungodly ways, it is the fault of him who learns it, because he ought to know that IngersoU is only a witty talker, the same as a buffoon, or a clown in a circus, or the leader of a negro minstrel company; but is not, — and his book enti- tled "The Gods" and other lectures show that he cannot claim to be, — a thinker upon any subject, except the sub- ject of empty fame, for the utterance of glossy, empty words. Thomas Paine is the subject of one of the* lectures in that book, in which he repeats what every one who knows the history of the United States knows, what Mr. Paine was, and which is engraved upon the impregnable walls of their freedom. And in his attempt to redeem the name of Thomas Paine, who wrote the "Age of Reason," which is inseparable from the purpose for which the " Common Sense," "The Crisis" and the "Rights of Man" were written, as the author of these books is one and conse- quently inseparable, he only pawns him, and on him (Paine) he gets his traveling expenses to go further into the sea of ignorance, that has existed for three, four, and five thou- sand years, and drags the fame of Mr. Paine with him as a letter of credit and introduction, by claiming that Paine was the same as he is — an inconsistent and contradictory Self. We will here demonstrate, by a quotation which he has made from the "Age of Reason" and has inserted in his lecture, that he does not understand the "Age of Rea- son." Nay, he does not even understand the quotation 17 242 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, itself. And that is a quotation which we omitted, through an oversight, to make use of when we were writing about the motives of Mr. Paine for writing the " Age of Rea- son." Mr. Paine in his confession of faith says: " And man will return to the worship of one God." The word return necessarily means to come back to a place or condition, or come to the same belief again. The word return cannot be applied to a place that we have never been in, nor to a condition that we have never occu- pied; neither to a belief or an opinion which we have never had. Consequently Mr. Paine could not have meant th It his " Age of Reason " or whatever he alluded to will bring man to a condition or place in which he never was before! And we challenge Mr. Ingersoll to show us when man did not believe in a God! But we know that we might as well ask or challenge a musical instrument to compose a tune. He is a musical instrument. He sends out the tune according to the blowing of the musicians, of whom not one in a thousand is the composer of the tune that he plays. He has undoubtedly read; but reading with- out studying to understand or digest what you are reading does as much good to the reader as the air which the mu- sician sends into his instrument does to the instrument; it produces the sound, and if any air is left in it, it must be removed before fresh air can be sent in to produce another sound; and when it receives too much wind or air it gives no sound at all. " Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a " child cannot be a true system," says Bob. What could any reasonable man or community of men think of Ingersoll or any other lawyer if he or they would OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 243 ask the lawyer, whoever he might be, for some legal ad-- vice, and he, the lawyer, would tell him or them to wait until he could consult his youngest child, which was be- tween seven and ten years old? What would he or they think about the lawyer who told them so? Could they conclude or believe otherwise than that he, the lawyer, was a fool or insane, or that he took them for such? And would not the world consider that man or com- munity of men as fools or lunatics to entrust their most important business in the hands of a lawyer who knows nothing himself, and does only as his child or children or the children of the town in which he lives tell him? How could the world avoid coming to that conclusion? There is not a business in the world in which every man is as equally and deeply interested as he is in mat- ters appertaining to or arising out of religion. And that is not only so now, but has been so ever since man first dwelt upon the face of the globe. Yet there is a class of men who consult about and entrust Ingersoll with their share of that important business, who knows nothing of the said business himself, but takes the advice of, and acts as the prattling children in their innocent play on the streets advise him to do; which is what he says, and as his book shows he does! Ingersoll says that infidelity and infidels have liberated man's mind and broken the chains with which the Bible and religion have chained the thoughts of man to the immovable rock of blind faith. We ask, is that true? Did he make that statement, or the several statements in his lecture on Thomas Paine — or which, what we give here is but a brief abstract, — did he make those state- ments on anything that is found in the^ Bible known as 244 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the Old Testament?* Does not the bibhcal account of the creation of man tell man that he is free and powerful, and that he, man, was made in the image of his Cre- ator; and that He. the Creator, has appointed him, man, the sole agent and representative to represent the Creator in that part of His creation or domain known as the earth; and telling him at the same time not to imagine that anything which he sees or can see "from the earth or in the earth" is above him, man; so that he may not consider himself in duty bound to pay respect to or worship and thank them for the many benefits he receives through them, but not from them; because they are but the agents of the same Omnipotent Power who placed them in their sphere that has placed man in his? And that whenever man finds himself in a conscientious mood of thankfulness for the many blessings he receives from his Creator, he shall thank or express his thank- fulness to the Sender, and not to him through ^vhom it was sent. Is that enslaving the mind and thoughts of man to blind faith? Second. Is the Bible or biblical religion teaching blind fiiith to man in the lesson it gives to him by telling him of the time and place, where and when, God, or He, This, or That, which created man, of the thing or things that are not only good and of great interest to man, but without which (the Bible or the laws of God) he cannot nor never could know that he is a m.^n, any more than they who lived before the Bible was given to man knew what they were and what their duties were, or to whom *We will explain what is said in the New Testament about faith when we reach that part of the Bible. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 245 the natural feelings of their heart-felt obligations were due?. Nevertheless, they felt within their hearts a naturjil con- scientiousness that they owed to some one for the necessi- ties and blessings they received and without which they could not exist at all, and paid their conscientious indebt- edness to the vehicle upon which the necessities and bless- ings were brought to them! To which folly infidelity and infidels invite us to return, the same as they have already returned ! We ask, would or could it reasonably be considered enslaving or chaining man's mind and thoughts when it is represented to him what he needs and without which he» cannot exist, and leave to his own option and consideration to accept the thing offered to him, or not? As the Bible tells us it was at the time and place w^hen the Sender of all that is good and useful to man desired and thought fit to manifest to man what is useful to him, and without which he, man, could never know what he is nor what his Maker intended him to be. All of which was ex- plained to man in the isolated and obscure place of Smai, at or shortly after the ocean had lent its aid by causing its watery element to divide itself and stand up as impregnable walls of solid rock for the purpose of giving a passage to man, that he might see the natural way how to pass from slavery to freedom! All of which condition, place and circumstances, each and all, tend to show that man was not in a condition then to consult his mind and thoughts, but was compelled to accept whatever given and do whatso- ever ordered to do. Nevertheless, even then man was expected to consult his mind and reflect with hi? thoughts, whether he should receive what was offered to him or not! The messenger, Moses, who was to be 246 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the bearer and deliverer of the thing in question, without which man cannot exist, or know that he is a man, to go and consult, and give them three days time to reflect and think whether they shall, will, or should receive that great and indispensable gift that God gave to man, the Bible, which contains the acknowledged title of man- kind and of his position, in which the great Omnipotent Ruler has placed him, in the sphere in which he, man, exists! And which was not delivered to man until, after the three days consultation and thinking, man said: "All that the Lord will say, I (or we) will do." Neither is this the only time and place or circum- stance of which the Bible tells us, wherein man's mind, thoughts and reason were consulted, for the purpose that man may now learn and teach the power and function of his thoughts. About four hundred years after the time heretofore described, the posterity of the men who received the gift and regulations given to them at Sinai, and had governed themselves according to the regulations there received, — their posterity thought fit to change their form of government, which was having one man as judge or foreman, into a monarchical form of government, by establishing a royal family with an hereditary right to rule. Against this Samuel, their old and faithful judge, remonstrated with them and demonstrated to them that it would lead them to no happy end! But the Bible tells us that the Omnipotent Ruler ordered Samuel to inform them fully of the consequences of a monarchical form of government, and let them contemplate upon it, and if, after due deliberation, they concluded to have a king over them, he should yield to their deliberate con- clusion; which he did! OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 247 We cannot see how any one can, without the burning shame of falsehood bhstering his face, stand up and in the light of all these lessons which the Bible gives to man about his freedom of thought and manhood, say the Bible chains up man's thoughts and his freedom to the cloud of ignorance, which is the partition wall between man as he is or chooses for himself to be, and what the Bible says God made him to be, and necessity teaches him he can be — " the image of his Maker." We have in a former chapter explained or given the reasons why man's understanding and comprehension are limited. And we cannot account why all men have not the power to understand the Bible alike, unless it is for the same cause that prompted the refusal of the petition the dogs presented, requesting that they should be made lions, and to which they received the following reply: "Your allegations are very just and proper, but your request cannot be granted." As there may be some of our readers who never heard of the petition and answer we speak of, we will give a synopsis of it: The dogs once held a convention for the purpose of finding out how stealing might be stopped, which they thought would give rest to the dog, quiet sleep to the master, and prevent the thief from violating the law of God that says " Thou shalt not steal." It was resolved by the convention to send a petition to the Power that made the dog. In the petition they alleged as follows: Inas- much as everything upon the earth is given to and appro- priated for the use of man; and there is not a creature on the earth more faithful to man than the dog is ; he watches when the man sleeps; but for all the watchfulness of the dog stealing still goes on; and the thefts are not commit- 24 >S A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, ted because the dog does not watch, but because the thief is not afraid of the dog; he is only afraid his barking will wake up the owner, which is all that the dog can do, and which nine times out of ten he fails to accomplish. Hence they petitioned that the dog should be the same as the lion is, and men should fear the dog as they fear the lion. The result would be that the thief would run away from the barking of the dog as he would from the roaring of the lion. And that would save the dog from useless bark- ing, it would not disturb the owner from his sleep, and the thief would not violate the command, "Thou shalt not Steal." To which the dogs received the following reply: " Your petition is very just. Your allegations and " reasons for your request are proper, and it would be " granted, provided 3^ou would never bark except when the " thief comes to steal ; but you dogs bark all the time and " at everything; and if everything at which you bark " should fear you as it does a lion, and you should have " the power that a lion has, you would destroy the whole " world. You must therefore remain what you are." Infidelity was a very useful watch-dog in timas gone by. It indeed drove away a great many religious thieves durin<>- the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Had the infidels stopped their noise after they woke up the owners and proprietors of religion (the people), they would have lionized themselves by so doing; but they bark at every- thing they see, and bite one another even ni the presence of their masters (the people), and claim that the people are indebted to them for everything they have and enjoy, in- cluding liberty and thoughts. Had they been given the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 249 lion-like power of thought that is required to extract the hidden treasure of truth from the Bible, they would have long ago claimed to be the masters of heaven and of every- thing that is in heaven, the same as they now claim to be masters of the earth and of everything that is on and in the •earth. Infidelity does not only mean not believing in the Scriptures, to which use it has been applied for the last two hundred years, but it also means unfaithfulness, or breach of trust; not worthy to be trusted, because he is unfaithful; negligent of duty. Hence the word infidel em- braces not only such men as Ingersoll and the like of him, who are not to be > entrusted with certain things for the same reason that we cannot trust much to or depend upon children; — the reason why we do not and cannot trust much to children is not because they are dishonest, but simply because they do not know enough to take care of ^vhat we would entrust to them. The wicked, unfaithful, dishonest and untrustworthy priests who existed during the dark ages; who forged the Bible into fetters wherewith they chained the freedom and thoughts of the people to the clouds of darkness out of the smoke of their fires, — which clouds were indeed dissi- pated by the sun of science, and the same sun shines now upon the Bible and reveals to the people the precious truth that is hidden in it, which truth the infidel or untrustwor- thy priests of the time in question covered up with their commentaries and creeds, that are now called theology; — these priests were the genuine and original infidels. Had they received the power for which their prototypes (the dogs) asked, they would have brought the whole human race to the place where we hope and believe they are. 250 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, But the so-called infidels of to-day are not what their name designates. It is true they cannot be trusted to teach or lead the people; but that is not on account of their dis- honesty, but on account of their childish understanding. There was once a dispute between three men. One of them dropped a diamond in a room that was very dark. He was sure that the diamond was in the room, but could not find it. Another man, who had a light with him, came into the room, and his light revealed where the dia- mond was and the loser of it picked it up. But the man who had the light claimed that his light brought the dia- mond into the room, and therefore he claimed the diamond. While these two were quarreling about the rightful own- ership of the diamond another man came in and advised them to sell the diamond and divide the money equally between them, and each one of them should give him one- half of his share of the money. We do not know how the question was settled be- tween them. But we do know if they had left the ques- tion to be decided at ^he present time, the infidel scientists of our day would decide that the diamond belonged to him who brought the light into the dark room, the same as they claim that all the truth that lay hidden in the Bible from the eye and mind of man during the darkness of past times, and which by the light of science man has just now begun to perceive, belongs to science and not to the Bible. Science has the same relation to the Bible and what is in it that the light had to the dark room and the diamond that was in it. The man knew that it was in the room, but could not discover it during the darkness, when the Bible OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 25 1 was in the hands of the infidel priesthood of those times. And the Rev. Charles Voysey, of London, is the thiid man, who on the nth of September, 1S81, stepped in be- tween science and the Bible, and in a lecture advised to dispose of the Bible and divide the proceeds between them, and each shall give him one-half of its share, to establish, maintain, or support a religion without the Bible; or he is willing: that science shall take the whole Bible and that it shall support religion! We have three lectures before us while we are writing this; namely, of R. G. Ingersoll, of Rev. Charles Voysey> and of Prof. Felix Adler. The latter is the most brilliant; utrers more glossy but meaningless, empty words, and speaks for three hours long without a subject; but we don't know what it is, nor what will become of it. There is a subject in a lecture which the Professor delivered on the 13th of March, 1881, at Chickering Hall, New York. Yes! In that lecture Ad- ler attempts to demonstrate by science the " Personality of God " ! ! He seems to believe that he has found a *'con- scious intelligence in heart;" but people who are not scien- tific enough to use scientific words, and are yet inclined to believe that words must have some meaning in themselves to convey to the mind, as well as a ringing sound to the ear, say that intelligence belongs to the mind, and con- science to the heart But in his attempt to establish a scientific Personal Deity, he has already succeeded in estab- lishing that these child-like infidels of the present time, who only musically prattle out the words others have said, as our friend Ingersoll and the Professor himself, are not entitled to personality ! The Professor has been trying to crawl into Maimon- A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, ides' shoes, of which he (the Professor) took off (or out) the soles (souls), and therefore he cannot proceed. The shoes don't stick to his feet: so he tumbles and hurts him- self and his friends. " Conscientious intelligence of the heart the universe," are words which Maimonides brought into use for the purpose of demonstrating the existence of a Supreme Power that rules everything, gives life and vitality to every- thing, and without which nothing could exist! He com- j^ares it to the heart of the body, which is imperceptible to the eye from without, and gives life and vitality to each part or member of the body. Adler took the words of the father of Hebrew scholars and philosphers, Maimonide, and tortured them to death by extracting their souls from out of them and filling them with his ethics of moral non- sense that he vends as his own productions! We will see how he will succeed, and what he has already gained by it. Ill-acquired wealth and wealth that is to be used for an ill purpose is never of much benefit to its owner! "Animals," says the Professor, "are often endowed " with elaborate instincts, armed with a certain degree of " foresight, capable of feelings of pity and attachment, and " the marks, of individuality are thus both numerous and " complex; and yet there is not one among the lower ani- " mals on whom the dignifying appellation of person can " properly be bestowed. Even among human beings, not " every one is as much a person as others are; and though " in general we attribute personality to all men and women, '' yet some are in a very limited sense persons, while oth- " ers are very grandly persons. The slaves of passion and " the PARROTS of OPINION, (alluding to Bob,) tlie OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 253 " hooting mobs on the streets, the voting cattle at the jdoIIs, " are for the time being destitute of personahty. The mark " of personahty, then, is to be found in the conscientious " guidance of actions according to hiw. All action, indeed, " is according to law." We have copied the above from a printed copy of the lecture delivered by the Professor at the time and place formerly given, not for the purpose of confutation or com- ment; we have copied it because it is an internal and ever- lasting truth, and because it enables us to benefit our friends and fellow-creatures; and though they are our religious opponents and enemies, yet in conformity with the teachings of all biblical religions it becomes an imperative duty upon us, who jDrofess to belong to one of the religions founded upon and supported by the Bible, to benefit our enemies whenever and by whatever we can. And how fortunate it is for our friends, for whose benefit we have herein inserted the subject in question, that we were not necessitated to copy the same thing from something that was said in some place of worship by some minister or Rabbi at some past time, no difference how long ago! And this we could easily have done by trans- lating it from the " Moureh Nebuchim," which work Maimonide seven hundred years ago left in the world for the benefit of the human race; and his name cannot be forgotten, and his spirit lives in the hearts and illuminates the spiritual intelligence of those who read and understand his thoughtful work! And though, if we had been com- pelled to translate the extract in question from the bottom- less fountain of thoughts that we have described, it would have contained a vast amount more force and vitality, — for we wojld not have produced the mere skeletons of nis 254 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, words; we would have brought out the words with the spirit that their author (Maimoriide) filled them with; — but had we done so, either by will or compulsion, we could have no cause to flatter ourselves of a reasonable prospect of benefiting those whom we wish to be benefited by it! They would have said: " It comes from a religionist. " He said it for the purpose of covering ujd some religious " dogma. You cannot prove to us religion by religion, " any more than you can prove to us the truth of the " Bible by the Bible." Consequently it is indeed fortunate that the beneficial subject comes from Prof. Felix Adler, who in matters of faith is as faithless as our own Bob is! In meaningless words he is as rich and glossy as Ingersoll, if not richer! The properties or qualities that every animal possesses and uses, which the lecturer names, he (the lecturer) is as well provided with and makes use of, the same as our famous friend R. G. Ingersoll is and does. Of solid, deep thoughts, he and they are equally in great need. But they have habituated themselves to use no more of it than they have. This lecture having come from such a source, delivered under IngersoU's nose and in his ear, cannot be objected to by our friend Bob, to inhale as a medicine that will make a man of him, -md entitle him to personality, which according to the Professor neither Bob nor the Professor are entitled to. " All actions are according to law," says the Professor. " The stone that strikes us as we walk, the brute that " hunts its prey in the woods, the faithful dog that leaps " into the water to seize a drowning lad, all act according " to law." OR KEY TO SCRIPTUKP:. 'OD Hence it is conclusive that he who knows no other law than the law by which all things are governed, which law men call the law of nature, and he calls it so for the purpose of distinguishing it from the laws appertaining to man only; and the acts and doings of man under the law, of which animals know nothing and are not actuated by, distinguish man from all other creatures and things that are upon the face of the earth ; but he who is in the shape of man and lives among men, but is actuated by and ac- knowledges no other law than the law of compulsive force — which is the law by which all animals act, and which man calls the law of nature, — that shape of man certainly, cannot lay claim to manhood and personality! If such shapes of men don't steal, it is because the force of the criminal law jDrevents them from doing so, the same as they don't put their hands in the fire because they feel the burning heat of the fire; and every animal possesses the jDOwer of feeling, smelling, hearing, seeing and tasting! Hence they are what their own Professor says they are, and what he teaches them to be — not men, and not entitled to personality; from which position we wish to extricate our friend R. G. Ingersoll, who certainly is included among the "parrots of opinion," because he has swallowed the opinions of Colenso, Paine and others, with which ne is so filled that he has neither space nor convenience to form an opinion of his own, and whose empty, therefore ringing words lead — no! irresistibly drive each and every man, who is not a mere shape of a man, to the same conclusion to which the lecture of the Professor has driven us. . But among the many empty words that Ingersoll has uttered and does utter, we find that he speaks of a soul! A doctor learns the condition of a patient who suffers from an invisible malady, from the feelings of the patient. And 256 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the only way the doctor has to ascertain the feeHngs of a patient is from what the patient tells him. And as we are undertaking to cure IngersoU of his invisible malady called infidelism, we must be governed by what he tells us, or speaks of in general. He usually speaks of and tells us of a soul! And a soul is an invisible power that men, who are not mere shapes ot men, believe they have in them, and which makes them work as no other creature does or can work; and that, they say, is a part of the invisible but soul-feeling Creator of man! Men only come to speak of and believe in a soul by the action of the soul in man. And Mr. Ingersoll's speak- ing of a soul must be taken as undisj^uted evidence that he has a soul and that it works within him. Is it not reasonable to suppose that he suffers from the working of his soul, the same as one who has a sharp appetite, but some priest has told h'm he must fiist? And that is the very thing which wc think is the trouble with our friend. He is a man, and would be entitled to person- ality, but he has not only swallowed Colenso's mathematical calculations, but has swallowed Colenso's book and all, to- gether with several other soulless authors of indigestible, raw substance, that sickens his innocent soul; and therefore his soul pains him, for it craves wholesome food, and that is what he does not possess; hence he talks of a soul! To swallow Colenso, his book, and all the rest that Mr. In- gcrsoU has swallowed, is more and worse than to swallow " Jonah, the whale," and ship in which Jonah was, in- cluding sailors and all! To swallow as a truth what Prof. Felix Adler says, is enough not only to sicken the soul of a man, but is OR KEY TO SCRIPTUKE. 257 even more than enough to kill the body of every man who has a soul in him! " All actions," he says, " are indeed according to law. It is impossible to act contrary to the law of the world." This is, or would be, a clear defense of all the criminals — for every murder that has been or will be committed — if men who have souls in them and are entitled to "person- ality" would accept it as a truth or even as a reasonable saying. How could we punish a man for doing a lawful act, when he could not help but do it, and could do it no other wise than according to law? What a blessed thing such a belief would have been for the murderer of President Gar- field, and all other murderers! Such are the beneficiaj results of infidel scientific words filled with horse sense!! Among the many things which our friend has swal- lowed he swallowed that also. And what a wonderful and powerful as well as successful defense he could have made for Guiteau, if he had undertaken to defend him! What could the lawyers for the prosecution say, if Mr. IngersoU had shown by the lecture of Prof. Adler that the shooting of President Garfield was according to the law of the world, and that Guiteau could not, according to the law of the world, do otherwise than shoot him? Could they say, or would they have any need of saying anything else than : " Such an idea is not even fit for a horse! And it is enouo^h to make a mule lau^h" ? Such is the feast to which infidelism invites the world! Everything they run through their scientific machine of word-making leads to the same conclusion, namely: That man cannot be pun- ished, will not be punished, and ought not to be punished, because he is not a free agent or actor! They hate the 18 kS a collection of thoughts, Bible, because it repudiates their theory. They take every- thing that eminent men have said and pervert it to serve their machine. Maimonide, more than seven hundred years ago, made use of the idea of a conscientious intelhgence of the uni- verse for the purpose of proving to the infidels of his time that there is a God, and that He is invisible, and that He cannot be compared to anything whatever that is visible or finite; that He is the Life and Intelligence of the whole universe; that we only personify our thoughts! And now, in the boasted wisdom of the last score years of the Nine- teenth Century, Prof. Adler, the pride of the proud class of scientific infidels, takes these words, takes out the life of them, fills them with ethics, and tries to prove a per- sonal God; and if he cannot demonstrate his theory, then each man is compelled by nature to act as he does! But doctors say " there is hope so long as there is life." And v^^e know that the fact that one has begun to speak of a God, and the other of a soul, are reasonable grounds to give hope for their recovery! And for the purpose that they may recover, we give them our " Col- lection of Thoughts and Key to Scripture." And, as we can attend to but one at a time, we will take our nearest and dearest friend and neighbor, Mr. Ingersoll. We give him our " Key," with which he not only can open the Scriptures, but can. also lock up his mouth from ever talk- ing of science before he will correct the mathematical calculations of Colenso, which he has swallowed and gives out to the world as his own, and we have shown that they would disgrace even a school -boy that is between ten and thirteen years old! Mathematical calculation is the life, the vitality, and the "conscientious mtelligence" of all science, OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 259 and he who proves himself so deficient in figures as Co- lenso and our friend IngersoU have proven themselves in~ their mathematical conclusions on the subjects, w^hich we have in a former chapter reviewed and corrected, is as unfit to talk about science as a boy that is under ten years old! And our " Collection of Thoughts" may enable him, that IS if he has strength or will enough left in him, to form some scientific thoughts, instead of spending his time, strength and usefulness in getting up empty scientific words. It is well known and understood why every criminal despises and hates the criminal law; and it ought to be known and understood fully as well why all infidels do, as Mr. IngersoU does, hate and detest the moral law, for the causes and reasons are the same in both cases. Mr. In2:ersoll is a lawyer; he understands the criminal law, but he knows nothing of the moral law. We will there- fore take a change of venue of one or two cases from the moral courts, and let our friend see if they are as detestable and hateful as he says they are when he speaks of them, as he has often done. For the purpose chat we may not reveal the names of our clients before we come into court, which might be in- jurious to their case, we will speak of their case under a supposition, as follows: A was sentenced to be hanged, but between the day of sentence and the day of execution he ran away from jail, stayed away several years, and during that time got married. The running away was by the aid of the sheriff, who did not want to hang him. But another sheriflf came into office, and found in his office a death-warrant against A, and knew where he was. The time for the execution 26o A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, of the order of the court was not stated in the warrant. Hence the sheriff sent and took A and hung him. The question is: Did the sheriff have a right to hang him? If he had, then there is no question to be asked. But if it should be decided in tiie negative, then arises a ques- tion: Was the sheriff guilty of murder, or coukl he only be held and punished for executing the law in an irregular manner, which would have been the case if it had been found that he had to have a new order from the court? And that, we believe, was not needed, because the time for the execution of the order of the court was not stated in the warrant. The next question is: Can a bankrupt acquire a legal title to property of which the bankrupt law deprives him, but which the assignee leaves in his possession and lets him use? Or can the son of a bankrupt, to whom the latter has assigned the property in question, have a legal title to the property, when he has no other title to it than what he acquired from his bankrupt father? Certainly not! Ingersoll, as well as all who only know the outside part of the Bible, say that King David was guilty of mur- der and of adultery because he caused the death of Uriah, and lived with Bathsheba before Uriah was killed. The only evidence they have against David is the Bible; let us, therefore, see what the Bible sa^s about it. We are very willing to risk the reputation of King David on what the one and only witness, the Bible, says about him in regard to the subject in question. And Ingersoll nor any other lawyer or man can object to the evidence of the Bible, for it is their own and only witness they have against David. Hence the Bible is an undisputed witness in this case. Let us, therefore, hear and un- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 261 derstand what the Bible says about the case in ques-_ tion. Second Samuel, chapter ii, says: David " saw a womar. washing herself; and the *' woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David " sent and niquired after the woman. And one said, Is '■' not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam, the wnfe of *• Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers and " took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with " her; for she was purified from her uncleanliness; and " returned unto her house." The narrative, " And David sent messengers and took her," is evidence that he took her by force and publicly. Hence, what did he send to inquire about her? It cannot be supposed that he sent to inquire of her, or ask her consent, for the Bible tells us that as soon as he ascertained that she was the wife of Uriah he sent and brought her. And if the Bible had intended to convey to us the idea that David had committed the crime of adultery by being with Bathsheba, it would not have attempted to justify his being with her; for the narrative, "FOR SHE WAS PURIFIED FROM HER UNCLEANLINESS," is nothing else than a cause for his being with her, or to justify his being with her. Why, what has adultery to do with purifica- tion? It is true, the Bible prohibits fornication when the woman is in her uncleanliness; but adultery is not fornication. The latter may be lawful, but purification must be; while the former is a crime punishable by death, the same as muider. " The adulterer and adul- teress shall surely be put to death." (Lev., chapter 20.) Hence we must assume, or will for the present assume, 262 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, that saying she had purified herself is an attempt by the witness (Bible) to justify his being with her. Let us now see what the Bible tells us Nathan the prophet said to David about the subject in question, when he came to rebuke David for what he had done. He brought the subject up before David in the way of a complaint against a rich man who had plenty of sheep and cattle, and yet took the one sheep of the poor man to feed the traveler who came to the rich man. In the whole comparison, or complaint, which was in- tended to represent to David his own acts in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba, there is nothing that represents the killing of Uriah, nor the fact that David was with Bathsheba before Uriah was killed. To represent to David his killing Uriah, the prophet ought or would, if he in- tended to rebuke him for the killing, have said that the rich man killed the poor man and took his one sheep. And at last the prophet at the same time tells David: " Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house." Because thou hast killed Uriah? No! Because thou hast committed adultery? No! But simply "because " thou hast despised me and hast taken the wife of " Uriah the Hittite unto thee for a wife." Second Samuel, chap, 12. Why, we don't see what wrong there was or could have been for any one in taking the wife or widow of Uriah, after he was killed, and making her his wife, any more than there would be for any one in taking any other widow and making her his wife! There w^as no more wrong in David marrying the widow of Uriah than there was in his marrying the widow of Nabal! We will now see what the Bible tells us David him- self said about it- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 363 Psalms, chapter 51: "A psalm of David when Na- " than the prophet came unto him after he had " been with '* Bathsheba." Verse 3: " For I acknowledge my trans- " gressions, and my sin is before me. Against Thee, Thee " only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." Murder and adultery are crimes which the laws ot God make it the duty of man to punish the perpetrator of, and they are crimes that the law of the land punishes tor. He certainly had transgressed against Uriah. And these are crimes that are detestable in the sight of man as well as in the sight of God! The greatest question in the case is: If the author of the Book of Samuel and of the 51st chapter of Psalms who narrated the subject in question and wrote it so questionably for the pui*pose of protecting the character of David, then they could have accomplished their purpose best by saying nothing about it. The answer to all these questions is: Uriah was a Hittite! He was of one of the nations who were to be utterly destroyed — to leave not a soul of them. He was, as we have in a former chapter explained, one of the moral bankrupts. He had no more moral rights. He him- self was a mere chattel and part of the scheduled property which the moral or divine bankrupt law had delivered to the assignee (Israel) to dispose of. The civil bankrupt law takes everything the body has, with the exception of what the law exempts for the need of the body. And the moral bankrupt law takes everything that the soul has; and, as the soul has no need ot anything that is on the earth, it leaves nothing to the soul of what it has on earth, but takes the exemption of what it has there where the soul goes after it leaves the earth! Uriah the Hittite had no more right to claim Bath- 264 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, sheba or any other female as his wife, and Bathsheba was no more the lawful wife of Uriah, than a bankrupt farmer has a title to the farm he has scheduled as his assets, and which has been sold under the bankrupt law, but the bankrupt still lives upon the farm because the purchaser has not yet taken possession of it! Has the farmer a legal title to the farm? Does it belong to him? Certainly not! Just such a right and title did Uriah have to Bathsheba, and so was she his wife. What the Bible tells us is: David saw a beautiful woman; he inquired if she was the wife of some man, or was yet unmarried. He was told or found out that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, or bankrupt, of whose estate, including his body, he (David) as king, was the chief or only assignee. He, therefore, without fear or shame, forthwith sent and brought her to him, because* Uriah's title was vested in him, David. And she was to David and to any one else as if she had not been married at all. And the killing of Uriah was the same as the hanging of the man who had escaped through the neglect of the predecessor of the sheriff who did hang him by virtue of an order of the court which the sheriff found in his office. The only thing David may be or was guilty of is, the question, whether he had done all that he did with a mo- tive of performing his official duty as assignee, or did he do \l all with a motive of fulfilling the longing of his liearfc? The circumstances plainly show that the latter was liio. motive; and as the motives of man's heart are some- tning that no one else but God can know, he therefore '* sinned " only against God, as he (David) says, and as the Bible tells us: " The secret things belong to the Lord OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 265 *' our God; but those things which are revealed belong - *' unto us and unto our children forever." Deut., chapter 29, verse 29. The authors of the Bible knew there was no crime of adultery nor murder in the case, and the question of puri- fication might very reasonably be asked; they have there- fore narrated the fact — he was with her, "for she was puri- fied from her uncleanliness." " Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, " of manhood and of decay. Religions are the same," says Mr. Ingersoll in his book called "The Gods." " The same ^ inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created by *' the nations must perish with their creators. They were *' created by men, and like men they must pass away. *' The deities of one age are the by- words of the next. *' The religion of our day and country is no more exempt *' from the sneers of the future than the others have been." Mr. Ingersoll then recites the different deities^ and religions of the different nations that have existed to the present time. He commences with Bramah of India, mentions Isis and Osiris of Egypt, Zeus of Greece, Jove of Rome; and asks who will be the successor of Christ, who now sits on the old throne? In answer to the above query, we ask Mr. Ingersoll: Why did he not include the Deity of Israel among the rest? Is it simply because he could not say ot the Israelites that they are extinct and have decayed, as the nations he names; because Israel, instead of being extinct, as the rest of the nations, and their posterity, if they have any, sneer- ing and laughing at the folly of their ancestors for wor- shiping such objects as deities, — Israel is more numerous 266 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, now than it ever was, and instead of being a nation tor itself in some local part of the world, has become, and for centuries long has been, as it is now, the nation of the world! And instead ot laughing and sneering at the re- ligious folly of their ancestors, as all nations do, Israel has made the whole civilized world believe in and worship the One, and the only One God of Israel! And as the religious teacher of the world, it became necessary for Israel to live among all the nations that are upon the face of the earthy to speak their languages, endure their climes, and suffer from each and every one of them. If these visible and undeniable facts are the cause and reason why Mr. Inger- soll has not named Israel and the God of Israel among the nations and their deities which he has named, then his whole argument is not worth the ink that it took to print it! Because the world knows and has during the last ten centuries known and understood the religious folly of their ancestors, and is now, as it has been during the last ten centuries, anxious to forget it. Ai-^d if he did not see these facts and the position of Israel and the God of Israel at the present time, then we say, he who cannot see and un- derstand the present is a very unfit person to judge the past and foretell the future! Is the science of astronomy so perfect and powerful now that an eclipse or any other visible and unnatural or unusual phenomenon can be foretold 2,400 years before it appears? Is there or was there any power, besides the power of Divine Inspiration, by which Isaiah could have written the four chapters from the fortieth to the forty- fifth, to say nothing of the rest? How, if not through Divine Inspiration, could he, as he did, know and foretell 2^400 years ago that Israel would to-day be the undisputed and indisputable witness to, for, and before the whole OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 267 world that there is no other God than the God of Israel? " Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant and Israel whom *' I have chosen; thus saith the Lord God that made thee " and formed thee: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, and " thou Jeshurum, whom I have chosen. For I will pour " water (knowledge) upon him that is thirsty and floods " upon the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon thy t' seed and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they " shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the " water-courses. One shall say I am the Lord's; and an- *' other shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and an- " other shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and " surname himself by the name of Israel. Thus saith the " Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of " Hosts: I am the First; I am the Last; and besides Me " there is no God! And who, as I, shall call and declare " it, and set it in order for me, since I have appointed the " ancient people? And the things that are coming and " shall come, let them declare unto them. Fear ye not, " neither be afraid; have I not told thee from the time, " and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses. Is " there a God besides me? (And in answer to the last " question Israel says :) There is no God ; I know not " any " ! Let Mr. Ingersoll stop talking and making himsei* the deity of infidelity, at whom future generations will sneer and laugh and be anxious to forget, as the present gen- eration is and does of Isis and Osiris and the thousands of other bulls, dogs and cats to which the Egyptians paid their devotions; or as they sneer and laugh at the Roman Jova and the thousands of other detestations to which Rome paid and made the world pay its devotions; all of which have crumbled away with their time and nation. 268 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Let him, we say, stop talking and making himself the talking deity of those who worship iiim, because they know not better; and let him read the history of the world since four thousand years, and not touch the Bible at all; and in the history of the world he will find that all these deities he speaks of, and thousands of others, have existed, changed and decayed, as man does, except the God of Israel, who was only known to and served by Israel for about two thousand years, or up to the time when Israel ceased to be a local nation and became the nation of the world, which took place about two thousand years ago. No new deities came into existence during that time; and those that were from before that time all decayed during that time, and Christianity took their devotees and worshipers and brought them to the God of Israel, of whom the world obtains more knowledge and understanding each and every day, and whom it worships and serves more devotedly, more knowingly, and more willingly each and every day! And after finding out all this from the history of the world, let him examine or study all the science of which he talks so much but knows so little, and see if he can find a power besides the power of Divine Inspiration by which Isaiah, or whoever the writer of the book of Isaiah was — for the world does not care now who the writer of the book in question was, but only cares and it is of great interest for the world to know, how the writer, whoever he was, did know to foretell things exactly as they are to-day, if it was not by the power of Divine Inspiration. Neither does it make any difference to the world nor to us what power Mr. IngersoU will or can ascribe to the writer in ques- tion. He will find himself both compelled and willing to proclaim that the time is not very far in the future when " From one Sabbath to another shall all flesh OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 269 come to worship before me," the one and the only God of Israel, "saith the Lord God," as Isaiah has foretold in the last chapter of his book. And he can gain some information — nay, more information, and come to the same forcible and willing conclusion by reading the Bible without any commentaries, or what commentators since the time of St. Jerome to the present day have said about the Bible, and criticise the Bible according to the science that every man is supposed to have and use, ex- cept when he comes to read or study the Bible, which science is commonly called " common sense." The reason why we recommend this way of reading and studying is, because they who study or simply read the Bible with all the commentaries thereon go to extremes. One portion of them believe everything, though they understand nothing, because they make everything figurative or spiritual; under the former they can figure any biblical passage for what- ever it suits them best or occasion requires; and unaer the latter idea they can make the Bible say whatever they like, because neither they nor any other human being can understand spiritual or infinite matter; and to this class be- long a part of the ministers of religion, who can see no biblical subject by the reflected light of science, and are ready and willing to swap the Bible for science and preach and teach a scientific religion. And the part of the biblical readers who believe nothing of what they read, because they understand nothing of It, Is composed of the ministers and devotees of infidelity, who also substitute science for the Bible. Thus they demonstrate the truth of the adage, " Two extremes meet.' The common sense a man must have and use m read- ing the Bible Is: He must first convince himself that there is a God, or a Supreme Power that rules the universe, of z^O A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, which man can convince himself through common sense, in the same manner as Abraham did. And common sense will also tell him and make him believe that the Bible is true, if he will consider and contemplate upon the fact of the indestructibility of the nation who brought the Bible into the world, and who have lived and do live ac- cording to the Bible. And when it comes to reading the Bible let him say to himself: *' If there is a God, which " common sense tells me, and if the Bible is a book that " God gave to man, that the latter may know how " to act and live, then that Omnipotent God must have given " man power to understand what He wants man to do. " Hence I, as man, must and will understand what the " Bible says to me and to every man." And we are sure that not only will man understand, believe and love the Bible, but he will also find out that the light of science is to the Bible what the lamp-light was to the diamond lost in the dark room, which is spoken of in this chapter. And he will have no more, and probably less, respect for those religious ministers of the present time who are ready to change the Bible for science, than he has or can have for the ministers who have said that the study of science is prohibited by the Bible. The whole subject will foe more thoroughly demonstrated when we shall reach in history the period at which Christ- ianity or Christ came into the ^world. At present we are at the time of the building of the Tabernacle ^by Moses, which is the subject of the next chapter. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 2'Jl CHAPTER XXV. THE TABENACLE THAT MOSES BUILT. "And let them make me asanctuary, that I may dwell " among them." Exodus, 25 :8. The idea of building a house for God to dwell in is indeed contrary to and inconsistent with the idea that men have of God and the belief they have in Him, as well as with what God Himself says: " Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne and " the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that ye " build unto me ? And where is the place of my rest ?" Isaiah, chap. 66. But does the phrase, "and I will dwell among them," strictly convey the idea of dwelling in the sanctuary? Ex- odus, 25:9, says: " According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern " of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments " thereof, even so shall ye make it." The last verse shows plainly that Moses was shown a pattern of the Tabernacle and of all the instruments that were to be in it, as well as of the candlestick, as the last verse of the same chapter says: 272 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " And look that thou make thcni after their pattern, " which was shown thee in the mount." It may therefore be proper to ask: If Moses saw a pattern of the Tabernacle and of everything that was to be in the Tabernacle, what need was there to describe how and of what material each and everything was to be made? It is a great deal easier to make a diagram and a descrip- tion of a thino^ or a building, when the thinsf or buildingf is seen, than it is from what we hear sjDoken of the thing or building. Hence, if Moses did see a tabernacle or a pattern of one, he must have seen that part of it was made of boards, and part of it was made of curtains, and counted how many curtains there were, their length and breadth,, as well as the material of which they were made, and their color; and the same with the boards, the sockets, and with everything that was subsequently made in and for the Tabernacle. If he saw all these things, as it says he did, why did he not write out a description, or why did he not make a diagram of all these from what he saw, which would have been much easier for the workingmen to imi- tate from, and for Moses to convey an idea to the work- ingmen of what he wanted them to make, than it was for him to convey and for them to conceive from what he (Moses) was told about it, from which he did convey his ideas to the workingmen, but which it seems were indeed very hard for the workingmen to understand, for it be- came necessary that they should be filled with the Spirit of God in order to do their work in accordance with the design of Moses, or with what he saw on the mount, as we are told in Exodus, chap. 31: " And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have called " by name Bezaleel the son of Uri. * * * * ^^d OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 273 " I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, " and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner " of workmanship." If Moses had taken a diagram of what he saw, there could have been no need of filling the workmen with the Spirit of God. But what did Moses see? What was shown to him on the mount? Could he, or any man, or all men together, have taken a diagram of what was shown unto Moses at the time and place in question? If any man could have done what Moses did not do, then any man could or can make a perfect diagram of the w^iole universe, including the different planets, and in such a way that every workmen could readily un- derstand and make it, so that any man should be able to perceive, from what the workman had made, the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, the materials of which everything in the universe itself are made, or contain in themselves; and above all, the Fifth Thing, that holds the elements, usually destructive to each other, together in peaceable harmony! For nothing else than the whole structure of the universe -and the elements of which it is composed, and the power that holds it to- gether, was what was shown unto Moses at the time and place in question! Hence Moses did not take or make a diagram of what he saw; and that is what no human being ever was, is, and probably never will be able to do. And as God dwells in the whole universe, and the Tabernacle was or was to be a typical universe, it was the typical dwelling-place of God. But the Bible or the 8th verse of the 25th chapter of Exodus, does not strictly say that God w^ould dwell in the sanctuary that 19 274 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, He told Moses to build. It says: " Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell " among (or in) them." If it had been the intention of the writer of that passage of the Bible to strictly convey the idea that God would dwell in the sanctuary, he would have said "that I may dwell in it," and not among or in them. The purpose of the Tabernacle was not that God might dwell in it, but through the -knowledge of the universe, of which the Tabernacle was to be and was a type, by which men could and have gained a knowledge of the working of the universe, God might, as He does, dwell in them, or among them (as the English version of that text reads). He who actually does obtain some knowledge by study and observation of the universe, even of the least thing that is in it, knows there is a God, and God dwells in him and among those with whom the observer and contemplator of the wonderful construction of the universe dwells. Moses saw and knew the wonderful construction of the universe. Bezaleel and the rest who worked at the Tabernacle were filled with the same spirit; consequently God dwelt in them and among the Israelites with w4iom dwelt Moses, Bezaleel and the other workmen, and others who had studied and understood the design of the Tabernacle and had obtained a glimpse of the structure of the universe. Aristotle and Plato knew nothing of the Bible nor of the Tabernacle, but they studied and tested the work- ing of the universe. What little they knew of it was not from what others had said about it, but from what they had observed and ascertained. Hence they believed, even at the risk of their lives, in an Omnipotent Power, OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 275 and in life after death! And if they had had the aid and teachings of the Bible, the world might have been saved from passing through the dark ages which came between them and us, for they probably would have enlightened the world in their time! God dwells in those who know something of Him. To know Him is the same as knowing a painter from the paintings he has made. The painter is invisible to us, because he is dead; nevertheless we love and admire him in the feelings of our hearts, and honor him in the contemplation of our thoughts, and consequently his spirit may be said to dwell within us. Therefore the authors of the Bible direct our attention to the picture of the universe which we behold, that we may contemplate it, and that it may lead us to think of and admire the Designer and Painter thereof. It is certainly impossible for a man to explain how and in what a certain thing resembles another, without knowing and being familiar with the other thing of which the certain thing is or has a resemblance. Hence, to explain how the Tabernacle was a pattern of the universe we, or whoever would undertake to do so, could not succeed unless we were fully aware of the structure of the universe, of which, we are sorry to say, we have but little if any knowledge; and what we do know of it is not of a demonstrative quality of knowledge, or such as, if some one would dispute what we say of the uni- verse, we could demonstrate it to be as we say it is. Hence we will simply say that the fine linen, the blue, the purple and the scarlet, of which the curtains of the Tabernacle were made, represented the earth, the air, the fire and the water, which comprise everything that 276 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, is in the universe. And the Cherubim, and the cunning work that was worked in the curtains, were to represent the invisible Power by which these elements, usually destructive to one another, are kept in perfect harmony by the Invisible Power that made everything that is in the universe. And the fact that the curtains were made of different materials and of different colors, and the fifty loops that each and every curtain had were all made of blue, which is a sky color, represented all that man's mind is capable of conceiving and representing to himself of heaven. And the joining of the curtains one to an- other with golden taches or hooks, instead of tying one to another with any part of the same materials of which the curtains were made, — which would have been easier and brought them closer one to another, for the loops were fastened to the very edge of each curtain and must have projected over it; and if each loop extended but one half of an inch outside the edge of the curtain, and say the hook or tach was also no more than one half an inch long, then the two loops and the hook that held the two loops together left an open space of one and one-half inches between every two curtains. Hence we say, if strings had been sewed on to each curtain and tied together the curtains could have been brought close one to another, if that had been the desired purpose of the loops and taches. But that was not the desire. The purpose of the loops and taches was to represent that neither the planets or creatures in the universe, nor the elements that are in each and every one of them, are kept together by anything that is of them or in them. The taches were made of gold; and gold is not linen, nor blue wool, nor purple, nor scarlet. The golden taches represented what the Bible, nature and science teach of the creative God OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 277 Power, that holds the j^lanets and everything that consti- tutes the universe; and He w^ho holds them together and controls them is not a part of them nor anything that is in them. The same is true v^ith regard to the boards of the Tabernacle, and the sockets which held the boards togethr. Two sockets held one board together. " Two sockets un- der one board, for his two tenons." And the boards were held together by golden rings and five gold-covered bars; but there was but one that ran from end to end — repre- senting the one Power that holds the whole universe to- gether ! If any of our readers will take the trouble to examine that part of the Bible which describes the building of the Tabernacle,' he will find that the boards of the Tabernacle were forty-eight in number, and twenty-one curtains on the outside of the Tabernacle, ten that were joined with golden taches and eleven that were joined with copper taches ; and the vail that separated the place where the ark was from the rest of the Tabernacle, which place was called Most Holy, or Holy of Holiness; and the hangings for the door of the tent; and the curtain, before the mercy- seat, or ark. He (the reader) will find that they were seventy-two in all, exclusive of anything that was in the court of the Tabernacle. Divide these seventy-two parts of the Tabernacle by four, or by the four streams into which the river that came out of the Garden of Eden is said to have divided itself. The quotient of seventy-two divided by four is eighteen. And this is how Maimonide, without the aid of the telescope, could know, seven hun- dred years ago, that the solar system of planets can consist of no less than eighteen planets, besides their moons and 278 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Stars — the latter bein^ represented by the utensils of the Tabernacle. And if the court of the Tabernacle is to be considered as part of the Tabernacle, then there are strong reasons to say and believe that the system of planets here- tofore named consists of more than eighteen, of which six were known to the world about one hundred years ago, and about eleven are known now. As Maimonide says, there are strong reasons for believing there are more than eighteen. And if we should be asked, " Are there no more than four systems of planets in the universe?" our answer will be: The other systems that are or may be in the universe are subject to and governed by these four, the same as all the streams of man's thoughts are of and governed by the four streams into which the stream of thoughts that came out of the Garden of Eden, the soul, which existed before time (Eden) divides or divided itself. Greater minds and better pens than ours have at- tempted to describe and fully explain the Tabernacle and what it did represent; some of whom have failed, while some have succeeded, but refused to say more than they did, and did not think they had a proper right to go farther than they went. None of them went as far or said as much as Maimonide did. And he cautions and asks those who may understand what he meant to be sparing and careful in what they say about it; and we think we cannot and ought not to proceed further with that subject. We will therefore stop our inquiries about the Tab- ernacle itself, or how it was built, or why it was built OK KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 279 as it was, and why the several articles in it were made_^ as they were; and will direct our inquiries unto the purpose for which the Tabernacle was built. Was it built for no other or greater purpose than to sacrifice animals in it? This will be the subject of our next chapter. 28o CHAPTER XXVI. THE PURPOSE OF THE TABERNACLE AND OF THE ANIMAL SACRIFICES. Would it not greatly surprise an architect if a man would come to him and tell him: I want you to su- perintend the building of a house for me; and I want you to build it for me according to the pattern of the house you have seen. And instead of explaining to the architect what house he refers to, that the latter has seen, or of what materials he intends to build his house, or of what dimensions it was to be, the man would say: And I want you to make a box; telling the sort of lumber to be used; the size thereof; with what it musi be lined inside, and with what it must be covered or how it must be painted on the outside, and what ornaments it shall have on the outside; and it was to be carried from place to place; and then tell the architect what he intended to keep in that box. And before saying any- thing more about the house of which he began to speak, he would continue: And you shall make me a certain seat, describing the materials of which the seat was to be made and the size thereof; also how the seat was to be engraved; and would at the same time tell the archi- tect that he wanted that chair to sit upon when he OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE .«.«I OF THOUGHTS, stones) had to be in their natural state, and not cut or hewed stones. If the civiHzed nations of the world at the present time could have a history of all the nations that have existed in the world during the time of which the Bible speaks; and if that history contained a full account of all the civil and religious laws of all nations that have existed during the time in question, the same as the Bible gives of the nation whose history it is; and it men were as familiar with that history as they are with the Bible; and if that history extended down to the time when Cortez landed in Mexico, and give an accurate account of the human sacri- fices there, and the time when and how they were to be sacrificed; telling how many males and how many females, aud how many full-aged males and females had to be and were sacrificed by the priests of the sun and other planets as well as to animals, as the Bible tells of the animal sacrifices? and described how the poor helpless victim was to be and was placed on the sacrificing stone, with a stone collar on his neck (the relics of which are found in our land),* and five priests holding him, one by each hand and leg and one by the head, while the high priest cut the breast open and took out the heart and besmeared the deity or its image; — if men could read and know all this, what a relief *When Cortez landed the inhabitants thought he was their long-lost deity and prince, Quetzalcoatl, who left them centuries before and promised to return. Hence they killed a man and sprinkled the blood upon the conqueror Cortez and his companions. See " Antinquity of North America," and North American Review. We cannot gjve date nor page — we speak from memory. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 2S7 it would be to their feelings to read the Bible! With what devotion they would contemplate the mercies of God, and thank Him for the love that He hath shown in wean- ing the human race from their brutality by substituting the animal sacrifice for the human, which was to prevail until man should learn that God desires no other sacrifice of him than the feelings of his heart and understanding of his mind, to feel and know that there is a God, and that He is just and loves His creatures, and that man, who was created in His image, shall Jbe and do the same! We will now direct our inquiries into the biblical law appertaining to sacrifices; but to do so it will become necessary for us to refer to some passages of the Bible that Prof. W. Robertson Smith made use of in his late twelve lectures, in which he raises the Septuagint copy of the Bible that we now have to be of higher and better authority than the Hebrew Bible; and in these lectures and by this means he concludes that the Book of Deuter- onomy was unknown to the Jews in the time of the prophets Isaiah and Micah. And we wish to deal with him the same as we have dealt with other writers and speakers against the truth of the Bible, — that is, to show either their ignorance of the words they read and utter, or expose their private purpose and interest in explaining what they read in the manner and for the purpose they do. The Professor had lost his position as professor in a certain theological institution in Scotland; hence we cannot con- clude whether to ascribe his sayings and conclusions to a want of knowledge and proper understanding of the sub- jects he spoke of, or to the cause that made him speak and the purpose for which he spoke! But that is entirely immaterial to us. We have only to inquire into the sub- ject of which he spoke, and into the conclusions he drew 288 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS. therefrom. And as we are desirous to kill as many birds as we can with one throw of the " Stone," and as the explanation of the biblical law about sacrifices is also a refutation not only of what the Professor says about the Book of Deuteronomy, but removes the entire foundation upon which he has built his twelve lectures (with the ex- ception of what he built upon the Book of Samuel, which will be the subject of a subsequent chapter), we therefore think it is proper, as it is a saving of time and space, to connect the twelve lectures to the explanation of the biblical sacrifices. In the eighth lecture, page 213, the Professor says: " So long as the old dispensation lasted, the law re- " mained an absolute standard. The Israelites had no " right to draw a distinction between the spirit and the " letter of the law." Mr. W. R. Smith, or Mr. Professor, on what evi- dence or proof have you made the above statement? We absolutely deny your assertion, that we have above copied, and we propose to, and will substantiate our denial by the very evidence of Isaiah and Micah and of the books of Moses that we shall copy from your own book, and not from the Bible. But before we do this, we will first copy some more of what you say. On page 2x4, same lecture, you say : " The priest shall make atonement for him, and he " shall be forgiven." This is biblical, and you explain it thus: " To neglect these means of grace is, according to " the Pentateuch, nothing less than the sin committed with " a high hand, for which there is no forgiveness." Professor Smith! Don't you know that each and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 2S9 every nation has laws which define what act is a crime, what is a trespass, and what shall constitute other offenses? And the same laws provide a punishment for each crime and offense. The punishment for some crimes is death, for others is imprisonment, and for others is hut a fine. And every government provides officers who are r.o execute the laws, to impose the punishment and collect the fines; and when the fine has heen paid or the pun- ishment endured, the law relieves the transgressor from his transgression and the criminal from the crime he has committed. Would you, Mr. Professor Smith, say the people who constitute the civilized nations of the world have no right to abstain from comnjitting crimes? Or that the laws of the civilized nations of the world com- pel the people who constitue those nations to commit the crimes for which the laws of the nations provide a punishment, and the same laws make it the imperative duty of the officers to impose said punishments upon the transgressors of the law? If you do or would say so, then you simply are or would have to be answered by ridicule. And if you, Mr. Professor, do not and would not say so of all the nations and of their laws, which your lectures suggest, then why do you say so of the laws of the Bible and of the nation governed by those laws, the Israelites? Don't you know enough, Mr. Smith, to know that your eighth * lecture exposes you to ridicule, and suggests very good reasons why you lost your place at Aberdeen? The Professor copies from the first chapter of Isaiah, and begins from the nth verse, which we recopy h"re : "• What are your many sacrifices to me? saith Jeho- 20 290 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, " vah; I delight not in the blood of bullocks and lambs " and he goats. When ye come to see my face, who hath " asked this at your hands, to tread my courts? Bring no " more vain oblations. * * * My soul hateth your new " moons and your feasts; they are a burden unto me; I am " weary to bear them." He then quotes from Amos: " I hate, I despise your feast days. And I will not " take pleasure in your solemn assemblies. Take away " from me the noise of thy songs, and let me not hear the " melody of thy viols. But let justice flow as water, and " righteousness as a perennial stream/' In the two quotations that we have here copied from the tenth lecture, and on page 287, we find several words that do not agree with the English version of the Bible now before us; neither do these words agree with the He- brew text. But as the words he uses answer the purpose best, and as we agree with that part of the Professor's conclusion, that the sacrifices were not ordained to endure forever, but were ordained to continue for a certain time, or until they had accomplished a certain purpose, which was to wean the Israelites, and through them the human race, from serving planets and other creatures, and sacrific- ing even human beings to them (as we will hereinafter prove by the Bible itself); hence we will say nothing to the Professor for changing the words of the English ver- sion of the Bible and replacing them with scientific fancy words of his own, that are far from agreeing with the He- brew text. What we and every one who does or ever did under- stand or had any proper understanding of the Bible — and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 29I the Bible itself — do not agree with the lecturer in, is his conclusion that the prophets who spoke against sacrifices, (and that includes nearly every prophet whose writings we have in the Bible, including the Psalmist too,) that none of them knew anything of the Book of Deuteronomy; and that if they had known of that Book they would not have dared to speak against the law, for the latter was held higher than the prophets. To say the prophe^-s did not know of the Book of Deuteronomy because they spoke against sacfifices, is as reasonable and logical as for one, on being told that an officer whose duty it is to enforce the laws, or a minister of religion, told those who are suffering because they have violated the laws that "the government is not pleased with " nor does it desire that they suffer; all the government " asks of them is to act righteously, deal fairly;" and he who heard it would say: " The officer (or the minister) *' could not have been aware of the laws under which the " violators of the law were suffering, or else the laws were *' not yet in existence at the time he said so." Whatever can be said about one who would reason in that way must be said about the Professor. We certainly could not have thought to touch any- thing of the Professor's lectures, because they injure no one but himself, and say nothing against anything except their own deliverer; but as we agree with a small portion of his conclusion, and it is consistent with our subject, we said what we did, and it is more than we intended to say about him. Consequently we will resume our subject. The Bible, like all legal ctatutes, defines what consti- tutes a crime, a trespass, or any offense against the laws which the legislature has enacted. 292 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, The penalt} , according to the bibhcal or heavenly statute, for the crimes of treason, murder, adultery and the like, was death. The punishment for minor trespasses against the government was all the way from a handful of flour to an ox, and was regulated according to the wealth of the offender. For crimes that one citizen committed against the rights of another, the punishment was that the offender had to pay a fine to the government whose laws he had violated, and fully remunerate him whose rights he had invaded. And when a prophet or minister said the government (God) was not pleased with the multitude of fines that His subjects were paying to him; that the only thing that would please the government, or was or could be an honor to the government, was that His subjects should love Him " The Lord their God and keep His statutes," the prophet or minister simply said what we find in the first verse of the nth chapter of Deuteronomy and the 13th verse of the same chapter: " If you will hearken diligently unto my command- " ments, which I command you THIS DAY, to love the " Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and " all your soul." (Not with all your fines and sacrifices.) The words " which I command you this day" mean the time when Moses was with them, or when they were in the wilderness, and do not include the law of sacrifices. That law was not to come into force until they became settled in their land, and not before God had chosen a place to cause His name to dwell therein, which was not done until the time of Solomon. " Now these are the commandments, the statutes and " the judgments which the Lord thy God commanded to OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 293 " teach you, that you might do them IN THE LAND " WHITHER YOU GO TO POSSESS IT." Sacrifices are embraced in the law. All these may be germane to the real subject in question, but it is not the heart of the subject. The heart of the subject is the ques- tion which the soul of each and every man asks: Is not God able and willing to atone for and expiate our sins, without a sacrifice of any kind? And did He ordain the sacrifice to be brought or the fine paid because we have violated His will, or law, or hath He ordained it for the purpose that it shall teach us to obey and carry out His will? The Bible, history, and circumstances fully and plainly answer these questions and say that the sacrifices were only ordained to enable man to think of God and by degrees learn to know something of God, love Him, and habituate himself to carry out the will of God. But to explain and understand what the Bible says, we must first know the composition of men, or the human race. The human family is composed of four species of men, which we have already designated when we were con- sidering the men who have existed from the time that man was first placed upon the earth until Noah, which we will here briefly repeat. Man consists of, or is designated by the names of " Adam, Enos, Geber and Ish." The first (Adam) is a mere living piece of clay, of which a man can be made. The second (Enos) is one who has some feel- ings and thoughts of a man, but is yet very far from being a man. The third (Geber) is between Enos and the perfect man,Tsh. And Ish, the perfect man, brought no sacrifice, paid no fine for violating the law. And he, the perfect man, Moses, who is called Ish, brought no sacrifice even when he did unintentionally violate the command of God. 294 ^ COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, The second verse of the second chapter of Leviticus reads thus: " If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, " ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the " herd and of the flock. If it is a burnt sacrifice * * * '* he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of " the tabernacle." (This does not show an imperative com- mand to bring sacrifices, as Mr. Smith said. The first verse of the second chapter of the same book says thus: " And when any person or soul" (in English mistranslated "any" person, from the word "neffesh," the same word that the word "soul" in the 2d verse of the 4th chapter, same book, is translated from,) "will offer a meat offering." In speaking of a sin offering, chap. 4, verse 2, it says: " If a soul shall sin through ignorance against the " commandments of the Lord." Chapter 5th, which speaks of trespass offerings, verGe 1st, reads thus: "And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing." * * * *' If a soul commit a trespass," verse 15. * * * "And if a soul sin, and commit any of those things which are forbidden," verse i7. The question is, why does it say "Man" when speak- ing of burnt offerings, and "Soul" when it speaks of all the rest of the sacrifices? And the word Man in the Eng- lish version of the Bible, in the place in question, is trans- lated from the Hebrew word "Adam," while each time that word occurs in the Book of Leviticus, with the exception of the one in question, and the word "man" in the second verse of the 13th chapter, — all the rest are translated from the word " Ish," which means the highest degree of man? OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 295 The burned offering is the first one that is spoken of, and the whole of it was burned upon the altar; nothing was allowed to be eaten of it even by the priests. Hence it must have been the most holy sacrifice of all. Why, then, is that holy sacrifice ascribed to Adam, who was the lowest degree of man, or no man at all, but mere raw mate- rials for a man, and all the rest of the sacrifices are as- cribed to or connected with the soul? And the word "Man" in the 2d verse of the 13th chap- ter, which is the first verse of the law of "leprosy," why is the same word Adam used there in that verse, and the word " Ish" all through the rest of the same law, which takes up three chapters, or 149 verses of the Bible? Why is the first and most holy sacrifice and the first leprosy ascribed to the same degree of man, and not any of the rest of the sacrifices nor any of the rest of the leprosies? The answers to these questions are these: God does not now and never did desire sacrifices; all that He desires is a true heart and a pure spirit! He can, does, and did always forgive sins without sacrifices. When King David sinned he brought no sacrifice that God might forgive his sin; neither did Moses or Aaron, because they were not and did not belong to that class of men who are designated by the noun "Adam." They belonged to those who are called " Ish," and they knew that sacrifices were only ordained for man during the time that it takes him to develop himself from the state of an "Adam" (man) to the degree of an "Ish;" to reach that position he must first reach and take the degree of Enos, and then the degree of Geber, before he can become an " Ish." The whole human race habituated itself to sacrifices 296 A COLLECriON OF THOUGHTS, long before the law was given to the Israelites. Cain the son of Adam, Noah, Balaam, all brought sacrifices. Who told them, who asked them to bring sacrifices.'' Man was savage, and whatever his imagined deit}^ w^as, he judged his deity by his own feeling and desire, which was, as to a certain extent it is now, to revenge himself upon and kill his enemies. They (men) have served and worshiped everything of which men derived some benefit. The sun is the greatest benefactor to men, because without the sun the earth could not produce what men need to live upon; hence the sun was their greatest deity. Animals, such as the cow, ox, sheep or goat, are of benefit to men; they have therefore served these animals. And as the wild and ferocious beasts, such as the lion, the liger, the bear and the wolf, are at enmity with men, and destroy men as well As domestic animals, hence the}^ used to sacrifice these wild and ferocious beasts to their deities, which satisfied their natural enmity to the beasts, and they thought it pleased their deities as it pleased them. Women, while they were in their monthly issues, history tells us, were al- most considered as detestable beings; they could not and dared not go out in the street; no one dared to talk to them, nor they to any one, during the time in ques- tion; and if it came on her during the forepart of the first quarter of the full moon, she had to be secluded in her room by herself until the full moon appeared.* And *When Rachel had the images of her father and the latter came to search the tent in which she was, and from which she did not go out, the only excuse she gave him for her remaining in the room was: " Let it "not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; " for the custom of women is upon me." OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 207 if it came on her during the second quarter, or during the forepart of the second, she had to wait until the new moon. Hence they worshiped the moon, because the change of the moon reUeved them. They also used to sacrifice to evil spirits. The word devil in the English version of the Bible, where it speaks of sacrificing to the devil — which it does in several places — is translated from the Hebrew word "Seerim," (Lev. 17:7, and in many other places,) and means goats, which were the emblem of that invisible deity, — except what we see of him in those who are in the shape of man. Thus the human race has during two thousand years habituated itself to sacrifices, and established polytheism and polygamy as indispensable and natural necessities. How to wean off a nation from all these, when all the rest of the nations in the world are practicing it, and believe it is their religious duty to keep it and promul- gate it, and believe that every one who does not do so is irreligious, and he who does or says anything against these practices is sacrilegious, is a question that can be asked, but never could and cannot now be answered. To say that God could change their habitual nature, is a thing which no one denies. That He has power to do; but He doth not change the laws of nature, which He enacted at the time He created the world. He probably doth not do it because He knoweth, and He only doth know, that it may not be right and proper to change it. And probably because if He would change His unchange- able laws for the sake of a nation, then probably the question would be, why doth He not change them for the sake of an individual? And if He had changed the laws of nature or the habit ot man then, it would be 298 A COI.LECTION OF THOUGHTS, asked, why doth He not do it now? And probably it is because His laws are to convince man of Him, and if His laws would change it might probably lead man to believe that He is also subject to a change! And should we here be told that He did do miracles, which are not in accordance with the laws of nature, we could only ask the reader to wait for our answer until we will come to speak of miracles. For the present we see no answer to the questions which are so germane to the present subject, except the remedy supplied by the laws of God that we find in the Bible, and which were enacted for the purpose of enabling man to elevate him- self from the Adam degree of man, who cares for nothing else and knows of nothing more than his body and what he thinks will be good for it, to the " Ish " degree of man, which is a position occupied by angels, and is one of the names (when it is used in the plural) by which angels are called. And the man Gabriel, and the man clothed in linen (Daniel, chapters 9 and 12. The words man there are translated from the Hebrew word "Ish.") And when man reaches to that position or to that degree, that is, he knows God, and all that he needs to know of Him is that no mortal man can know or see Him; and that He gives Him (man) all that he needs and has; and depend on Him, who will deal justly and righteously with man, and will provide for him according to the abundance of His own goodness and mercies, and love and serve Him for it with a loving heart. When man reaches that position then he will know, as they who did reach that position during the time when sacri- fices were offered and accepted knew, that God desires no sacrifices, and therefore brought none, except what they brought for the purpose of helping others to turn. OR KEY TO SCRIPTUEE. 299 their thoughts and feelings to God; as Samuel and others did. It is our desire to bring before and submit the ques- tion to each and every one of our readers, that he may draw his own conclusions and decide that question for himself; and for that purpose we will suppose there is a business carried on in a certain place, which employs the whole community of the place, say a thousand or more in number, who have no other means of support except what they get for their labor and attention to' that business, for which they are well paid, and receive other remunerations besides. The proprietor of the business does not live in that place, and there is not one in the w^hole community who does or ever did know him. The entire business is and has been carried on by a chief agent, and sub-agents who are all subordinate to the former, who does what he likes; and from all appearance, and according to the knowl- edge the community have of the business and ot him, there is nothing that can reasonably show that the chief agent has a superior over him, or lead them to suppose he is not the proprietor. What could be the success, if any, for one man to come and try to make the whole community and laborers believe that he whom they think is the proprietor of the business, and whom they fear and respect, and up to whom they all look, and who to all appearance is their sole benefactor, was nothing more than an agent who was sent by the proprietor of the business, of whom no one in the community ever heard anything, for no other purpose except to benefit them? Would his chance of success be bettered if he (the man) would tell them that the proprietor is very much grieved to know 300 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, that they beheve the agent to be real proprietor and their benefactor, and that he, the proprietor, will dismiss the whole of them because they pay their respects to the agent and his subordinates? And in answer to the reasonable questions: Where is the proprietor? Why does he not come himself? Why has he not shown himself to any one employed in the business since it was established ? The man would say : The proprietor is everywhere, but can nowhere be seen by any one employed in the business; and that he (the man) did not see him, but found it out in a vision; and the way the business w^as carried on demonstrated to him beyond a doubt that the vision was true! Is there, or would there be, another chance for him to succeed, if ever, but to re- main among the community and treat the supposed pro- prietor as a mere employee, and pay his respect to the invisible proprietor, and even insult the agent and his sub- ordinates whenever he could do so in the presence of the community, for the purpose of showing them that the agent and all his subordinates were powerless to punish him or dismiss him from the service, neither to withhold from him any of the benefits which the rest of the com- munity of the place were receiving through the agent? And if the man would kill a few of the subordinate agents, and the supposed proprietor would let him go unpunished for all these, would not all these constitute some cause for the community to think there was some reason in what the man of the new ideas said? The reader will, we believe, know that the earth is the place in the supposition, without our telling it to him, and the people who lived upon the earth before the flood were the community, and Noah was the man. He told OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 3OI the community of his time, who looked upon the sun as the proprietor of the universe and the real benefactor of men, and paid their greatest respect to it, and to every- thing that is of some benefit to men they paid their respect according to the benefits received therefrom, — Noah came and told them all, and more than all, that the man in the sup- position said. When he was building the ark he must have told them that the proprietor of the business that is carried on upon the earth would bring a flood that would sweep them all away, and they would be dismissed from the business of the earth, and their supposed proprietor, the sun, would not be able to save them. It came to pass! Noah, his three sons, and their wives were saved. And to convince his own posterity, Noah began to kill off some of the subordinate agents, the clean animals which he saved in his ark. " And Noah built an altar unto the Lord, and took ot ery " altar.' " every clean beast and offered BURNT offerings on the The clean beasts were the deities, the subordinate agents to whom men paid their respects: hence Noah, for the purpose of convincing his posterity of men's error, began to kill them off. He killed some of "every clean beast," to show that they were all alike. And he built an " altar " (a foundation) unto the Lord." That was, indeed, the best time to lay a foundation for the spirit of man to rest and depend upon the Lord. The phrase, "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor," means, when traced to its origin and purpose, the same as the words from which that phrase is translated are used in the Hebrew language; which we will in due time, before we finish our present subject, trace up. 302 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, That was the first altar (foundation) that was built unto, or to, but it is most proper to say "for the Lord," because all these and a good many more words are translated from the letter "L," which is, in the Hebrew language, used as a prefix to nouns, and designates all these and many more prepositions. And that was the first "E L-Th," (pronounced Oulous,) burnt oflTerings for the Lord. (The oflfering that Cain brought was a "Minchoh," a present.) And that was undoubtedly the best and most proper time to build the altar, or foundation, and offer "oulous," which means ascending. Man's mind ascended to his God. The "Th" or the "Soph" ni Hebrew designates the plural. At that time, after the flood, when the whole community, — who knew nothing of the real Proprietor, and whom the man Noah could not convince that there was any other proprietor than the chief agent, the sun, — were all dismissed from the service and removed from the place of business in question, and only Noah and his sons were left, that must have been the time, for there certainly cannot even be imagined a better time, to build an altar, the emblem of a foundation, for the future em- ployees in the business on earth, from whence their spirits, thoughts, and the feelings of their hearts shall "go up;" for which two words there is no other word in the Hebrew language than the word "Ouloh," which is feminine, be- cause these nouns, spirit, thought, and feelings of the heart are classified or expressed in that gender. The phrase "smelled a sweet savor," in the English version of the Bible, is translated from the Hebrew words <'Rai-ch" — "Nch-ch," pronounced "Raiach," smell, and "Nee- chow -ach," savory. The first, Raiach, is derived from the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 303 word "Ruch," wind, spirit, soul, breath, disposition and air; and inasmuch as the feehng or the sensitiveness which man receives through the power of smelhng comes to him through the air-drafts of the nose, consequently the same word that designates air was brought into use to designate smell also; and that same word is used in phrases where to substitute or translate it into the word smell would de- stroy the sense of the whole sentence. Would it be proper or sensible to say: He tore the ropes as easy as the smell of fire would burn a string? A string cannot smell; and fire can be smelled at a distance; but fire cannot burn a string from the distance at which it can be smelled. " And he brake the withes as a thread of tow is « broken when it TOUCHETH the fire." Judges, chap. 16, verse 9. The word "toucheth" is there translated from the same word that the word smell is translated from. " And shall make him of QUICK UNDERSTAND- *' ING in the fear of the Lord." Isaiah, 11:3. The words "quick understanding" are there also trans- lated from the same Hebrew word that the word smell is translated from. And the word savory is translated from the same word that the name of Noah is derived from, "N-ch," pronouncd *'Nach," rest, or comfort, or contentedness. The Hebrew Lexicon called "Outzar Hashroshim" (treasure of roots) says that the two words "Raiach Neechouach," from which the words "sweet savory smell" that are found in the Eng- lish Bible are translated, are expressions of love, hatred, iicceptance, will, and the like. 304 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, We believe that we have shown enough to convince the reader that the words "sweet savor, sweet smell, or savory smell," as used in connection with the sacrifices are mistranslated in part, and wholly misunderstood and mis- applied. It ought to be understood "a contentedness of the spirit" of him who sacrificed for or unto the Lord; and it ought to have been translated to convey that idea. And the only reason why it was not so translated was because they for whom the Bible was translated knew nothing about a spiritual God; they knew of and believed in per- sonal deities. Hence it was translated to correspond with their ideas that God smells and that He is pleased with sacrifices and the like of it. And that idea has been forced upon the world by the fathers of the church until lately! It might be proper and desirable to explain the altar, why it was to be made of earth or rough stones, and why it was forbidden to go "up on steps upon the altar." But to explain all these, and everything that is said in the Bible about sacrifices, that alone would make a volume as bigf as the "Collection of Thoughts;" and as we are only to make a key-hole into these things, and the space and time that we have allowed for this purpose are already more than occupied, we are therefore necessitated to speak of the subject in general terms, and not direct our inquiries into every special part thereof. Abraham, who lived together with Noah, in the same community, and became the successor to Noah's belief and knowledge of the "original proprietor of the business," the true and only God, he, Abraham, brought no sacrifice to nor "for the Lord," except the ram which he sacrificed as a substitute for his son Isaac. And how and why the Lord (or the Alohim, Heb.) told him to sacrifice his son is a subject which we cannot leave uncovered. on KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 305 Abraham was childless until he was about one hundred years old, and was, as it is natural to be, and as the Bible tells us he was, very desirous to have a child; conse- quently he must have had an indescrible feeling when he saw children being sacrificed to the deities which he ab- horred, or tortured in fire to please the objects of his detestation. It necessarily and naturally must have been a subject that seldom or never left the feelings of his heart and the thoughts of his mind! And he must have debated that subject with his opponents as often as he debated with them about the question of the true God and as the subject of sacrificing children is capable of being successfully debated. He had loved God with his whole heart and served Him his lifetime. He would have sacrificed all he had to serve God with. Next to God, he loved his son, that he begot when he was a hundred years old, and called him Isaac, because every one wondered that the BARREN Sarah begat a child after she became ninety years of age. What must have been the feelings of Abraham when he saw a child sacrificed after he became the happy ana loving father of Isanc? Reader! It is easier for you to imagine the answer to this question than it is for us or for any one to state or express it! Is it not reasonable to suppose — nay, is it not natural, and is it not practical that what we see and what our hearts feel to awake the thoughts of our minds with greater rapidity than electricity? And do we not have visions in the night about the objects for which our hearts feel and our minds think, when something that we abhor and which is horrible is connected with it? Can any one find reason to substantiate what he says if he will say it is mere fancy, or speculation, or supposi- 21 306 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, tlon, that when Abraham saw a child sacrificed to the deities which he abhorred, his loving heart expanded itself, AND HIS MIND QUESTIONED HIM: <'ABRA- " HAM, WHAT WOULDST THOU DO IF THE " GOD WHOM THOU LOVEST AND SERVEST " WOULD TELL THEE TO SACRIFICE THY " SON ISAAC TO HIM, as this child is sacrificed?" Is it not natural and practical for the mind to ask such a question under such circumstances? And it makes no difference what the fatherly feelings of Abraham would or could have been, as a true servant and lover of God he would and did say to himself: If my God would tell me to do it, I would do it willingly. Such feelings, questions and answers are not readily obliterated from the mind, nor are they easily and quickl} removed from the heart. They were in Abraham's heart and in his mind; they went with him to sleep at night; and the " Ho-alohin# told him in a vision during the night: « TAKE THY SON, THINE ONLY SON "ISAAC, WHOM THOU LOVEST." We say it was in the night, because the next verse says : "And Abraham " rose up early in the morning." And to what place was Abraham told to take his son? Why, to the land of " MORIAH!,' But where is that land of " Moriah?" We don't find anything about such a land in history, nor in geography! We read of a moun- tani by that name, but we nowhere find anything that indicates a land by that name. We have already seen that biblical nouns have an instrinsic meaning; and the words are only used as nouns to help build up the outward part of the sentence, or the allegorical part of the narrative. We will therefore analyze the w^ord in question. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 307 In the Hebrew language the word in question is pronounced "Mouree ioh;" and with the letter H, which indicates the definite article (the) prefixed to it, is pro- nounced "HA MOU REE IOH." The word *'MOURO" in the Hebrew language designates Fear; "MOUREH," a Teacher; "MOURONU," Our Teacher; and the "IOH" is a name of the Deity, as AUeluioh.* To translate the word "Moriah," in the phrase in question, it would read "Teacher God." In the Hebrew text of the Bible the noun land in the phrase we are considering is indefinite. The article "the" or the H is prefixed to the word "Moriah," and it is pronounced "Hamourioh." And to translate the whole phrase from the Hebrew into the English language, so as to bring out its intrinsic meaning, would be thus: " AND BRING HIM UP" ("Ouloh," bring up) " THERE, THE TEACHER OF GOD." And the words '*GET THEE into the land," is not a usual expression. If it simply meant to go to a certain place, the usual and proper word "Go" would have been used, instead of "GET THEE," which are translated from the Hebrew words "Lech," go, "Lccho," to thee, or for thee, and which the ancient commentators have explained to mean " Go for thy sake." And it may be proper to ask, why did not God describe or tell the name of the mountain, as well as of the land, that is, if the word "Moriah" is the predicate of "the lai.d?" *We use the letter O instead of A, because it is pronounced Q, nof AI. 308 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, This question will solve itself when we direct our inquiries about the mountain "Moriah," of which we read in history, and which is the same that the Temple stood upon. Hence it was in the land that Abraham lived in, and only three days journey on foot from the mountain. He lived at that time and for a long time thereafter at Beer-Sheba. And the reason why the name of the mountain was not then told to Abraham was because the teachings of God by the seed of Abraham did not come out from the top of that mountain until a long time after that. " For out of Zion shall come out the law, and the words of God from Jerusalem." Hence Abraham only saw the place from a distance (of time). We shall have to resume this part of our present sub- ject, when we shall come to speak of the time that the offering of sacrifices ceased, which will be the last Chapter of " Collection of Thoughts." We will therefore direct our attention to the outside part of our subject and see if it has any coincidence with its inward appearance as shown through the "key hole" which we have made therein, and into which we do not feel fully authorized to penetrate further at the present time, nor for the present purpose. Abraham rose up early in the morning and took his son laaac and his two servants with him. Hebrew ver- sion. English: " Two of his young men with him."* *The difference in the meaning between the two ver- sions is this: He took " his two servants" implies a spe- cialty, or thing which was usually known, or that gencr- nly went with him. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 3O9 And the phrase, two of his young men, is not defi- nite, and is unusual. But if he had two actual servants, or two young men, with him, why' did he himself saddle the ass and clove or split the wood? And why did he leave the two servants at the plc|::e from whence he perceived the locality which God said He would show unto him? If we should be told that he did not wish they should be present or know^ anytning about it, why and for what purpose did he take them at all? And if he had an ass with him, why did he not take the ass along and make him carry " the wood for the burnt offering," instead of making poor Isaac carry it, who must have been very young at the time? And to keep up a fire long enough to consume the body of a man to ashes, would take more wood than a youth could carry. Reader, there is a very good answer to these ques- tions, and it is this: The two servants were of the same class that rode with Balaam when he went to the king of Moab for the purpose of cursing the Israelites, or the sons of Abraham. The will, and the mind, and the ass that Abraham had with him, was also of the same kind. We have as much reason to believe, from all the Bible tells us, that Abra- ham did actually go and build an altar; tied Isaac; placed him upon the wood on the top of the altar; and took his knife and was ready to kill him, and would have killed him, if the angel had not called to him. But the Lord, when He spoke to him in the vision during the night, did not sa}^ to him that he should kill his son. The Bible says: The Lord told him to " offer him there for a burnt offering," not kill him and burn him for a burnt offering. 310 A COLLECTION OF- THOUGHTS, We have as much reason to believe that Abraham act- ually did it as we have to believe that Hosea did go and take a wife of whoredora, and had children of whoredom, and that ^* he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim," and then told his children, "Plead with your mother; plead, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; let her put away her whoredom, * * * lest I strip her naked, * * * ^j^^^ make her as a wilderness * * * ^^^^ ^\^y [j^^j- -^yith thirst." And all these were done and were to be done, because ''she had committed whoredom." Or, as we have to believe that Ezekiel lay three hundred and nine- ty days on one side and three hundred and ninety days on the other side; or that he ate three hundred and ninety days long the bread that the parable says was made from all sorts of grain that we know of and some that we do n't know of, and was mixed with cow dung; or, as we have to believe, that he ate the roll: ''son of man * * eat that thou findest; eat this roll * * * then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweet- ness." But to believe all these, we would have to believe that he ate the whole of it while he was in the state of dreaming or having a vision. And what would we do then with what the prophet himself tells us, that they all are only comparisons or emblematic of something else, and that was the case with the sacrificing of Isaac. We are aware and expect that some men who are even religious and honest in their religious doings but have no other knowledge of the Bible than what they were told or taught by others of the Bible, will probably spurn our explanations. But that can not, does not, and ought not to blockade our path to truth, neither can this OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 31I cover up the facts upon which we build our conclusions. The word altar is translated from the Hebrew word *'m,z,b,h," and is pronounced mizbayach. The purpose of an altar was to sacrifice upon, but if that was the purpose, then it ought, and we say it would have been, called in the Hebrew language l,z,b,h,. The letter'* 1" designates the preposition to, while the letter ''m," designates the preposition "from," which is just the re- verse from ''to," and the same word " m,z,b,h ," is used all through the Bible to express the words of or from the sacrifice, as in the third verse of the third chapter of Leviticus, and all through the Bible where the words "of" or "from" the sacrifice is used. The name of the altar shows enough of itself, that it was only ordained for the purpose of weaning them ofif from sacrificing instead of habituating them to it, as the present generation does and the ignorant of the past generations have believed. We think it is here proper to remark, before we drop that subject about the chance that Abraham had to dispute with heathen and convince them of their folly for sacrificing human beings, if he had led and was ready to sacrifice his only son, they would have said to him, "why your God hath told you to sacrifice your son to Him, and you was ready to kill, and wouldst have done so, had He not known that you love him, and that you don't sacrifice with the whole will of thy heart; hence he don't want to accept him-, and therefore gave you a ram which you have offered to Him with the joy- fulness of thy heart." Yes, reader, Abraham's vision to sacrifice his son, of whom the seed of Abraham was to come out, was the 312 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, emblem of what the seed of Abraham are, and what they have been since they came into the world. He was to offer them willingly, (as the sacrifice of a burnt offering had to be offered willingly and without cause,) to be in the land **Moriah," the teachers of the ways of God, and that land embraces the whole habitable earth. The ''ass and the two servants " which he took with him, but left them when he saw ''the place from a distance;" the former is his own body, which, when he was in his vision, was inactive; and the latter, the two servants, were no other than the will of his heart and the thoughts of his mind which were also inactive when their owner, Abra- ham, was in his visionary state or condition; the same as we all are when we are dreaming. ''The fire" that "Abraham took in his hand," is the fire and zeal which he, Abraham, has lighted in the hearts of his posterity wherewith they shall enlighten the hearts of the humSn race in the knowledge of the God of Abraham! "And the wood," which "he placed upon Isaac," is the fuel that kept up that fire from that time up to the present day' the three days are the three captivities, Egypt, Babylon and the present one to which the Romans brought them and from whence the end, or "the place," which was not designated in the vision, can be, and is now plainly seen. The sacrifices were for the same purposes that the pictures are in our children's primers. The prophets were the teachers and when they have s-&en that their pupils appropriate their time, and mind, and pay their admira- tion and worship to the pictures, the (sacrifices,) instead of studying the object for which they, the pictures, were placed in the book, then the teachers have rebuked them OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 313 for it, as we find nearly every prophet has rebuked them for believing that God delights in or desires sacrifices. These prophets have existed and taught until the resting place of Abraham's second days "journey." When they came from Babylon the prophetical teaching ceased, the pupils have learned enough to know not to sacrifice to other deities which did not exist during the time of the second temple; and during that rest they were taught to prepare themselves for the total abandonment of the sacrifices; therefore, the fire had not come down to con- sume the sacrifices. The *'Urim and Thummin did not work; everything was left to the Sanederim or synod, a body of seventy men of the most studious and philosophi- cal minds, so that man may learn to depend upon his own mind and reason, the capital which our heavenly Fath- er gave to all of us when He sent us out into the world the same as our earthly parents do to us before they send us out into the world and make us depend upon our own resources. And at the end of that rest He, God, started them upon their third day's journey, which is not yet ended, but have reached a place from which they and the world with them can perceive the place of their destination. We» will here drop that subject, to be resumed and continued when the Biblical history will .bring us to the time that the journey of the third day begun. But before we leave this subject we must tell the reader who may think that he has cause and authority to dispute our conclusions about the several subjects which constitute the subjects of this chapter; we must tell him that his grounds for disputing it, must be such that shall 314 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS cover the ground and authority of MaimonidCj and four renowned commentators upon his ** Moureh Nebuchim," including the immortal ** Isaac Abarbanel " and a fifth one *'The Ramban," who does not question the correctness of " Maimonide's" knowledge or authority and explana- tions; but questions why Noah brought sacrifices. He reasons that the sacrifices which Noah brought after he came out of the ark could not have been for the purpose of weaning men from sacrificing to their deities, because there were no other men on earth than Noah and his sons. *' Shem Tove ," one of the four commentators on the "Moureh Nebuchim," answers that question of the "Ramban." But, we have chosen to explain that ques- tion the way we did, for several reasons: First; the ground from whence he draws his answer is Talmudical, with which most of our readers are unacquainted. Sec- ond; because we are only opening up the Bible, not the Talmud; hence whatever we can explain of the Bible by the Bible itself, we must do; and then ask if our ex- planation agrees with what the Talmud says about it and use the Talmud for a support to the Bible, and the Bible the source. The Bible must and does explain itself, and if any of our readers who are '^Talmudists " should find themselves called to dispute our explana- tions, from the knowledge which they have of' the Tal- mud, we must tell them that they must measure their Talmudical knowledge with the six immortal sages, the four commentators, the " Ramban " and the author of the "Moureh Nebuchim;" Maimonide himself ! whom,, all the rest call, the head of our teachers and father of all. If there is one whose Talmudical knov/ledge and philosophical mind equals any one of the six, is a thing which we have no reason to believe; and if there is one OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 315 that equals one of the six, we would be very happy to hear of him; and it would be an honor to us and a benefit to the world if he would dispute with us ; and yet we advise him to examine and understand the ^* Moureh Nebuchim," at least the second and third part of it, before he raises his voice to dispute. The old adage, that the " Mourch Nebuchim ," is a book, that is hard to, or no one can understand, has lost its patent right. The Bible and science reveal the meanings, expose the motives and spirit of its unequaled author. 3l6 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXVII. PROPHECY AND INSPIRATION. WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT THE WORLD, AFTER PROPHECY CEASED, WAS MADE TO BELIEVE IT WAS; OR, WHAT THE UNTAUGHT DID AND DO BELIEVE WAS. Mr. Paine labors very hard in his "Age of Reason," to show that prophecy, in the time of the prophets, was not beheved to be that which the world now believes it was. It is, and for a long time has been, believed by those who have not learned to know better, that a prophet was one to whom the spirit of God came unex- pected and undesired by him to whom it came, and that the spirit that came upon him, made him the prophet, speak and act without his consent to, and knowledge of what he, the prophet, did or said. That idea and belief created the unanswerable ques- tion of Jonahs running away from God. Scoffers scoff and laugh at the idea of a prophet running away from the presence of God, without fear of being answered by the teachers of religion or commentators of the Bible OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 317 who believe in and teach the present idea of and beliefL in prophecy and inspiration. That idea was good enough for the purpose for which it was adapted by those who spoke to and taught such, who knew no better, and whose minds could not understand better or the reality of it. Prophecy, mir- acle and mystery, were the only methods which could pacify the human race during its childhood and youth. And the parents or teachers of the Bible, who were but few in number, in comparison to the number of the pupils that they had, have thereby quited their pupils, and kept them within the purpose, the same as a mother tells her child, not to touch this or that; and gives certain reasons for it, which she knows full well is not so but says so for a certain purpose. But now when man's heart has conceived a will to know the truth, and man's reason has become strong enough to understand and ask how in- spiration came to the prophets without their solicitation and will, and had to speak without using their will and understanding when they spoke. If that is so, says reason, how could Moses refuse to go to Pharaoh; and told God to send somebody else? How could Jonah escape from God after he was told by the Lord to go to Nineveh? He must have exercised his own will to attempt to go to Tarsish instead of going to Nineveh. And reason refuses to submit, and she teaches the will of the heart, not to accept the senseless accusation against the just, righteous and merciful God, that He will tempt His children by sending to them false pro- phets; to tell and advise His children, to go and serve other Gods, so that He, God, may find out whether His 3l8 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, children are true to Him or not. And perform miracles as a sign of the truth of what the false prophet said, as we are told in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter thir- teen. It cannot reasonably be said that the false prophets were not inspired or had no visions at all. First; it tells of the signs that "would come" of which the false pro- phet spoke. If the false prophets were not inspired, then the signs which they gave would not come. And if that had been the case, Moses would simply have told the Israelites. *^ If a prophet tells them something, they shall ask him for a sign; if the sign shall come, he was a true prophet: if it will not come, then he was a false pro- phet." But such is not the case. Moses tells them, ^* And the sign or the wonder came to pass whereof he spoke unto thee. * * * Thou shalt not heark- en unto the words of the prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord thy God proveth you." Second; It can not be reasonably supposed that anyone would mind what the false prophets said, if nothing came to pass of what they said, and if they were not inspired, they could know of nothing that will come to pass. And it is certainly very unreasonable to suppose, and it is absurd to believe that two kings such as Ahab, king of Israel, and Jehosaphat, king of Judah, would have risked their armies to go to war against the king of Syria, on what the false prophets told them, even after prophet Micaiah, in whom the king of Judah seems to have had faith, told them not to go, for they will not succeed, if the false prophets in whom the king of Judah had no faith, had never foretold things that came to pass. And the only reason that the king of Israel gave for not de- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 319 pending upon prophet Micaiah was, ''I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." He did not say that he was no prophet, or he was a false prophet, but said he ^'prophesied evil against him." In the year 1774, when the question of American independence was debated in the American Congress, among other arguments used to discourage separation from England, the danger of having our towns battered down was strongly urged. The honorable Gadsden replied, ''Our seaport towns, Mr. President, are com- posed of brick and wood, if they are destroyed, we have clay and timber enough in the country to rebuild them; but if the liberties of our country are destroyed, where shall we find the materials to replace them?" We have, within the last twenty years, very frequent- ly asked both Christian and Jewish theologians why they don't do away with the prevailing idea and belief about prophecy and inspiration, which idea and belief are con- trary to the Biblical history of the subject in question, and contrary to the theology of the Jewish commentators of the Bible, that existed before Christianity came into existence; and that have existed since, and that ex- ists now. Except they who can form no opinion of their own, and don't know enough to understand what others have said, and still less explain now, in this time of free- dom of speech and thought, why they who wrote in ages of ignorance and darkness, and who could not, without endangering their lives, explain better than they did, but were compelled to write as they did. Why not ex- plain their hidden meanings now? The reply that we used to get to our queries was: "It will destroy the 320 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, present, erroneous and anti-Biblical, theology and faith;" and that was the cause why our reply to Paine's '*Age of Reason," was not published in 1863. But now, when some Christian and some reformed Jewish ministers are ready to give up the Bible, for the sake of saving their erroneous ideal, and when a bold assassin had nearly succeeded in legalizing murder by covering himself with the erroneous idea of inspiration, is time now, and proper to say to our friends of ideas and faith, in the words of the venerable Gadsden. "True religious ideas and faith, are formed of Biblical mater- ials. If We save the Bible, we will have materials enough to rebuild our ideas and faith. But, if the Bible is de- stroyed, where can we get materials and how can we re- place it? We, therefore, declare war against all anti-Biblical ideas and*faith. And in the words of the Honorable Hancock, who, when called upon to speak about the question of bombarding Boston, said: "It is true, sir, nearly all the property I Irave in the world is in houses and in other real estate, in the town of Boston; but if the expulsion of the British army from it, and the liberties of our country require their being burnt to ashes, issue the order for that purpose immediately." We believe that the American people, the descend- ants of the patriotic Gadsdens and Hancocks, will say, in answer to the questions of establishing Biblical truth, and the driving out of erroneous religious ideas and faith; the same as their glorious and honorable ances- tors have said, about establishing true freedom, and driving out the British army. ^^ Issue tJie order imme- diatelyV' OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 321 What is now called inspiration, was accomplished by training and practice; but, not every one who was train- ed became inspired whenever he wanted, and others could only become what is called inspired in the night. Among the many qualifications which the prophet had to have, and which Maimonide, names in his " Yad Hach- sokOj" chapter vii, part ** Yesouday Hatoureh,'* or Foundations of the Law, and in his " Moureh Nebuchim," part second, chapter xlii-xlvi; and he takes it from and explains the "Talmud," and supports what he says, by short quotations of and reference to the Bible. He says: " The prophetic spirit did not rest but on such as were great in wisdom; he had to be strong enough to subdue his nature appertaining to the body; and had to be a man of very extensive knowledge, so that when he went into the "paradise," or garden of Eden,* he shall have a proper knowledge to understand, and to reach its proper meaning or purpose; and had to separate himself from the generality of the people, who walked in the dark- ness of the times, and had to habituate himself to keep his mind and heart away from everything that was not in accordance with an inspired thought, or from any vain thought and its purpose. And after he had done all these, and a great deal more, which we do not think necessary for us to insert, he was turned into another man; he understood within his mind, that he is not what he was. All these, and the rest which he says fully coincide with what the Bible tells us of prophets. It tells of the children of the prophets, meaning students, the same as is *The Talmud, in speaking of the Rabbi Zaumo, says: *'he has not yet entered Paradise," meaning he has not yet the proper knowledge of the subject. 21 22 322 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, said the pupils or students of a college; it also tells us that they were walking in companies or classes in the fields, and played music. Music is a thing that easily concen- trates the mind and feelings upon the tune that is played; and very likely they played such tunes as were adapted for the purpose of uniting the heart and mind, and that was what they were training themselves for. They walked about in the fields in classes to keep away from everything that could or would attract their attention and keep them from the generality of people. Sam- uel was placed, when a babe, in the tabernacle under the care of Eli, the high priest, so that he shall not mingle with other children, his rriother has dedicated him unto the Lord, and having been trained to a prophetic degree from his childhood; and was probably also naturally possessed of the necessary qualifications of a prophet, he attained the position soon, and before he expected, his spirit, which is the electricity, began to work in him, and he thought he heard a voice. Here is a proof, which cannot be successfully dis- puted, that the spirit of the Lord did not come upon the prophet, without or against the will of the latter. Samuel laid down, and he heard, or thought he heard, a voice calling him; he thought Eli was calling him and he said " Here am I," and ran to Eli; the latter told him "I did not call thee; go and lie down again;" he thought again and again that he was called, and each time he ran to Eli. And not until Samuel said what Eli told him to say, when he came to him the third time, "Go lie down; and it shall be, if He call thee, that thou shalt say: OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 323 speak Lord, for thy servant heareth." When the voice calhed, or Samuel believed he was called the fourth time; when he said what Eli told him to say; " Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth;" the voice then spoke. Why did not that voice speak to him, what it wanted to say, or what it did say after the fourth calling; when it called to him the first, the second, or the third time? If the voice had, after it called Samuel, said to him what it wanted he, Samuel, would not have ran to Eli. The reason why it did not speak the first, second or third time, is very plain and obvious. So long as Sam- uel believed that it was Eli who was calling him, his will was to run and see what Eli wanted; and to obey what he, Eli, will say to him. Hence, Eli was the subject which occupied the mind and heart of Samuel, instant- aneously, each and every time that he heard his name called. Neither his will nor his mind were attractive, or inclined to the subject of prophecy. But as soon as he did lie down, and his mind did naturally begin to contem- plate about the voice that called him; and the desire of his will naturally must have been, each time after he re- turned from Eli and found ovUi that he did not call him, to find out who it was that was calling him; and that desire caused the call to be repeated; and during the first three times, as soon as the call was made, Eli be- came the subject of Samuel's mind, and the desire of his heart; hence it said nothing more. But after Eli told him, in case he should be called again, not to run to him, but should say: " speak Lord, thy servant heareth;" his, Samuels, mind, when he laid down, contemplated upon and anticipated the subject of prophecy, and his heart produced a powerful will to 324 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, find out what it will say, and it did speak; and that wac the case with all the prophets. Moses, the father of all the prophets, was no exception. It says, "and the an- gel of the Lord appeared unto him, in a flame of fire^ out of the midst of a bush. " But does the narrative ia question say, that Moses saw an angel, or that he sup- posed it was an angel ? No, it only says, he saw a flame of fire in the bush, and his mind was wonderingly con- templating what the cause was why "the bush was not consumed" by the fire which he saw; and his heart was equally as desirous to find out the same cause; hence, Moses said, " I will turn aside (meaning turn his mind and will from all other subjects,) and see this great sight, why this bush is not burnt. " It follows, "And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called out, Moses, Moses! Moses answered, here am I;" and the subject of the conversation was entered upon. If Moses had thought as Samuel did, that some per- son that was with or about him, was calling him, and turned his mind and will to the person, that he thought was calling him, the propheting conversation would not have been entered upon, the same as it was with Samuel. Man is a perfect telegraph; his mind i's the electrici- ty; his will is the machine that draws the electricity upoa the subject, and is also, the operator of the telegraph; and the subject upon which the mind contemplates, is the poles and wires of the telegraph. The mind cannot contemplate anything which the will does not desire to accomplish. Children with the strongest of minds and most powerful thoughts, cannot learn without they have OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 325 a will to learn. If we could know how to bring up oui^ children, so that their -will shall be trained to work in unity with their minds, there would not be a child that could not be whatever it, or its parents desire it should be. Hence, necessity is the best and most successful teacher; because necessity has the power to bring the mind and will in unity of action. The prophets were trained to bring their desires and minds in unity; and the prophet not only had to unite his will and mind, to obtain in him the prophetic spirit, but he also had to divest himself of all selfishness and bodily objects, so that he shall not make use of his pro- phetic power for anything else than for the purpose for which it was given him. The false prophets have made use of their power to gratify their will; and as soon as he had done so, his mind stopped working, (as it was with Balaam,) they saw visions, but their minds refused, or became disa- bled, to give the proper explanations of what the mean- ing of the vison was. They saw dreams, but could not tell the interpretations thereof, the same as any man who dreams, but does not know what it means. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel became divided. Jeroboam, the king of the ten tribes, was afraid, if he will allow his people to go to worship in Jerusalem, the place that God hath chosen for His wor- ship, that his people will turn back to the son of Solo- mon, king of Judah. To avoid this, he put up two golden calves, and taught the people to worship these calves, and told them; " Behold thy Gods, O Israel, 326 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." (First Kings, chapter xii.) He certainly could not successfully have accomplish- ed this, as he did without the aid of priests and prophets, he bribed or purchased the priests and prophets to help him, they were the teachers of the people. The prophets of Israel, or the most of them, became false; they saw visions, but they have explained them in accordance with the desire of Jeroboam, the king, consequently their minds became disabled to give the proper explan- ations of what they saw. The " about four thousand prophets," which Ahab, king of Israel, in the presence of Jehosaphat, king of Judah, has consulted whether the two kings should go to war with the king of Syria, and who have advised them to go, were as willing to give them a true and proper advise, as Balaam was willing to curse the Israelites, and accomplish the object for which the king of Moab had sent for him. But the minds of the prophets in question, like the mind of Balaam, stood with their swords (the power to destroy the will) in their hands, and their wills (the Balaam's ass) could not be accomplished. But the king of Judah, Jehosaphat, had no confi- dence, it seems, in the prophets, and he asked "if there is not a prophet of the Lord besides," the four hundred prophets. Prophet Micaiah was brought; the messenger that went for him told him, that all the other prophets declare good unto the kings with one mouth, let thy words be, I pray thee, like the words of one of them, and speak that which is good. He did not ask the pro- phet to tell the truth, but asked him to tell the same as the other prophets did; (this shows that the pro- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 32/ phet could tell what he wanted and not what the spirit made him say.) But, Micaiah did not promise him that he would do what he was asked to do, he said; "As the Lord liveth, what the Lord will say unto me, that will I speak,'* meaning, he will not tell the meaning of what the Lord will say to him, he will only speak the same- thing over that will be said to him. It follows, that when the king asked " Shall we go to battle or forbear?" the prophet said, go and prosper, with which the king it seems was not satisfied, for he said to him, " How many times shall I adjure thee, that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?" and in answer to that he said: " I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have no shepherd; and the Lord said, these have no master; let them return every man to his house in peace. " And the king of Israel said unto Jehosaphat, " Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?" and he said; hear thou, therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by him, on the right hand and his left, and the Lord said; who may go and persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead * * and the spirit said: "I will persuade him. "I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord told him, go forth and do so." * * "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all your prophets." (First Kings, chapter xxii.) The result was Ahab was killed, and Israel was left without a master, as prophet Micaiah had foretold. Hence we have no reason to believe that he, Micaiah fair 17 BR SI TYj 328 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, was a false prophet, and consequently must have been inspired; nevertheless it plainly shows that he acted as he desired, or the same as any man who knows or saw something which others have not, he, the one that has the information can state or explain what he knows in any manner that he desires. ♦■ The officer that was sent for the prophet, asked the latter to tell the king the same that all the other pro- phets had said; the prophet swore that he woud tell what the Lord said; that he did "go and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king." He the, prophet, did not say what the Lord will deliver, he only said "it," neither did he say in which king's hand the Lord would deliver. And according to the whole narrative, the Lord actually did want that Ahab should go. It was plainly understood by Ahab and Jehosa- phat, that the prophet was telling them in a jesting manner; hence, Ahab asked him; "how many times shall I adjure thee to tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord." The prophet then told him. " I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd," for which the king accused him of telling him nothing but evil. The prophet then told him of the false spirit in the mouths of all the pro- phets. We thus plainly see that the prophet while pro- phecying, could exercise his will and be governed to speak according to surrounding circumstances. And that was the case with every prophet. And that was the case with Jonah; he did not want to prophecy because he desired that Nineveh shall be destroyed. He saw what Nineveh, or its king would do to Israel, hence, he wanted that Nineveh should be de- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 329 stroyed. His running away from the Lord, means he ran from the place that the prophecy did or could come on him. We can find no instance, when a prophet prophecied about any other nation than the Israelites, that the pro- phet was out of the land of Israel, or, in other words, if the subject of the prophecy was about a nation, out of the land of Israel, and the Israelites were not inter- ested in the subject of the prophecy, the prophetic spirit did not work upon the prophet, unless he, the prophet, was in the land of Israel, but if the subject of the prophecy was about Israel, or about the land of Israel, though other nations or people were included in the prophecy, then the spirit did operate upon the pro- phet though he was not in the land of Israel. These are well established and long known undisputed facts, among Jewish Biblical commentators. Jonah was in the land of Israel; there came upon him the prophetic spirit; told him to go to Ninevah and there prophecy their destruction unless they repent. Why he did not want to go has already been said, but, to get rid of the prophetic spirit, he could not, without going out of the land of Israel, the only place where that spirit could act upon him, hence he started to the place that he did, which was not running away from God, but from the place where the prophetic spirit could act upon him, this is the outside idea of Jonahs run- ning away. We will now investigate where Jonah ran to, and what happened to him, for which purpose we will examine the first chapter of the book of Jonah, as given 330 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, in the Hebrew text, of which we will make a verbatim translation. Chapter i: iii, "And Jonah arose to run away (Tarshish, pronounced Tarshishoh) from before the Lord; and he went down Yoffaw, (English version Joppa,) and he found a ship come Tarshish, (English, going to Tar- sish,) and he gave her reward "Schoroh," (English, so he paid the fare thereof,) and he went in her to come with them Tarshish from before the Lord. " The Hebrew text says the ship "came Tarshish;" it is true that that makes no sensible expression; there must be a preposition between the verb "came" and the noun " Tarshish;" but if the preposition "to," which is in the version, be placed after the verb "came," it will read " He, Jonah, found a ship came to Tarsish. " The ques- tion is then; the text says that Jonah went down to Joppa and there found a ship, "came to Tarshish. " How could he go from Joppa to Tarshish on a ship that "came to Tarshish," while he was at Joppa? The absurd idea that prophet Jonah got into a ship at Joppa to run away to Tarshish, from before the Lord, was created by mistranslating the Hebrew verb "boh," came, the letter "h," at the end of the word designates the feminine gen- der, which, in the Hebrew language, an active verb must agree with the nominative case, in gender as well as in number and in person. That erroneous and absurd idea, we say, was created by inserting into the English version of the Bible, the words, "going to" in place of "came" as it is in the Hebrew text. The word Tarshish, is made use of three times in the third verse or the first chapter of the book in question, or in the verse in question, the first and last have an OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 331 "h" at the end of the word. If the word, Tarshlsh, is a noun, then the ''h" may be said, designates or stands for the preposition, to, but in the phrase, "he found a ship going to Tarshish," here the additional, h, is omitted. And then it says: "And he went down in her, to go with them, Tarshishoh from before the Lord;" the ques- tion is, with whom? Suppose one would say, "I went on a steamer to go with them to Europe," would cer- tainly be considered that the one who said so did not know how to express himself better, and whether it is proper to say that the one who wrote the book in ques- tion knew not how to express himself better than he did, will be time enough to say so when it will appear that the subject in question means the name of a place, as the word steamer means a vessel, in the sentence quoted for the purpose of illustration, which can never appear, for it is not so. The next thing is; where is Joppa? If a vessei came to Joppa, which the text does not say it did, Joppa must have been a seaport or situated somewhere near the sea, and the only place that we find in the Bible by that name, that was in the land of Israel, and that is spelled in the Hebrew text the same as it is in the book of Jonah, is "yfw," which, however, in the English ver- sion, is translated into the word Japho, (see Joshua xix: xlvi,) and that same word is in the book of Jonah translated Joppa. If a man would say, that he came down to Jerusalem, which is an inland city, miles away from the sea coast, and while he was there, a vessel came ox\ to New York, and he got on to that vessel and went with them to the latter place, the man who would have said so, would certainly be considered as a buffoon, 332 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, or a fit inmate for an insane asylum, and he that would try to find some sense in it and insist that the man at Jerusalem got on to the vessel that came to New York, while the former was at Jerusalem, would be considered a fit cell mate of the one that said so. And that is the case or condition in which they, who believe that Jonah, while he was in Joppa, which was an inland place far away from the sea coast, got on to a vessel that landed at Tarshish, while he was at the former place, which was a distance that took longer to reach than it does from Jerusalem to New York; it took three years, the ships of Solomon, to go and come back from Tarshish. (See First Kings, chapter x: xxii.) Another very unreasonable, unusual and unnatural thing, which is connected with the absurd idea of Jonahs running away to Tarshish, or to any other place from before the Lord is this: in verse fifth it says: "Every man (of the mariners) cried unto his god," this plainly tells that every man cried to his own god. The w^ord god, is here translated from the Hebrew word "alohove," the word Lord, in the whole chapter is trans- lated from the word Jehovah of whom the mariners knew nothing until Jonah told them; the question is, how much respect or fear could the mariners have had of the God, of whom Jonah told them, and of whom they knew nothing before he told them. That he runs away from the God that hath created the heaven and the earth, nevertheless, he who told them of that great God, told them that he was running away from that God into Tarshish; How much respect would any of us pay to a God of whom we never have heard, and how much respect would anyone of us pay to a man, who in the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 333 midst of the Atlantic ocean in the midst of a storm and impending shipwreck, would tell us that it was his God, from whom he was running away to Europe, brought that impending shipwreck upon us? Would it be likely to lead us away from the Gods, in whom we were taught and brought up to believe, and be, in the moment of danger, converted into the belief and service of a God, that has no dominion or power in Europe or in Tarshish, when the man who told us of that God was running away from his God? Yet, it says that these who were on board the boat with Jonah, feared and prayed, and sacrificed a sacrifice unto the Lord that Jonah told them of. If they have prayed and sacrificed unto the Lord that Jonah told them of, before the storm stopped, then they had no evidence to believe what Jonah told them, and if it should be supposed that they had prayed and sacrificed after the storm stopped, then they had noth- ing to fear and pray for. It is just as absurd to say or believe that Jonah ran away from before the Lord into Tarshish, or into any other place, as it would be to say and believe that pro- phet Hosea "took unto him a wife of whoredom and begat children," and all that is there said about it, or that Ezekiel ate the bread that was mixed with dung; or that the seven poor and lean cows had ate up the seven fat ones which Pharaoh saw in his dream. The word Tarshish is, m the Hebrew language, used to designate certain angels. *'Tarshishim yaggidu tifif- artow," which means, angels tell his beauty. 334 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS The word "Joppa," the supposed place in the absurd idea, that Jonah found there a ship to go into Tarshish, is translated from the Hebrew word "yfw," pronounced yoffaw, which means his beauty. The word ship is translated from the same word that designates lamentation. Jonah saw that Nineveh or the people of Nineveh, will destroy his nation, the ten tribes of Israel. He refused to go into Nineveh and announce her doom, for he knew her people would repent. What Jonah desired to do was to save Israel, either by getting the latter to repent or by allowing, their predes- tined destructor Nineveh, to be destroyed. The word fish, in the English version of the Bible, is translated from the Hebrew word "dag;" the word fish, is mentioned four times in the second chapter of the book in question. In the first verse of the second chapter in the Hebrew Bible, or in the last verse of the first chapter of the English Bible, the word fish, is mentioned twice, and is translated from the word "dag," and in telling that God spake to the fish to vomit out Jonah, the word fish is also translated from the word "dag," which has not the letter that designates gender. But in telling that Jonah prayed unto the Lord, out of the belly of the fish; there, the word fish, is translated from the word "dagh," the letter "h" at the end of the word designates the feminine gender, and the same word, with the "h" at the end is used in the Hebrew language to express "care," anxiety and uneasiness of mind. "Maimonide," in his "Moureh Nebuchim," chapter xxxii: part ii, in speaking of the ass that spoke to Balaam, and of the fish that swallowed Jonah, says: OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 335 but simpletons believe these things to have been a real- ity, and in chapter xlii, same part, in speaking of the same subject, says: all of that which it says about Balaam's ass and the like of it, is no reality, but the prophets saw it in their prophetic dreams or visions; and four commentators coincide with him in what he said about the subject in question. The mind of Jonah was uneasy, he was anxious and solicitous for his people, he saw that they, or their pre- destined destroyer, Nineveh, would before long be thrown in the destructive ocean of trouble. His natural desire, or the desire of his heart was that Nineveh should go down first, which he thought would, at least for a time, delay the catastrophe of his people; hence he refused to go to Nineveh and do there what God told him to do, which made him disobedient, that brought "down" ("yfw,") his beauty. And he found (onioh) cause to la- ment; ("onioh,") a ship came "Tarshish," (an angel,) a meditative thought to decide between his love for his people, and his duty, fear and love for his God; with "them," that is,^Hvith these feelings and contending elements he had to go, they were the waves and the storm that brought the ship at the point of becoming wrecked in the stormy ocean of his mind. At last a she fish "dagh," careworness, swallowed him; he was unable to decide what to do; he began to pray, and was in that condition three days and three nights. He at last resolved to go where and do what God told him; and it grieved him to death, when he saw that the people of Nineveh had repented, for he saw that the utter distructor of his people was saved and that the utter destruction of Israel was sure. 336 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXVIII. MIRACLES AND MYSTERIES. The contents of Paine's "Age of Reason," consists of three, what he, the author, called grammatical ques- tions; one, contained in the 36th chapter of Genesis, about the kings of Edom and Israel, which we have already disposed of, as well as his idea that the creation, and not the Bible, is the word of God. ♦ And his second grammatical question is; why Moses did not write, God said to me, instead "God said to Moses," as we find he did write in the Bible. This is a question that is not wortlPwhile to appro- priate much thought, or give much space in the "Col- lection of Thoughts," for it. The world knows now, that it is a foolish question, but we will consider it for all that it is worth, when we shall have come to consider the third question, which is, how came Moses to say of himself, that he was the meekest of all men, which is said in the 12th chapter of Numbers. And there are two or three, which Mr. Paine calls, unhistorical questions, to which we will give due con- sideration when we shall reach them; the rest of the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 33/ "Age of Reason," is filled with questions about and arguments against prophecy, miracles and mystery. We have in the preceeding chapter, we believe, fully explained what prophecy was, and if the faith of the Bible, or man's belief in the Bible, would now depend upon prophecy we would explain that subject more fully; but the faith that man now has, or ought to have in the Bible, does not rest upon what the prophet said, nor, on how the prophet came to know what he said, as has been demonstrated in a former chapter. The faith that man now has in the Bible rests upon what the Bible itself reveals to man; hence we said no more about prophecy. We know from where the word miracle came, or from what Hebrew word it was translated; and we also know the idea that the word miracle conveys to man at the present time; but we are compelled to admit that we don't know why mystery is charged to the Bible. The Bible is the same to-day that it was seven hundred years ago, but man's mind and understanding is not the same as it was seven or more hundred years ago; and why the human mind retains the same idea of the word miracle, that it was of necessity conveyed to it seven or eight hundred years ago, is indeed a mystery to us. The word miracle, as we understand it, and as de- fined by Webster, conveys the idea of something done, not in accordance with, or contray to the known "laws of nature;" and if that is so, then all the scientific dis- —22 338 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, coveries of the present time are miracles, not inventions nor discoveries; for every discovery is contray to the laws of nature, as was ''/^;/fully and properly, the habitation of God, and the idea of God's dwelling in a house. 400 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the reader fully comprehends that the subject is inexpressive, we will, therefore, see and question how, Mr. Smith, the Professor, the Master of Arts, the fault- finder and the rectifier; translates the original twelve Hebrew words. Mr. Smith translates the Hebrew word "Omar" into the English words, "had determined." That is Scotch, or Greek Hebrew. The word "Omar," as it is pro- nounced, or "Amr" as it is in Hebrew, simply means "said," and not "had determined," as Mr. Smith's pur- pose made him render that word. The "M. A." Smith, had rendered it so, that it may correspond with his Greek. The words "in darkness," he translates from the Hebrew word "Bo-aro-fel," as that word is pronounced in the Hebrew language, or from the word "B,er,fl" as it is in Hebrew. We herein ask Mr. Smith and all like him, to show us a place in the Bible, where the word does mean, or can reasonably be constructed to mean darkness. We say that the word means separation, and not darkness. God, whenever He is spoken of, is rep- resented as a light, and a place that is filled with light cannot be dark. We say that the Hebrew word that the "M. A." renders darkness, means separation. (Deu- teronomy, chapter XXI, verse iv.) "Shall strike off the heifer's neck." (Same chapter, verse vi.) "Shall wash their hands over the valley where the heifer was beheaded." And Exodus, chapter XIII; xiii. "Then thou shalt break his neck.'^ The words ''strike oK'" OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 4OI "beheaded" and "break his neck," are all translated from the same word that the word "darkness" is translated in the English version of the Bible; for which transla- tion we have heretofore shown a justifiable cause, and Mr. Smith, the "M. A.," who claims to be master of the Hebrew language, Master of Arts and per excel- lency, the adjuster of Biblical errors, and the one that accuses the Jews of having made additions to their Hebrew Bible, since it was translated into the Greek language. He, who seems to believe that he is the Webster of the Hebrew language, he ought to know that "Erfl," or "Arofel, as is pronounced, does not and cannot mean darkness. If Mr. Smith knows anything at all of the Hebrew language, he ought to know, and we believe that he does know, that the word "Hsh," (pronounced Chous- hech,) means darkness; hence we believe and say what we believe, that the purpose which made Mr. Smith use Hebrew among his Scotch audience, is the cause that made him render the Hebrew word "Erfl" into the English word "darkness." The words "I have built," are translated from the Hebrew word "Bonicy," which may be said is a proper translation; but Mr. Smith skipped the word "Bonou," which means building. He probably skipped that word because it did not agree with his Greek And the word "place" is rendered by Mr. Smith from the Hebrew word "Mochoun, which means "pre- pared" and not place; "Mokoum," means a place and not "Mochoun." And the rendition of the word "eter- 402 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, nity," from the Hebrew word "Oulomim," as Mr. Smith did render it, is very far from showing a mastership of the Hebrew language. "Oulomim" is as positively plural as eternity is singular. We believe that we have shown more than enough for the purpose of enabling the reader to form an opinion of Mr. Smith's honest intention, or the knowl- edge that he has of the Hebrew language. We will, therefore, now give our explanation of and translate the twelve Hebrew words of the subject in question, and let the reader decide which translation, Mr. Smith's, or ours, is more in accordance with reason and the knowledge that man has of or about God and His habitation. ''''BonoUy** building, '' Bonicy,'' I have built, '' Baithy" "Zevool^ Lochy* an habitable house to thcG, "Moc/ioun Les/iivtfc/io j'' prepa-red are for thy seat, ^^ Oulomim," universes; or to separate the English from the Hebrew, the former reads thus: Building I have built an habitable house for thee, (meaning to thy name) prepared are for thy seat universes (but) the Lord said to dwell in separation, (Hebrew,) '' Lishcoun Boar of el'' God doth not dwell in darkness any more than he does in a house. Universes are his seat: hence, Solomon said: "The Lord said to dwell in separation that is, His habitation is separated from the compre- hension and perception of man. Building; I have built an habitable house to thee, (to thy name,) but God doth not dwell in houses, His seat are universes. We believe that our translation is in accordance with what little knowledge man possesses of God and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 403 His habitation; and we are certain that our translation is in accordance with the rule and usage of the Hebrew langauge; hence we plainly charge Mr. Smith of either being totally ignorant of what he spoke, or that he knows better than what he said in his Twelve Lectures; and the use that he makes of the Septuagint fully sub- stantiates and proves our charge. He speaks of the Septuagint as if it had been a universal acknowledged and undisputed fact, that the LXX, as spoken of, is the original copy that was translated during the reign of the Ptolmies, by the seventy translators that were sent from Jerusalem; but is that so? Is there not more difference in the different copies of the Septuagint that are now in existence, than there is between the latest translation of the New Testament, and the one that had existed in the time of Jerome? The great library, which the Ptolmies had accumulated in Egypt, amongst which was the original Septuagint, was kept at Bruchion, and in the war of Caesar with the inhabitants of Alexandria, the whole of that library was consumed by fire; and the library that was subsequently established at Alex- andria, without naming the several times that it was demolished by fire during the revolutions, it happened in the Roman Empire, with which history is replete; we will only mention the last conflagration, which took place A. D. 642, when the Saracens took that city, when the whole of that library was for months used for fuel. The Bible, for about one thousand years after it was translated into the Greek language, was to the Greeks the same that the Arabian Nights is to us. They had no more religious faith in it, than we have in the latter; hence any copyist threw out what he could not under- 404 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS stand and inserted what he Hked, or what he thought would improve the subject. To hold the Hebrew text accountable for its not agreeing with the Septuagint, is as reasonable and logical as to hold the Hebrew text of the Bible accountable why it does not agree with Smith, Ingersoll, Colenso and the like of them. The reader who knows nothing of what is now called the Septua- gint, can very easily form a correct opinion of it by asking himself: what sort of a Bible would W. R. Smith, R. G. Ingersoll and Bishop Colenso make, if the pres- ent Bible should become totally lost and destroyed, the same as the Septuagint was; and they, the Bishop, the Master of Arts and the Colonel, should have an oppor- tunity to replace it, the same as the Greek fable writers had to replace the Septuagint, that was translated from the Hebrew Bible during the reign of the Ptolmies, which was B. C, and in about two hundred years A. C. it was destroyed by fire and replaced by the Grecian fable writers, which either the ignorance, wickedness, or mere boldness of W. R. Smith calls and tries to make the world believe, that the production of the Grecian Fable writers is the Greek version of the Bible that was translated by the seventy translators, sent to Ptolmy by the Jews from Jerusalem. We believe that if Mr. Smith could have a chance to replace the Bible, he would throw out the last verse of the seventeenth chapter of Proverbs, which reads thus: "Even a fool, if he keeps still, is considered wise; and he that shutteth his lips is a man of understanding." He would throw out that verse the first thing, because it represents him too plainly. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 405 CHAPTER XXXIII. JEHORAM, KING OF ISRAEL, AND JEHORAM, KING OF JUDAII. There is one thing in Mr. Paine's "Age of Reason" which we cannot account for and that is, how its author came to act the pcttifoging lawyer? Mr. Paine was not a lawyer, which Mr. Ingersoll is; neither was he a sec- tarian as Colenso and Smith are, or were. It is easy to account why they can see nothing in the Bible but that which they think answers their purpose. The lawyer sees nothing in the evidence of a case, when he speaks of the case to the jury, but that which has reference to his side of the case. The sectarian sees nothing in the Bible but that what he thinks demonstrates the theories of his sect; but Paine was neither one nor the other; hence, we cannot account why he did not see the first verse of the third chapter of Second Kings, while he saw the seventeenth verse of the first chapter and the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter, which last two verses seem to be contradicting one another. The seventeenth verse of the first chapter says; that Jehoram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, began to reign during the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah; and the sixteenth verse of the eighth 406 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS chapter of the same book says: Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign over Judah in the fifth year of Jehoram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel. The question which Mr. Paine raises is, did Jehoram, of Judah, commence to reign in the fifth year of Jeho- ram, king of Israel, as we are told in the eighth chapter, sixteenth verse; or did the latter begin to reign during the second year of the reign of the former, as we are told in chapter i: xvii of the same book? Our answer to that question is; if Mr. Paine had seeui the first verse of the third chapter of the same book, and also what it is said about the same subject in Chronicles, he would not have asked that question. "Now Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah." (Second Kings, ill: i.) Here it does not say, in the second year of Jehoram^ king of Judah, but in the eighteenth year of the reign of his father, who reigned over Judah before he begua to reign over the same people and in the same place. In the last chapter of First Kings,' it tells that Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went with Ahab, king of Israel, to fight the Syrians, in which war, Ahab, king of Israel, was killed and the king of Judah escaped and came to Jerusalem; that was in the seventeenth year of the reign of Jehoshaphat, and as he came to Jerusalem^ Prophet Jehu met him and told him that he displeased God by his going to help Ahab, the wicked king of Israel. As a penance, he took upon himself to estab- lish courts of justice all through the land of Judea, and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 407 gave his time to see that the judges should act justly. During the time that he was occupied in that business, which lasted about two years, or during the two years that Ahaziah, who reigned over Israel but two years, and began to reign right after the death of his father Ahab, Jehoshaphat left the affairs of his kingdom in the hands of his son Jehoram; the latter was the acting king during the two years in question; and during the two years that he was the acting king of Judah, Ahaziah, king of Israel, died, and his brother Jehoram, the son of Ahab, begun to reign over Israel, which was during the second year that Johoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, was the acting king of Judah, as is stated in verse seventeen, chapter first, Second Kings; at about which time several nations made war against Judah, and Jehoshaphat was compelled to assume the management of the government again, which was in the twentieth year of his reign and in the second or third year that his son was acting king, and in the same year that Jehoram, the king of Israel, begun to reign; and he Jehoshaphat, reigned five years longer, which made the twenty-five years of his reign, as we are told in the last chapter of First Kings, and at the end of the twenty- five years, or at the end of five years from the time that he, Jehoshaphat, took the management of the gov- ernment from his son, which was also the fifth year of the reign of Jehoram, king of Israel. Jehoram, king of Judah, became the lawful and acting king of Jifdah, as the sixteenth verse of the eighth chapter of Second Kings tells, which reads thus: "And in the fifth year of Jehoram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of Jehosha- phat, king of Judah, began to reign;" or in other 408 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, words, Jehoram, king of Israel, begun to reign during the second year that Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, was the acting king of Judah; and in the fifth year of the reign of the former, the king of Judah (Jehoshaphat) abdicated the kingdom to his son, Jehoram, who became king of Judanh before his father, Jehosaphat, died, as the eighth chapter of Second Kings tells. He begun to reign in the fifth year of the king of Israel, and of his father, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and five years before he became the actual king of Judah, he was two or three years the acting king of the same people under his father, during which time Jehoram, the king of Israel, begun to reign over Israel. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 409 CHAPTER XXXIV. BIBLICAL TAXATION, OR TITHES. Nearly every one of the anti-Bible writers and speakers say, that Moses had enacted the Levitical law for the purpose of creating fat offices for his tribe, the Levites, and for his family, the priests. The former were to receive and have received the tithes and the latter the sacrifices. We have in a former chapter shown, that the sacrifices were only to be kept up until the people, the Israelites, would wean themselves off from sacrificing to idols; hence, we will say nothing about that subject here. The tribe of Levi, under the Biblical law, was not only the religious government but the civil government also; and had, to a certain extent, to participate in mil- itary services too; especially in time of war. No other government than the Lavites is known to or ordained by the laws of Moses, except civil magistrates, who were to receive no remuneration for their services. The Levites were the highest civil tribunal. The sub- sequent establishment of the monarchial form of govern- ment, cannot be ascribed to the laws of Moses, nor to any other part of the Bible; it was simply established in obedience to the will of the people. And tithes was 4IO A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the only remuneration that the Levites had, and all that they were to receive for all the service that they had to render to the nation, in accordance with the laws of the Bible. A tenth part of the annual production of the soil and cattle is, apparently, a very high and consequently oppressive taxation, because, it is equal to ii? per cent. But is that really as it appears to be, when it is com- pared to our present mode of taxation? Certainly not. Suppose that an Israelite had ten cows, and they produced annually the same number of calves; the tax that the Israelite had to pay on his ten cows and ten calves, was one calf, which for convenience sake, we say was worth five dollars; the nine calves that he had left were never taxed aeain. 'fc>' Let us now compare it to our present mode of tax- ation. The ten cows, we say, are worth but fifteen dollars each, that is charging less than one-half of their actual market value; that makes one hundred and fifty^ dollars; the ten calves, but twenty dollars, or two dol- lars each, which together with the value of the cows, makes one hundred and seventy dollars in all. On which amount, we will say, he only has to pay a tax of no more than three per cent., which makes five dollars and ten cents. We will say he keeps the ten cows and the calves until the latter are twelve years old: how much taxes will he have to pay on his stock during the twelve years. For convenience sake we say, that he paid no more the second year than he paid the first; but the third year, he will be taxed on twenty cows, at the tax valuation of but fifteen dollars each or on a valuation of three hundred dollars. At but three OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 41 1 per cent, makes a tax of nine dollars; and that amount he would have to pay each and every year during the succeeding ten years. That makes ninety dollars in the ten years, and ten dollars and twenty cents during the first two years, which makes a tax of one hundred dollars and twenty cents in twelve years, at the no price at all, of but fifteen dollars per cow and at the low rate of but three per cent. ; while under the Biblical law of taxation, it would only cost him one calf during the ten years, which, according to our tax val- uation was worth but two dollars; but one-fiftieth part that it would cost under our present mode of tatxation, without saying six or seven per cent, which is often and and in many places the rate of taxation. But to keep twenty cows, he must have land to keep them on and the land is taxed as well as the stock. Let us, therefore, see how much taxes, during a certain given time, one has to pay under our present mode of taxation; and then see what he would have to pay for the same farm under the Biblical law. Say that his farm, buildings and stock, are valued at five thousand dollars, on which he is taxed three per cent, which makes one hundred and fifty dollars a year in ten years he will have to pay fifteen hundred dollars taxes on his farm without questioning him if he made or lost anything during the ten years by working his farm. But, suppose he makes one thousand dollars a year by working his farm, of which he consumes one-half during the year, and we will say that he pays no tax on what he consumes; hence, we say he only saves five 412 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, hundred dollars a year, on which he is taxed. In ten years he would save five thousand dollars. The tax on his income during the first year on five hundred dollars at three per cent., would be fifteen dollars; and during the tenth or last year, the amount of his income during the ten years would be five thousand dollars, or ten times five hundred dollars; on which his income tax for the tenth year would be one hundred and fifty dollars, and the taxes that he had to pay on his income during the ten years comes to eight hundred and twenty-five dollars; add it to the fifteen hundred dollars tax that he had to pay during the same time on his farm, makes a total of two thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars that he had to pay as taxes during the ten years. While under the Biblical mode of taxation, he would only have to pay one tenth part of his annual income, or one hundred dollars a year, which is one tenth part of one thousand, the estimated annual income of the farm in the illustration, or one thousand dollars in the ten years; but it could not be even as much as that, for he needs not give tithes from straw nor from hay, which forms a large amount of the products and income of a farm. But, did the tenth part that the Israelites gave to the Levites, actually belong to the former? By no means. Because, one thirteenth part of the tenth part that the Levite took from the Israelite, did belong to the Le- vite; or it was produced on the land that was taken from the Levite and given to the Israelite. The land of Canaan was to be divided among the thirteen tribes of Israel, and for the purpose of making the tribe of Levi attend to his official duties, he was OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 413 made to depend upon what he could get from his office. The Israelite could give his tithes to any Levite that he liked; hence, a Levite who neglected his official duties, had but a slim chance to get his share of the tithes, and for the purpose of making the Levites attend to their official duties, they were deprived of their share of the land; and the land in question was divided into twelve parts, instead of into thirteen parts. The result was, that each Israelite had one thirteenth part more land than he could have had if the Levites had taken their thirteenth part; hence, of the supposed thousand dollars that the Israelite farmer made annually off his farm, seventy-six dollars, ninety-two cents and four thirteenth parts of a cent ($76.92 4-13), or one thirteenth part of one thousand was produced on the land that rightfully belonged to the Levite; hence, the Levite only received from the Israelite, for his official services annually, the sum of twenty-three dollars, seven and nine thirteenth parts of a cent, (23.07 9-13), and in ten years he had received but two hundred thirty dol- lars and seventy-six cents and twelve-thirteenths of a cent (230.76 12-13), while under our present mode of taxation he would have to pay two thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars. This shows how much they Vho bark against the Bible know what they are barking about. 414 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXXV. THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF ISRAEL. Egypt was the birth place and cradle of Israel's nationality. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, was the first one who called the Isralites a nation. "The people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we are. " The word people is translated from the Hebrew word "Em," which designates nation, "Am-im," (with an "a" or "Aleph" and the "im" at the end designates the plural number) and sometimes means people; hence we say, that Pharaoh was the first one who gave to the Israelites the title of nation. And as soon as he declared them to be a nation, he became envious of their increase and had beg-an to meditate upon their destruction, and to devise plans how to destroy them. And from that time until, literally speaking, to-day, there has not been a time that there was not a nation upon the face of the earth that had not tried his powers and skill, by attempting to destroy Israel from off the face of the earth; but the skill, devices and power of all had failed, the same as that of Pharaoh did fail. The fire of the Babylonians; the lion's den of the Medes; the sword of the Persian Haman; the cruelties OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 4l5 of the Macedonian Antiochus; the thousands of cruel- ties and manners of death, invented by the Church of Rome, during the dark ages and gloomy prospect for Israel's posterity. The driving of Israel from place to place and the robbing him of all he had when he was driven from place to place, up to the present time, and trouble that Israel has from the tyrannical government of Russia. All, and every nation and devices have failed to destroy Israel from off the face of the earth, or to separate him from the laws that were given to him, and from the God who gave these laws to him; they have failed, the same as the choking and drowning of newly born Israelite male children, which were the methods by which Pharaoh attempted to stop the increase of Israel, have failed. Each and every unsuccessful attempt to destroy Israel has greatly magnified the question; why he, Israel cannot be destroyed? Different causes and difTerent reasons were at different times assigned in answer to the question of the indestructibility of Israel or the Jew; but all causes and the reasons that were given, failed to satisfy the question, the same as the devices and nations have failed to destroy Israel. But, there is a Power that can destroy Israel from the face of the earth; and there is a cause that can make that Power destroy Israel, but the latter controls the cause; and there is also one answer why all the endeavors that were made by the nations of the world, have failed to accomplish what they have desired; of whom the Crusaders alone, seem to have been enough to accom- plish the desired destruction of the indestructible race. 4l6 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, God is the only one power that can destroy Israel from the face of the earth; and the laws that God gave unto Israel, are the only cause that could induce that Omnipotent power to destroy them; that is, if Israel would totally forsake the laws that his, and only, God gave unto him; but Israel controls that cause; he had at no time totally forsaken his God, nor the laws that his God hath given unto him. Even at the time when Israel was a mere school boy; when he had to have sacrifices for pictures in his school book, from which he was to learn to know and to serve his God; and pro- phets for teachers to teach him what his God desires of him. And even at the very time, when Israel became so wild and unruly at school, that he killed all his teachers^ (the prophetSj) except one, prophet Elijah, who saved himself by running away from Israel and from school, who thought that Israel had then totally forsaken the laws that his God gave to him, and had reported so unto God, as we are told in the nineteenth chapter of First Kings: "And he said # * # because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant * * * ^^^ slain thy prophets with the sword, and even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away;" but even ^/len there were "seven thousand" Israelites who have not forsaken their duty to their God; and these "seven thousand," have, like Moses in the wilderness, controlled the cause of Israel's destruction and have saved him from being destroyed. There is a special statutory ordinance in the Bible that was enacted and was given to Israel before the Ten Commandments, or any other part of the Biblical laws, were given to him; and that ordinance contains Israel's indestructibility. It was enacted and given to him at OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 41/ "Marah," on the third day after he became free and was subjected to no one else than his God, and that was after he crossed the Red sea. On the third day he came to Marah; "There he made for tJieiJt a statute and an ordinance. " Let us now see what is the statute and the ordinance that God hath made for Israel at " Marah, " and with what did he "prove them." All that it says there is that: "Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water;" and when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they. were bitter, therefore the name of it was called "Marah." (The word Marah, in the Hebrew language, designates bit- ter.) And the people murmured against Moses, say- ing: what shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which, when he casted it into the waters the waters were made sweet; there he made for them a statute, and an ordinance and there he reproved them and said: "If thou wilt diligently heark- en to the voice of the Lord, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his command- ments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. " No statute nor commandment was given to Israel to keep before he came to Mount Sinai, which was in the third month after he left Egypt; and the narrative of all that took place at the time that he was at Marah, does not apparently state that any statute or command- ment was there given to Israel to keep, neither does it state, how nor what it was "proven to them," at Marah; and that what it does state is very incomprehensive. fUiriVBllSITTi 41 8 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, It stated that "He cried unto the Lord," but it is hard to tell who cried, whether it means Moses cried, or the whole nation, Israel, did cry unto the Lord. In the wil- derness of sin, where the people were again troubled from the want of water, and had murmured against Moses, which is related in the next chapter to the one in question, (Exodus, xvi,) there it says: "And Moses cried unto the Lord * * and the Lord said unto Moses," fourth and fifth verses; and that is the way that it is in every place where it tells that the people murmured against Moses, and that he cried unto the Lord. Why does it not say so at Marah? Why are the pronouns, "he," him and them" used in the twenty-fifth verse of the fifteenth chapter, in stating what took place at Marah, without first using the name or names for whom the pronouns are substituted. If it was the Israelites that were crying unto the Lord, then why does it not say so, the same as it says in the chapter that precedes the one in question, or the fourteenth: verse tenth; "And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord;" when they found that the Egyp- tians were behind them. Why does it not say so, if it means to say that the Israelites were crying unto the Lord at Marah? And there is another incomprehensible part in the statement of what took place at Marah, which is, "If thou wilt hearken" to the voice of the Lord thy God, * * * I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee." The question is: if He "will put none of the diseases upon" them, he can have noth- ing to heal them of, and if He shall have to heal them OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 419 of the diseases it speaks of, then He, God, must have put the diseases upon them. The answer to all these questions is this: the state- ment of what took place at the time that Israel was at, or in "Marah," embraces all the times and all the places of "Marah," (bitterness,) in which Israel was and will yet have to be, until the purposes for which he, Israel, was chosen, will be accomplished; and it refers to all the Israelites that were in the world since the time in question. These that are now in the world are now- drinking the bitter waters of "Marah," and they that w^ill yet come into the world will have to drink the same as they that were at "Marah" at the time in question; and therefore is, neither the name of Moses nor of the Israelites that were at the "Marah," (bitter- ness,) which they reached on the third day after they were removed from the Red sea. No proper name can be given when a subject is spoken of that is to pre- vail for an indefinite time and upon all that shall exist during that indefinite time. The statute and ordinance that were there at the time and place in question, made ''for them,'* (Israel) are the same as the ordinance and statutes that contain the laws of nature. Each and every disease that comes upon man, is brought upon him because he neglects to observe the laws of nature; and the cure of every disease, that is produced by the laws of nature, is also found in the laws of nature; that is, each disease that comes upon men, compels them to study the laws of nature to find a healing remedy for that disease, and the bitter afflictions of the man that suffers from the disease is a benefit to the rest of mankind, for through 420 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, the sufferings of the one that does suffer, they not only obtain the healing remedy for that disease, but they also learn to abstain from violating the laws of nature that produces the disease. But the diseases which God brought upon the Egyp- tians, and of which the fifteenth chapter of Exodus speaks, were not diseases that were produced by the laws of nature, neither could a healing remedy be found in the laws of nature for these diseases; and if no remedy can be found to cure a disease, then the suffer- ing of one from that disease is of no benefit to any one else; the same is the case with the laws of God, which are recorded in the Bible; the violation of them pro- duces afflictive diseases, and the healing remedy for the diseases, that the violation of those laws produce, is also found in the same laws, which is, to observe them. And these are the statute and ordinance which God made for Israel when he was in "Marah;" they, the Israelites, were there told: "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and will give ear to His commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians." It naturally and reasonably follows, that if Israel will not observe all the things heretofore told, that he will be afflicted with unnatural diseases: But it was there, at Marah, ordained in the ''ordinance" that was there enacted, that Israel shall not be utterly destroyed by unnatural diseases, the same as all the nations were who knew nothing of the laws of the Bible. God told them OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 42 1 there, fear not, even if I shall have to bring these diseases upon you, "I am the Lord that healeth thee;" "and there He proved them. " How and what was proved to them? The answer is; it was proved to them, that their affliction, if they should have to be afflicted for disre- garding the laws of God, will be of great benefit to the rest of mankind. The word "Marah" designates bitter. The Israelites, after traveling "three days" in the wild- erness without water, came to "Marah," (bitter,) but could not drink the water that was there because it was bitter; the Lord showed him a tree, and he casted the tree into the water, "and the waters were made sweet." It is well knowA that vegetation growing by a swamp or a stream, absorbs in itself the taste of the swamp or the stream; consequently, the tree that grew in "Marah," (bitter,) (according to the laws of nature,) must also have been bitter; and that bitter tree made the waters sweet! that had demon- strated to Israel then and for all time to come, that, whenever he shall have to drink from the bitter waters of affliction, from which he had drank so often, and partly drinks to-day, (in Russia) he shall always cast the same tree into the bitter waters and it will sweeten it; which he always did and does, and which is no other tree than the one that Solomon speaks of: "She, (the law of God,) is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; and happy is everyone that retaineth her. " Pro- verbs, chapter Xlii: xviii. "The law of the Lord is just, it refreshes the heart * * * sweeter also than honey and honey-comb." (Psalms, chapter XIX.) For more than three thousand and five hundred years has Israel carried that same tree with him wher- 422 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS ever he went, and that tree has made sweet all the bitter waters that he had to drink out of the mighty streams of his afflictions, of which a mere taste, in comparison to the quantity that Israel drank, utterly destroyed those that have existed during that time and tasted of the bitter waters of affliction, who knew not of that wonderful tree and of its healing remedy; and the nations that are now in existence, have only saved them- selves from the fate of their predecessors by the knowl- edge that they have obtained from Israel, of the wonderful healing remedy that that tree possesses to cure and save from total destruction by the afflictive disease produced by drinking from the bitter stream of oppression. Is there to be wondered at, why it was always easier for Israel to part with his life than his tree of life? The only thing to wonder at is, that it took mankind so long to obtain the knowledge of that tree of life; and that is not surprising, for there is a cause which fully accounts for that; and that is: so long as Israel was in his own land and was not subject to the destructive disease of affliction, he made but very little use of that tree of life, so much so that it was but little known, even in the land of Israel; but, when he had to leave his land and was again brought to the necessity of drinking the ^'bitter waters of Mar ah,'''' then he had to practice the healing remedy of his tree; and the indes- tructibility of Israel, caused by the use that he made of his tree of life, brought the knowledge of that tree of life, or the laws of God, to mankind, and the wond- derful preventive power from destruction, which they saw that these laws have, made mankind accept and use them, the same as one that is sick would use a certain drug, which he knows has cured others of the same sick- OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 423 ness; and this is what Isaiah meant by saying, "AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED." The sickness of one discovers a curing remedy for others; and if our Christian friends will diligently study the history of the world of the last two thousand years and ascertain the position that Israel had occupied in the world, they will be able to understand the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, without having any questions to ask or answer. We believe that the prophets of political freedom and unity, did not have as much reason to hope that their dreams will so soon turn into a reality in the Western Hemisphere, when they were telling men their prophetic dreams about the freedom that we now.enjoy,as we have to hope and to believe that the time is not very far when America will give to the world a religioug unity, the same as it did a religious freedom; all that it needs to bring it about is, that the rulers or teachers of religion shall not rule nor teach by force and blind faith, but shall teach and rule with reason and understanding, for one thing is sure, and that is; if God gave the Bible to man that he shall observe it. He must have given him power to understand it; that certainly was our depend- ence upon which we have depended, when we had begun to study the Bible; with that we have begun to write our Collection of Thoughts, and we depend on that for the answer of every question that may be asked of us during the remainder of our life time, about what we said in our Collection of Thoughts and about the Bible; and if every man who has an honest faith in the Bible, would depend upon the Bible and on the power that God hath given him to understand, there could be no place for infidelity to plant itself upon Biblical grounds. 424 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, The "sword" of religion, would long ago have been "beaten into plough shares," (to plant and cultivate the mind,) "and their spears into pruning-hooks," (to prune the human heart and the mind from bigotry, religious hate and oppression." "And it shall come to pass, in the last days," (says Isaiah, in the second chapter of his book,) "That the mountain of the Lord's house" (the knowledge and worship of God,) "shall be established in the top oi the mountains" (in the whole world,) "and shall be exalted above the hills" (the knowledge of God shall be above everything) "and all nations shall flow unto it, and many shall go and say: "come ye, and let us go up to the mountain (the knowledge) of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob, and he (Jacob) will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths # * * Qj^l house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." These and such are the predictions that Isaiah had predicted. It makes no difference who Isaiah was, when he was, nor who did and when was the book of Isaiah written. It is to-day as he said when he said what he did say. One thing is certain that it was said and written more than two thousand years ago. Even admitting what some say; that it was written by or in the time of Ezra, and that was centuries before any other people than Israel or Jews, the posterity of Jacob, knew anything or cared to know anything of the God of Jacob. About nineteen hundred years ago the nations had started and took the house of Jacob out of Jerusalem, to teach them the law that was then only known in Zion; they have since that time walked together all the way from Paganism, through the rocky and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 42$ dark mountains of Catholicism, ignorance and bigotry; but thanks to God, the light of the Lord of Jacob, now shines upon Christian Unitarians, and the like of them, which demonstrates the truth of what Isaiah and others like him have said; that no one, but an unreasonable being, can now ask or doubt that, what Isaiah and the like of him have said, whether or not it was revealed to them or not, or question the authenticity of the Bible. Being that it is foolish and useless to raise and discuss that subject we will say nothing about it, and will now turn our attention to what our Christian friends have become habituated to call the New Testament, and which they claim to be their own and say that the Jew does not believe in. We propose to ascertain what they say about it and what reasons they have for say- ing that the Jew does not believe in it; and why they call it new, and see whether there really is such an insurmountable wall between the Old, and what they call the New Testament, as they or some of them say there is. 426 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, CHAPTER XXXVI. THE NEW TESTAMENT. WHO AND WHAT CHRIST WAS AND WHO HE IS. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF AND THE VIRGIN HERSELF; WHO AND WHAT SHE AND IT WAS, OR THE BELIEF THAT THE JEW HAS TO-DAY, AND HAD NINETEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO, IN WHAT CHIRISTIANS CALL THE NEW TESTAMENT; AND A REMOVAL OF THE SUPPOSED WALL THAT IS BELIEVED TO EXIST BETWEEN THE JEW AND CHRIST- IAN AND BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. The purpose for which we undertook to write our "Collection of Thoughts or Key to Scripture/' was not only to explain uncomprehended passages of the Bible, but also to explain what a Jew is, and the purpose for which he is kept upon the face of the earth. The Jew cannot he separated from the Bible, neither can the Bible be separated from the Jew. They who know no better, say that the Jew docs not believe in what is called the New Testament; and that class of men will probably say to us, that we have no right to meddle with anything that is in the New Testa- ment, because we are Jews; hence, we must ascertain OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 42/ what the New Testament is, and the relative position it has to the Jews. The Bible is the history, as well as the statute of the Jews. The Old Testament contains their history up to the time that the second Temple was finished. The New Testament contains a record of Chrisc and His diiciples, and of what they have said and done; and it is admitted by all, that Christ and his early followers Xvere Jews, and the land of Judea was the place where they lived and acted; hence, the New Testament con- tains a history of the Jews the same as the Old Testa- ment; consequently, the Jew has the same right to criticise the New Testament and explain it, that he has to the Old Testament. Yes, the New Testament contains part of the history of the Jews; hence, no one can, with propriety and reason, raise any objections to a Jew criticising or explaining the New Testament, in which man became habituated to say, the Jew does not believe. Had our purpose for writing our "Collection of Thoughts" been nothing else than to explain that part of the Bible that contains the history of the Jews up to the time that the second Temple was finished, or where the Old Testament ends, then our task would have been done, our duty performed, and we would have rested from our labor, though the object for which purpose we undertook to write the "Collection of Thoughts" would be left unaccomplished. But the Bible cannot be separated from the Jew, nor the Jew from the Bible. One explains the other. The 428 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, existence of the Jew explains the Bible, and the latter tells the purpose for which the former was chosen, pre- served, and kept till now and will exist until the purpose for which he was chosen shall be accomplished; and the purpose for which the Jew was chosen is, that through him "All nations shall know my name # # * saith the Lord." Yes, reader, we maintain, and facts prove, that the few was chosen to bring the knowledge of God to the mind of each and every man; and the fear and love of God into every man's heart; and the purpose for which the Jew was chosen, will not be accomplished until the knees of all men will bend to the God that hath chosen Israel and maintained the Jew upon the face of the earth. Israel was the agent or vehicle that brought the knowledge of the One and Only God into Egypt, and made Pharaoh and his people acknowledge the power of that God. The Jew brought the knowledge of his God into Babylon, and her haughty kings had not only acknowledged the power of that God, but have made death the punishment of any one of their subjects that would speak anything against the God of the Jews. (Daniel and his companions.) These are facts that are known to all that know any- thing at all of the Bible; and every one that believes in the Bible believes these facts to be true; and is it not very strange, that we have never heard a Christian give credit to the Jew for the knowledge that the latter had brought to and spread among the Christian nations who inhabit the face of the earth at the present time! OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 429 The Christian credits himself with full faith in the New Testament, and charges the Jew with a disbelief in the same book, but if there is anything in the New Testament which is not denied, and which is not contradicted by any one of the several authors of the accounts that constitute the New Testament, and that was not changed by the numerous changes and altera- tions that the books of the New Testament have been subjected to since it came into existence until the pres- ent time is, the undisputed fact, that Christ himself, all the apostles and disciples, as well as nearly all the actors, whose actions are recorded in the New Testament, were Jews, and have claimed to be Jews after they became the followers and the disciples of Christ; nevertheless, the faithful Christian, though he charges Judas Ischariot to the Jew, yet, he refuses to give the Jew credit for Christ, Apostle Paul and the rest. The insurmountable and impregnable wall that the world has habituated itself to believe it exists and separ- ates the Old Testament from the New, and the Jew from the Christian, was built by the bigots who had control of the Christian Church during the dark ages, which begun long after the time the Christian era begun. St. Jerome, one of the most renowned of the first fath- ers of the Church, who lived in the fourth century, seems not to have known of the wall of separation that causes hatred between Jew and the non-Jew. For he not only gives credit to the Jews for the knowledge he received from them, which enabled him to translate the Bible from the Hebrew language, but had faith and confidence enough in the Jews to advise, that any differ- ence which may be found between his translation of the 430 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Bible and the translation that the Christians had at that time from the Greek* language, shall be submitted to a Jew. Yes, reader, St. Jerome advises to take a Jew as arbitrator to decide disputes and infuse knowledge into the Christian Church. But all these are only historical facts; there are some men who may deny the writings of St. Jerome more readily than they deny the Bible. We will, there- fore cease to bring up historical facts, and cast our observation upon existing facts, and see whether the existing facts which cannot be denied, correspond with historical and Biblical facts; and it is to be expected that the existing facts shall coincide with the historical and Biblical facts, because, the Bible predicts the existing facts; and as the Bible, religion, and the wonderful indestructibility of the Jews, are all for the same purpose and are designs of God; hence, they must agree. It is an undisputed, well known and admitted fact, that the van of Christianity is now nearer to the Jew than it is to the Church of Rome; and the Church of Rome itself broke up her encampment, and is imper- ceptibly moving towards liberality, rationality and reason. Unitarians and Universalists are so near by Judaism that they believe in but the One God, and that Christ was a human being. He who says the Jew does not believe in the New Testament, says it with as much reason as he could have if he would say that the Unitar- ian does not believe in the New Testament. The Jew does not believe in the thousand and one, or more different constructions and changes that the OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 43 1 thousands and one, or more, of the Christian sects have made in the New Testament since it came into their hands, and as they believe, to their knowledge. They have each time changed it to answer their desire at that time; and have each time constructed it to mean and made it say, that that, or this sect is right; and in these changes and constructions the Jew has no faith. But the Jew does and always did believe, that the New Testament was a "light for the Gentiles," the same as the sun was placed in his orbit to give light upon the earth and to the solar system of planets. The Jew believes, that the New Testament was given to the Gen- tiles, that it shall illuminate their minds to enable them to perceive the true and only One God, which the Chris- tian or Gentile van now beholds. The Jew believes, that without the shining light of the New Testament, that illuminated the mind and warmed up the hearts of the Gentiles, he, the Jew, could not have accomplished what he did during the last nineteen centuries, or the third day of his journey. Neither can the Jew of to-day perceive how he could have been in existence to-day without the light of the New Testament shining upon the Gentiles. The Jew of to-day, has the same belief about the New Testament, that he had nineteen hundred years ago. The only change that took place in the Jew about the New Testament is; in the mood. Nineteen centuries ago, in speaking of Christianity, he spoke in the subjunctive mood. The Jew, Rabbi Gamleal, nine- teen centures ago, said: "If Christianity is the act of 432 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS God;" and the Jew of to-day uses the Indicative mood; he says: Christianity *'Is" of God. God hath inspired the apostles to act as they did and write what they did for the purpose of bringing Him, God, to the knowledge of the Gentiles, the same as He did inspire those who brought Him to the knowledge of the Egyptians and Babylonians. We believe that we have brought up proof, more than enough to remove the erroneous idea, that there is such an insurmountable wall between the Jew and the Christian, as Christians have habituated themselves to believe there ic; and that there is such a partition between the Old and New Testaments, as Christians have imagined and as some still imagine; and we believe that we have fully and conclusively established, or produced proof enough to establish the fact, that a Jew has as much right to question and answer questions about the New Testament, that he has to answer and explain questions about the Old Testament, about which there is no doubt, and nobody disputes that the Jew is the most proper, and the only one that is competent to answer and explain whatever is or can be asked about the Old Testament; especially when the questions and answers are for the purpose of reconciling and uniting the two parts of the Bible, the same as the Christian and the Jew are about united; as it is between the Unitarian and the Jew; instead of disuniting them, as the ignorant and bigoted, that have lived during the dark ages have disunited and separated them; conse- quently, we, as Jews, believe to have an indisputable right to explain the several questions that reason made the world ask about the New Testament. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 433 We not only believe that the Jew has an indisput- able right to answer these questions, but we believe and feel in our hearts that it is his religion and his humanity, as well as the purpose for which God kept and keeps him upon the face of the earth, each and all make it to be his duty to answer the questions that ignorance, bigotry and selfishness, have raised against the New Testament; and explain these questions in accordance with reason and the understanding of every man, that he may know and understand, that his Merciful Father, his Creator, the Almighty, just and righteous God, did give him, man, understanding and comprehension enough to know what his merciful Father, the righteous and only God, desires him to be and do, without subjecting him to selfish, changeable and hired priesthood, who, during the dark ages have shrouded God's truth in nonsensical mystery and bigotry, from which, the would be honest teacher of God's truth cannot extricate himself. For several reasons, we don't propose, neither will we take up and discuss each question that is asked against the New Testament, by itself, the same as we did with the questions asked against the Old Testament. First. Because the New Testament was originally written in a language, or languages, that was spoken by those for whom it was written, and not in the language of those who wrote it, whose language was Hebrew, in which language the Old Testament was written, and which language was never used for the use of any heathen mythology, and was only used by the Israelites and Jews; consequently, it cannot be perverted into whatever a heathen priest may choose to convert it. 434 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, Secondly. It has been so often changed and recon- structed that it is impossible to find the original text. Thirdly. Because all, or the most of the questions that are raised against the New Testament, can and must be answered by one and the same answer, because they all arise from one and the same source. The New Testament has been so changed and construed that it is contrary to nature and reason, and one answer, that will take away the unnatural and unreasonable parts of the New Testament, will be an answer to all the ques- tions that the world asks against it; and that is the answer that we propose to give. The authors of the New Testament repeatedly call upon and refer to the authors of the Old Testament for the purpose of proving or demonstrating that that which the former have said was true; and we propose to do the same thing; we propose to prove up the New Testament by the Old, the same as the authors of the New Testa- ment did; to which no Christian possibly can or reason- ably will object, and to which no anti-Bible man can possibly and reasonably object, because we propose that reason itself shall give the answer. We will give some of the most important questions the world asks against the New Testament, and see what the authors of the Old Testament say about it; on whom the authors of the former call to prove the truth of what they say; and we will subsequently see what reason says about it. First. Why do not the several authors agree in the — # OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 435 account that each of the several authors gives of the life and doings of Christ, from about the time that he was born up to the time that he was thirty years of age? They agree that he was born in Bethlehem, of Judea; but Matthew says: that the angel of the Lord told Joseph to flee, with the child and the mother, into Egypt; and that he took the child and the mother by night, and departed into Egypt; and that he staid in Egypt until after the death of Herod, at which time Christ must have been about thirty years old; and that Joseph was even then afraid to return into the land of Judea, and therefore dwelt in a city called Nazareth. But Luke says: that Christ was brought into the temple in Jerusalem, when he was about six or seven weeks old, or at the time of his mothers purification; and Simon, who was inspired by the Holy Ghost, pub- licly proclaimed in the temple, that he, the child, was the Christ, or the Messiah; and Anna, the prophetess, did the same; and that his parents went every year to Jerusalem; consequently, he must have went with them. Luke, also, says: that when Christ was twelve years old, his parents while on their way home from Jerusa- lem, missed the child, and returned into Jerusalem and found the child in the temple publicly discoursing with the doctors. What we have here quoted from what Luke tells about the subject in question, is enough to show that Christ was born and publicly brought up and was well known in the land of Judea, and that he was not raised in Egypt, as Matthew says he was; hence, it is a ques- tion, why don't they both agree? 436 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, The second question which the world very reason- ably asks is: if God desired to forgive and expiate the transgressions that men transgressed against Him, He could have done so without sacrificing His only one and well beloved Son, that He had in heaven. Reason can see no use for the suffering that God hath caused his only and most beloved son to endure. And the apparent unnatural and incomprehensible idea of the immaculate conception, is the third, and is the most prominent of the many questions that are asked and raised against the New Testament. The conception of the Virgin is supported by, or based upon, the fourteenth verse of the seventh chap- ter of Isaiah, that verse in the English version of the book of Isaiah is as follows: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive y and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. " That is mistranslated from the Hebrew text, as will hereafter be shown; but even that does not agree with the phraseology of the same verse as given in the New Testament. "Behold, a virgin shall be with child and britig forth a son, and '7//^^" shall call his name Immanuel." The phraseology of the New Testa- ment has been doctored and changed to be more in compliance with the unreasonable idea that prevailed eighteen or nineteen hundred years ago. Let us now see what the Hebrew text tells us about the same subject. The word virgin, is translated from the Hebrew word"Elmh" pronounced "Almoh;" before we question whether "Elmh" designates a virgin, which OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 43/ we say and will elucidate that it does not, we say that "a virgin" is a mistranslation of the Hebrew text. Isaiah did not and does not say" Elmh" as we have; which is inde- finite, and "a virgin" would be a proper translation, but he said"Helmh" pronounced "Hoalmoh." The letter "h" in Hebrew, is the same as the definite article "the" is in English, and if the Hebrew word "Elmh" means virgin, then "Helmh" or "Hoalmoh" means the virgin not a virgin; but the word "Elm" means a subject that is invisible, the letter "h" at the end of the word, as it is in the word "Elmh" designates a subject that is used in the feminine gender. Job, XXI: xxviii, in speaking of wisdom uses the same word. The English version of it reads: "it is hid," but it Is translated from the same Hebrew word that the word virgin is translated in the place in question. "Bthuloh" is the word that designates virgin in Hebrew, the word "Elmh" is only used to designate a female, when the hidden subject that is spoken of, is connected with a female, as we find in the case of Abraham's servant, in speaking of Rebecca. (Genesis, chapter XXIV,) "The damsel," in verses, xiv, xvi and xxviii, are translated from the word "Nerh" and the word virgin, in verse sixteen, is trans- lated from the word "Bthuloh," but in the forty-third verse, same chapter, "The virgin cometh forth." The words, "the virgin," are translated from the word "Helmh," the same word that is in the fourteenth verse of the seventh chapter of Isaiah. And the reason why the servant of Abraham used the word "Elmh" in the forty-third verse is this: Abraham made the servant swear that he would go to his (Abraham's) country and to his family, and from 438 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, there, and from one of his family, take a wife for his son Isaac. The Servant asked Abraham, in case the woman would not want to go with him, whether he had a right to arrange that Isaac should go there to live? Abraham said no; and told him that God will send His angel before the servant would be there, and that he, the servant, will only have to take the woman from there, and if the woman will not want to cro with him then the servant will be clean or relieved from his oath. (Genesis chapter XXIV.) So the servant was no more than the vehicle that was to bring the woman, that the angel of the Lord was to select and engage to be the wife of Isaac. Hence, the servant had no choice nor responsibility. The mystery, or what the servant did not perceive, was, how he was to get the woman, that the angel was to, or did select to be the wife of Isaac. He finally resolved to remain inactive and let the angel bring her to him; and therefore, he placed himself by the well of water, where the daughters of the city were coming for water, and said the "Nerh," or young woman, of whom he will ask to give him to drink, and she will say, drink, and I will also water the camels; that will be the one that the Lord hath prepared to be the wife of Isaac. And the fact that Rebecca came just as he came to that conclusion, and he ascertained from her that she was from Abraham's family, made him conclude that she must be the one whom God hath selected to be the wife of Isaac; consequently, when he was relating to her parents what he said and did at the well, he used the word ''Elmh" to designate Rebecca, instead of the word OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 439 "Nerh," which word he did use at the well; and the reason why he did change the word was, because, at the well he spoke of the person, hence, he said "Nerh," and at the house he spoke of the uncomprehensible sub- ject which he could not understand, namely, how he was to find the one that the angel of the Lord hath selected; and the father and the brother of Rebecca told the servant, in answer to what he said to them about the subject, that they can say to him neither good nor bad; "the thing is from God." And it is the same in the case of David and Saul, when the former undertook to fight Goliah; during the conversation Saul called him "Ner," youth; but after he saw with what boldness and spirit he went to fight him and after he did kill the Philistine, he, Saul, calls David "Elm" instead of "Ner." "Inquire whose son this strip- ling is?" (Samuel, XVII : Ivi.) The word stripling, is translated from the Hebrew word "Elm," the reason why Saul called him by that name was, because the unnatural and wonderful spirit, by which David acted was the subject about which Saul was inquiring, and not about David himself. So long as he spoke about David, he called him "Ner," a youth, but when the wonderful courage, of which David was the possessor, was spoken of the word "Elm" was used. There are words in every language that have more than one meaning and designate different things, and man will usually apply the word to mean that thing with which he is most or best acquainted and known to him; but if the word in question forms part of a sub- ject or sentence, then the subject, or the other words of the sentence, compel the man to search for the other meaning of the word. 440 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, The last part of the nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs, was construed by man to mean that what is known to man; but the sentence as well as the whole subject, compels men to search. No, to reject the misconstruction of the phrase in question, because it does not agree with the rest of the subject, and it is perceptible to the eye, while the subject is of things that are wonderful and unknown; "the way of an eagle in the air" is wonderful and cannot be seen for it leaves no track; "the way of a serpent upon a rock" is also trackless and it leaves nothing for the eye to see; and "the way of a ship in the midst of the sea" is also imperceptible to the eye, but the fourth part of the subject is perceptible to the eye and is well known to man, and must have been well known to Solomon, (for he had a thousand wives) that sexual intercourse between man and woman is traceable and perceptible to the eye. The word "maid," (Proverbs, xxx: xix,) is translated from the same word "Elmh," that the word virgin is translated from in the fourteenth verse of the seventh chapter of Isaiah, and the two mistranslations were made for the same purpose and from the same cause; and it was done because it was in accordance with the ideas of those for whom the Bible was trans- lated, as it will be shown; and it answered the purpose for which the Bible was translated. The extent and the whole structure of the universe is indeed very wonderful and cannot be perfectly under- stood by man. Solomon, who was and is called the wisest of men, says; it was unknown to him. The word "Elmh" in the Hebrew language, from which the word "maid" in the nineteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 441 of Proverbs, and the word virgin, in the seventh chap- ter of Isaiah, in the English version of the Bible, are translated from, means world or universe, "Elm." What Solomon means was, that; the way of man in the universe was unknown even to him, the same as the way of the ships were invisible and wonderful to him, the same as they are to all who contemplate about it. That expression of Solomon, about the way of men in the universe, is in accordance with what he speaks of man in his Ecclesiastes. In nearly every chapter of that book he speaks of the purpose for which man is upon the earth, and upon the destiny of man after he leaves the earth, as he said in chapter third. "I said in mine heart, concerning the sons of man * * * for that which befalleth the sons of man befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other * * * all go into one place, all are of dust and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the breath of beast goeth downward to the earth?" Thus we see, that Solomon had contemplated the destiny of man and failed to ascertain "man's way in the Universe," after he leaves the earth, or after his body returns to the earth; and in Proverbs he compared the way of man in the universe, to the way of an eagle in the air; of a ship in the midst of the sea; and of a serpent upon the rock; all of which are imperceptible to the eye. It is admitted by all that the songs of Solomon, say one thing and mean another, and that the names of 442 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, females, such as sisters, daughters and virgins, are used there to designate faith, wisdom and the knowledge of God; and we have in our preface fully elucidated why- he made use of these names to express thoughts and divinity; and it is just as reasonable to say that Solo- mon actually meant "maids" by the word "Elmh," that he made use of in the thirteenth chapter of Proverbs,, or that Isaiah meant a virgin by the use that he made of the same word "Elmh" in the seventh chapter of his book, as to say that Solomon actually meant virgins in the second verse of the first chapter of his Songs, where he made use of the same word, "Elmh" or "Elmth,'^ (plural.) To say that Isaiah actually meant a virgin by his having made use of the word in question, is as unnatural and unreasonable as to say that Solomon meant a virgin and a maid by using the same word in the places before named, is ridiculous and unpardonably as well as des- picably vulgar. Let us now see whether Isaiah did mean, or whether it can be reasonably construed that he meant a virgin by the Hebrew word "H,E,L,M,H," pronounced "Hoal- moh," the "h," stands for "the." The word "Ho-almoh" or the virgin, is mentioned in a conversation between Prophet Isaiah and king Ahaz; and ^' the virgin'" means a certain or a definite virgin; hence, the virgin, (if it is meant a virgin) must either have been present or been described before in the conversation. OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 443 And if a virgin was meant by the word in question, in the conversation between Isaiah and Ahaz, and the virgin was to "conceive" and bring forth a son and call his name "Emmanuel," then all these had to take place before sixty-five years passed by from the time that Isaiah had that conversation with Ahaz, because if we take the whole conversation as it is literally expressed, then the virgin was to conceive and bring forth the son, and all the rest was to take place for the purpose of convincing Ahaz, that "in three score and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it Be not a people." This is one of the many subjects that the anti-Bible men ask of those who are yet under the idea that pre- vailed at and before the time that the New Testament was written, which was: that females conceived from deities, amongst whom we are not included, for we are not anti-Biblical, neither do we belong to those who say they believe in the unreasonable and unnatural and con- sequently absurd idea of females conceiving and bearing children from deities; nor are we a part of those who say: because that idea is an absurdity, that, therefore, they cannot or will not believe in the Bible, or in what the Bible says. Ideas of the Bible, and the Bible itself are, with us, two different and distinct things. We are for and with the Bible; hence, those who cleave to ideas must answer all these questions that reason makes anti- Biblical men ask, but gives them no answer to the ques- tions that it makes them ask, because, they have no will to ask reason for an answer, or to explain to them the questions that it asks them and they ask others; and we will leave for those who say they believe in that Pagan idea, to answer what we have already asked about that 444 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, which is supported by the absurd ideas of ancient Pagans, and we will turn our attention and appropriate our time to elucidate what Isaiah meant, which elucidation will be supported by reason and indisputable existing facts. In the conversation between Isaiah and Ahaz, the prophet told the king: "If you do not believe, surely you shall not be established." — (English version.) Hebrew text — "If you don't believe, is because you are unbelievers. " The question is: what did the proph- et desire that the king should believe? The whole verse reads thus: "And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remalia's son, if ye will not beheve * * * " It certainly cannot reasonably be said or even sup- posed, that he wanted Ahaz to believe that Samaria was the capital of Ephraim, nor that the son of Remalia was then reigning in Samaria. The prophet then tol-d the king to ask for a sign that should convince the king about the subject that the prophet desired the king to believe in; but the king said: "I will noc ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. " Isaiah told Anaz to ask for a sign, "either in the depth or in the height above." By the word depth, he certainly meant the earth, and by the words "in the height above," he certainly could have meant nothing else than the heavens; and when Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, the prophet said: "The Lord himself shall give you a sign;" and the sign was that, the "Elmh," or "Floalmoh" shall conceive and bring forth a "God with us," or "Emmanuel;" "and before the child shall know to detest the evil and choose the good, * * * the Lord shall bring upon thee and upon OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 445 thy people and upon thy father's house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria." We do not deny that the above has reference to what Christians call the New Dispensation, but we say: if Christ was what some Christians say they believe He was, a Deity, and existed at the creation of the world, then He must have understood enough to despise "the evil and choose the good," before the time that Judah was destroyed by the Assyrians, which was about four hundred years before Christ; consequently, either the sign of the conception of the "Elmh," that Isaiah gave unto Ahaz, has no reference to Christ, or Christians must obliterate from their minds the old nonsensical Pagan idea of a virgin's immaculate conception, or from the idea of a female conceiving a conception in her womb from the spirit of God, and plant their Christian faith upon, and explain what they call the New as well as the Old Testament according to and supported by reason and existing facts, for which purpose we will now, with the key of reason, open the door. If there is anything in the Bible that is not disputed either by Jew or Christian is, that if the Jews had been faithful and served God as they were commanded, that they would have prospered in their land to this day. Their unfaithfulness was the cause of their dispersion and trouble. Ahaz was a wicked king; two greater kings than he have formed an alliance to make war against him and deprive him of his kingdom, and make the "son of Tabeal king in his stead;" the heart of the king and the hearts of his people were moved by fear as the trees in the forest are movt>d by the wind. 446 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, At that time and while he was in that feeling and mind, the prophet came and told him: he need not fear, because God had determined that, before "three score and five years will pass by, Ephraim shall cease to be a people, and that if he, Ahaz, did not believe what the prophet told him, was because he was an "unbeliever," and, consequently, he shall not be established," as the seventeenth verse of the chapter in question tells us the prophet told him. "God will bring upon thee and upon thy children and upon thy father's house, days that were not seen since the days that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria;" and that was to be, and was, before the child, "God with us," or "Emmanuel," was to know to choose between good and evil. The "Elmh" conceived and the child was born, when Shalmanesser, king of Assyria, carried "away Israel into Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor, by the river Gossan, and in the cities of the Medes," and had settled the land of Israel by the nations who knew nothing of the God of Israel; but necessity compelled the king of Assyria to send some Israelites back into the land of Israel to teach his people the knowledge of the God of Israel, and how to serve him. That took place in about twenty years from the time that Isaiah gave as a sign to Ahaz, the con- ception of the "Elmh," as a sign that Ephraim, or Israel, will before sixty-five years will pass by, cease to be a people, and that Ahaz and his people will not be saved if they remain in their unfaithfulness. OR IvEY TO SCRIPTURE. 44/ The "Immanuel" was born then, but he did not then, nor for a long time thereafter, know enough to "refuse evil and choose the good." The idea or knowl- edge of the "Immanuel" was born but it did not know enough to "refuse the evil" of worshiping and serving their Pagan deities; they did not know enough to *' choose the good" of serving the God of Israel. That was not chosen before the Christian era, or New Dispensation begun. About one hundred years after the time that the king of Israel and his people were taken into Assyria, the king of Judah and his people were taken into Babylon, and there saw the birth of the child "Imman- uel," by bringing the knowledge of their God to the kings and the people of that country; but the child did not then know enough to "refuse the evil and choose the good," or to call ''my fatJier and my mother,'^ as the eight chapter of Isaiah tells us the prophet had fore- told it would be. ^ The child did not begin to call father and mother until about four hundred years later; that is the com- ma acement of the time that Christians call the New Dispensation, and that is the time of which Isaiah speaks in the ninth chapter of his book "The people that walked in darkness saw a great light; they that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined, * * * for every bat- tle of warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 448 A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, given; * # # ^nd his name shall be Won- derful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. (Immanuel.) The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it. " Christian reader and friend, do you know by what means Isaiah says God will perform it? not by the means of the Pagan idea and belief, that a virgin will conceive in her womb from the spirit of God, but that she will conceive from the spirit in her mind through the words of God, which is what the succeeding or eighth verse of the ninth chapter of Isaiah says; it reads thus: "The Lord sent a ** word" into Jacob and it hath lighted upon Israel, and all the people shall;" and as Isaiah says in the ninth verse of the eleventh chapter, which reads thus: "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." The knowledge of the Lord, with which the prophet had foretold that the world will be full, and with which we see that the world is getting filled, is the conception that the "Elmh" was to conceive, about which Isaiah spoke to Ahaz, and what we now read in the seventh chapter of the book of "Isaiah," the word "Elmh"" means universe, and that is in accordance with the pro- position that the prophet made to the king; he told him to ask a sign, either in the heavens or in the earth, which are parts of the universe, and the universe is spoken of in the feminine gender, and the word con- ceive is, in the Hebrew as well as in the English language, a great deal more often used with reference to the mind than it is to the womb. As " Conceived and uttering from the heart words of falsehood." (Isaiah, LIX: xiii:) "Behold he travaileth with iniquity, and OR KEY TO SCRIPTURE. 449 conceived mischief and brought forth falsehood.^^ (Psalm VII: xiv.) ''We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were, brought forth wind." (Isaiah XXV: xviii.) "Because they have r2//