It

Now, sir, the question is by no means what it was. has assumed quite another aspect, and it would have been Whether Mofair dealing to have told your readers so.

ses could write the Pentateuch or not; whether we received it as he wrote it, or whether the public. Scribes or Prophets have made trifling additions; are only mere, points of criticism upon which a person may form his opinion upon consideration of the various grounds with the chance of only mistaking.

But if the principal facts related in those books be in most instances evidently false and incredible, the book is by no means worthy either of Moses or of any other inspired writer. Hence, to prove the falsehood of those supposed facts, would be all at once to destroy both the authenticity and the inspiration of those books held in such estimation during so many ages. This is evidently the object of your writers, who distort facts as they please, and in their manner of relating the circumstances, endea vour to throw over the entire such an appearance of im probability and absurdity as must disgust the reader.

The adoration of the Golden Calf is one of those facts. which they have most violently attacked. They say it is in its own nature impossible, inconceivable in its circumstances, and the results most unjust and barbarous ; hence they conclude, that this as well as many other chapters were added to the books of Moses.

We will consider their difficulties and endeavour to remove them and though we shall take the liberty of transposition in their order, we will not blink one of

Whether it is possible for the most expert Chemist to reduce gold to dust so that it may be drank ?.

If we are to believe these writers, It is impossible to reduce gold to dust, so that it may be drank; and the most expert Chemist could not do it.

Are they confident of the truth of their assertion?—Or if they are not quite certain of its truth, why will they decide so peremptorily?

We shall not quote from the works of our own Chemists, though you cannot but know that the Hebrews have been long famous for their chemical skill: and great kings have not been ashamed to employ the children of Abraham as supervisors of their foundries. Yet we shall not quote from them,-No-It is by the testimony of Christians we wish to confute those baptized infidels.

Sthal was a Christian, and a first rate Chemist, yet he did not argue as they did He did not say, "I do not know by what process this may be performed-There fore no body can do it." Therefore the Jewish Legislator has recorded a falsehood, or else this falsehood has been added to his works, like many others. More skil• ful and less conceited, he was of opinion, that before we would condemn an ancient author, aye, the most ancient of all authors that we have known, and one who during so many ages, and in so many nations, had been looked apon as inspired, he should at least make some little enquiry: and before he would pronounce in so decisive and dogmatic a manner upon this supposed impossibility, as your gentlemen critics have done, he thought it right to he certain of it, and to have it made quite plain by repeated experiments. What was the consequence?-His enquiry led him to the discovery of a very simple and easy mode of doing, what you believed to be physically impossible. Be good enough, Sir, to read in his Opuscules a dissertation on this subject, and you will find that a mixture of salt of tartar and sulphur, will reduce Gold to dust, so that it may be drank.

We could also refer you to the Memoirs of your Academy of science, but doubtless, Sir, you do not read them, as you say that in those eighty volumes, there is but a ollection of vain systems, and nothing useful. At all events glance for a moinent at a work, called The Origin of Laws, and of the Arts and Sciences, or at onentitled A new Course of Chemistry, by one of your most skilful physicians, and you will there find that "Natron, a substance found in the East, but particularly "on the banks of the Nile, produces the same effect, and "that Moses must have been perfectly well acquainted. "with its properties, nor could he better punish the infi-,

delity

delity of the Israelites, than by making them drink this dust, because gold made potable by this process has a most abominable taste."

This possibility of reducing gold to a potable state has been repeated an hundred times after Sthal and Senac, in the works and lectures of your most celebrated Chemists. Baron, Macquer, &c. &c. all are agreed upon it. We have just now before us only The new Edition of Chemistry, by Le Fevre. He teaches it as well as the others, and adds, "that nothing is more certain, and that there "cannot be the shadow of a doubt upon the subject." What is your opinion now, Sir? Do you not think the testimony of those skilful men far preferable to that of your critics? To what will those uncircumcised folk betake themselves now? They know nothing of chemistry, but they should be talking of it. It would have been much better they had saved themselves from the ridiculo to which they have been exposed.

But, Sir, when you were transcribing this ridiculous objection, were you not aware that the most wretched chemist could refute you? Chemistry is not your fort. "Hence Mr. Rouelle's anger was excited, his eyes spar"kled, and his indignation was roused, when by chance "he happened to read some passages of your works.". You had better keep to making verses, Sir,-You may blow the Epic Trumpet, and dispute the prize with Edripides and Sophocles, but resign the knowledge of arts to Pott and Margro

Here is then, Sir, the main objection of your scribblers, and that which they looked upon as their chief · bulwark completely blown up. We had better go on to another.

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H

Whether either a miracle or three months labour was necessary, to make the Golden Calf?

Those learned Critics again assert, that it was impossible without a miracle to cast the Golden Calf in less time than three months. They again wish to deceive, op else they are dupes.

"One of the most celebrated French Chemists,»

One would think they believed the calf was a Collossus. But surely, Sir, you cannot have forgotten, that our Fathers wished to have it fit to be carried at the head of their army. Make for us, say they,-Gods who may go before us; you may well conceive that under those circumstances it was not at all necessary that the idol should be as heavy as the horse of Henry IV. or as the Lacoon at Marly. Those Gentlemen Critics have doubtless seen a picture of the Golden Calf, and making no allowance for the painter's whim, have fancied they knew all about the size of the original. But this was bad reasoning. You know, sir, that painters are often as little worthy of credit as poets.

Some of your Christians have written that this Golden Idol was a representation of a human body, with a Calf's head, just after the model of Anubis with his dogs head, as he is shewn in the Museums of the curious, or like the Cherubim with the Calve's Heads which you mention somewhere You think, sir, that this was the idol Apis. Well, be it so -Now Sir, do you think that a miracle was absolutely necessary for the purpose of having cast a postable grotesque figure of Apis in the style of the Egyptians, who were the tutors in the art of our Fathers?We do not say that our ancestors had perhaps some short. way of which we are ignorant of doing the work, yet by the bye this conjecture would not appear very strange. Just go, sir, to the first founder in your way; I assure you if you get him the necessary materials, press him and pay him. well, he will give you a thing of the sort in less than a week. We have not spent much time in searching, and we met two who asked only three days. There is some difference between that and three months, and we have little doubt but if you look about you well, you will find people who would do it in less time.

Whether Aaron cast the Golden Calf in one day, For the purpose of either making it necessary to have recourse to a miracle, or of making out a palpable absurvity in the relation, those. Critics say, "that the people applied for the Golden Calf, to the brother of Moser, on the eve of the day of his descent from the mountain, and at Aaron cast the Calf in one day,

Where have the good folk discovered those particulars? Doubtless in their imaginations, for certainly there is no such relation in the scripture. We have no account of the day when the demand was made, nor of the length of time Aaron was occupied in the work.

If therefore it be physically impossible, as they say it is. to cast the golden calf in one day: if the fact would be absurd, or miraculous, which is all one to them, it is a fact related by them and not by Moses. With what face can they attribute to the sacred writer what he never said!It is an easy matter to find absurdities in abundance in any author when we can make him say what we please, and when we can, without scruple, father upon him all our own ridiculous farrago.'

Thus, Sir, three days, and perhaps less, would have been sufficient to enable Aaron to cast the Golden Calf and it not related in any place that he did it in one dayNow, sir, give me your opinion of the objection made by your Critics,

IV...

Whether it`was impossible for the Jews to give gold enough to make the Idol?

Collins, Tindal, and Bollingbroke, &c. &c. cannot conceive how the Jews, who had not wherewithal ta mend their sandals, could have asked for a calf of massy gold.

This word massy upon which, they dwell with pleasure, and which you repeat with affection, cannot impose apon us. Massy as the golden calf might have been, we know that it was portable, and consequently could not be mighty heavy."

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"But at length," you say, "How could the Jews give even gold, enough to make a portable calf?"

How could they ?" The book of Exodus will inform you. "It was," says the sacred writer, "by putting into the hands of Aaron the golden earings of their wives, and their sons and daughters.'

Let us suppose, sir, that of the two millions at which you yourself rate the Hebrew people, there were only one hundred and fifty thousand as well women as children who wore gold earings, and that each pair of earings

weighed