The true history of Moses, Aaron...and others...

Front matter

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Contents

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Proemial Quotations and Observations, 12 — Religious Opinions, 24 — The Church, 26 — Christianity, 27 — Annihilation, 32 — Immortality, 34 — Schools ; Woi^- ship, 36— The Bible, 38 — Infidelity ; Euclid's Elements, 43,

Review. 47

Chapter II. Analogy.— Divisibility Of Mattek

Reasoning from analogy is certainly subject to great error ; for interest, or prereceived opinions, will influence the best judgment to suppose analogy between things where there is none at all. I think it may be considered a general, if not an unexceptionable rule, that the productions of nature and the formations of art have no analogy between them. In respect to the body of a man and a watch, though they are each a very complicated machine, and therefore easily put out of order, yet they are not alike in any of their parts, or in their composition, or in their powers. The body of a man has the power, in a considerable degree, of adapting itself to circumstances. For instance : if a man that has been brought up in a moderate climate goes into a cold climate, he will suffer much ; yet, if he continues in that climate, in a few seasons he will not only not suffer, but the climate will become agreeable to him. Not 60 with a watch ; for if you expose that to cold for years, the same degree of cold that stopped it the first time you exposed it will stop it the last time. Again : the body of a man can, by continuous use of deadly poison, enable itself to take a quantity thereof, one tenth of which, taken at the first dose, would have certainly destroyed it Not so with a watch. If on it any substance that will corrode or destroy any part of its moving power be used, ever so cautiously, commencing with the smallest portion, and increasing it with all possible caution, it will take no more, after long use, to destroy its motion, than it would have taken at first. Again : if any accident happens to the body of a man, internally or externally, if it does not destroy its vitality, the body has the power, in a considerable degree, if not entirely, to repair the injury ; but if a watch be injured in any way, it has no power to repair itself in the least. All the productions of nature have, in a greater or less degree, the power of self-reparation in cases of injury. The crab, and some others, if you take off a limb, a new one will grow in its place ; if you cut limbs from a tree, new ones take their places, &c. ; but there is no work of art that can renew or repair any part of its own organization that has been removed or injured. There is another strongly-marked diflference between the productions of nature and the formations of art : the productions of nature, generally, if not always, carry with them the means of continuing their like ; the formations of art never do : so, as before stated, there is no analogy between them. We, therefore, cannot reason from the one to the other as we can of such things as we find to contain like essences, like qualities, or like powers.

We know so little of the properties or powers of matter, that we cannot say what it can or cannot do. I once heard a preacher undertake, in his sermon, to prove that man had an immortal soul ; and the principal argument he advanced, the one on which he appeared chiefly to rely, was, that inert matter, as he called it, could not move itself; that the body of man was such matter, therefore must be moved by something superior to itself ; that that something was the soul ; that the soul was spirit, and therefore eternal. I observed to a friend, after we got out of church, whether it

could be possible that Mr. G was so blinded by his

prereceived opinions as not to see that his argument as 5* * clearly established that a dog, and every other animal, hftS an immortal soul as it did that man has.

The two following extracts will exhibit some of the properties and powers of matter : —

" It is utterly impossible for the mind to conceive of the almost infinite minuteness of an atom. A single grain of gold, for instance, might be beaten out so as to cover a square foot of space, and yet we have not approached its reduction to atoms. An admirable illustration by Depler, he would give, as he had never seen it quoted. It was this : Reduce a cubic inch of sulphur to fine powder, and you may cover with it an area of six square miles. Take one grain of this powder, triturate it thoroughly with ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk, and its presence would be detectable in every grain of the hundred. Take a grain of this and treat it in the same way with other ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk, and so on. At the third dilution, as we may call it, the powder thus resulting from a cubic inch of sulphur would cover two square miles of area; at the fifth, the empire of Austria; at the sixth, the whole of Asia and Africa ; at the ninth, it would cover the entire surface of the sun, with all its planets and their satellites. And yet, although in every grain of this powder the sulphur was found to be present, we had not reduced it to atoms. Again : it is well known that every drop of putrid water, under certain circumstances, contains millions of animalcules, invisible except to high powers of the microscope. And every one of these animalcules is a highly-organized being, having at least something analogous to a skeleton — capable of action, of pursuing, of retreating, of attack, and of defence. The globules of the blood of an elephant are perceivable only with a powerful microscope ; and the animalcules must have blood, and that blood must consist

MOSES, AARON, AND JOSHUA.

of similar globules. Once more : the homsia gigatitedi, a species of mushroom, in the space of twelve hours, shoots up from a scarcely-perceptible germ to a plant a foot in diameter. Every square inch of its surface contains three hundred and thirty-six millions of cells, every cell, with its six sides, is divided from those around it by filaments of far more complex structure than an atom of potash — and yet we have not got a glimpse even of the atoms of which they are composed. He would confess, inquiries such as these inspired him with but one feeling — fear. It was as if he were taken by some profound astronomer far among the worlds that people infinite space, and he was ready to cry out for some one to lead him back to solid ground once more. One thing only gave him comfort : he knew something higher, deeper, than those facts — it was their idea. These were, after all, only the letters in which the information is blazoned. He felt as did the deep-thoughted Pascal, when he exclaimed, that, although the universe were to crush him, he would still feel himself greater than the universe, for he knew that and how it was crushing him." — DarwivbS Lectures.

Infusoria, or Animalcules. — " Geology unfolds greater wonders in the ancient microscopic world than the mastodon, dinotherium, and other huge monsters once living, but now extinct races upon the globe. Microscopic animals we formerly supposed to be little more than particles of matter endowed with life ; recent examinations by a Prussian naturalist have discovered in them mouths, teeth, stomachs, muscles, veins, glands, eyes, and other organs. Their increase is truly astonishing. Ehrenberg, the professor," says, that of one species, a single individual is capable of becoming, in a few days, one hundred and seventy billions. It will, perhaps, be thought still more wonderful, that these animals should not only be found in a fossil state, but form the whole mass of rocks and of soil for miles in extent Chalk, and even flint, and some of the gems are found, to a great extent, to be composed of animalcules. In a manufactory of whiting, in New York, where chalk is finely pulverized, and deposited in vats, the water in which it is immersed becomes alive with moving, acting animalcules ; and it is thought by the proprietor that they furnish food for ducks, which spend much of their days and nights in the vats. A cubic inch of iron ochre is said to contain the remains of one billion of living, acting, producing beings. Upon the Alps, snow sometimes falls of a red color, and it is found that the coloring matter is composed chiefly of infusoria, or microscopic animals, which, however, die on the melting of tlie snow from excessive heat. Professor Hitch says, that, in New England and New York, silicious marl, occurring beneath peat swamps, has been shown by Professor J. W, Bailey, of "West Point, to be almost entirely made up of the fossil skeletons of infusoria, some of which appear to be identical with those found by Ehrenberg in Germany. Deposits of this silicious marl are very common in Massachusetts, and all hitherto examined contain vast numbers of these relics ; indeed, they constitute nearly the whole of the deposits. When it is considered, as those who have examined say, that one thousand millions of these animals would together form a mass no larger than a grain of sand, some idea, or rather, perhaps, no idea, can be formed of the magnitude of one of these living, moving things — each furnished with the organs of Hfe, action, and enjoyment scarcely less perfect, perhaps, than quadrupeds, fowls, and other animus, or even man, whose anatomy and mechanism we have been accustomed to admire, as proof of the existence, wisdom, power, and goodness of the great Contriver and Architect." — Self- Instructor >

These two extracts show, in some degree, the divisibility of matter.

Chapter III. The Productions Of Nature. — Testimony

NOAH.

As before stated, the productions of Nature, generally, if not always, have the means of continuing their species, and in a great degree of repairing injuries ; of avoiding injuries ; of lying dormant in situations unfavorable to life to a very great length of time, — how long we know not, — and after thus lying, if placed in a favorable situation, of springing into life. We have been assured that wheat, and other seeds, have been found embedded with Egyptian mummies, and in other situations, which must have been lying there thousands of years ; and being placed in favorable situations, have vegetated with vigor, and produced their kind. Frogs, and other animals, have been found enclosed in the body of trees, and in rocks, and other situations, where they must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, and yet alive. Seeing that Nature can do so much, if we proceed to reason, from analogy if you please, to what we do not know of her powers, and by so reasoning should come to the conclusion that she can do a great deal more than we know of, and that she may have formed, not created, things as we now find them, I do not know tliat it would be a verj'- absurd conclusion.

Be this thing creation as it may, when or by whom done, or whether it was ever done, our duty is the same. The sum total of moral rectitude is contained in one word — justice ; the sum total of moral obliquity is also contained in one word — injustice. Every word or action of a rational being that is just is moral; every word or action of a rational being that is unjust is immoral.

Before further reviewing the histories mentioned, I will state a ievi principles, which will, upon a candid examination, I think, be acknowledged to be true. First. That testimony, no matter how positive, is not such evidence as can make us know that the thing testified to is true ; nor is it sufficient evidence on which to ground a firm belief unless connected with something that we do know, having some analogy to the thing testified to. For instance : if a man that I am acquainted with, and always found to be a man of truth, was to tell me that he this morning breakfasted at a certain house in Cincinnati at eight o'clock, and is now, as I know, in Piqua, ninety miles from Cincinnati, at eight o'clock in the evening, and that he rode the same horse the whole distance, I would certainly consider it a very great ride ; yet it is quite probable that I would believe his statement. But if the same person was to make

precisely the same statement, except that it was in ,

three hundred miles from Piqua, I certainly could not believe him. If his statement was actually true I could not believe it — and why not? Because I do not believe on testimony ; for in these two cases the testifier is the same, and if I believed on testimony, that is, if I considered testimony as evidence of the truth of the statement made, I could certainly believe the one as easily as the other. How do we judge the truth or falsehood of testimony? Testimony, in general, and perhaps in every case, relates, or is in some way connected with something, the like of which we have some knowledge of. For instance : in the two statements before made, the truth or falsehood of each appears to depend on the speed and power of the horse. We examine the first, and, reasoning from what we know of the speed and power of a horse, we conclude that, though it is a long distance to ride in so short a time, it might have been done ; and believing the man to be a man of truth, we believe his statement. We examine the second statement, and, reasoning in the same manner, that is, from what we know to what we do not know, we conclude that it cannot be done ; and notwithstanding we have always considered the man a man of truth, we do not believe his statement. Then, certainly, we do not believe on testimony, but on the reasonableness of the thing testified to.

Second. That every reasonable being, no matter how wise and powerful, or how ignorant and feeble, is, by his duty to himself and to every sensitive being, bound to do all the good his knowledge, power, and situation will enable him to do.

Third. That in a well-regulated political society the only object in punishing such as violate the laws and regulations of the society, is, or ought to be, to protect the lives, the property, and the liberty of the rest of the society, or else to reform the individual punished ; and any punishment that is not calculated to accomplish one or both these objects is improper, unnecessary, unjust, and tyrannical.

Fourth. That any and every rational being who punishes another for committing a crime which he, the punisher, could have prevented being committed, without committing a crime himself, is a tyrant void of justice.

In examining the histories and biographies written, or said to have been written, by Moses, I shall commence with some of the actions of Noah, after he had come out of the ark — he being, according to Moses, the only person on the earth whom God cared any thing about ; for the other six or seven appear to have been saved because they were his: " But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

" And Noah builded an altai* unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor ; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not curse the ground any more for man's sake ; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth : neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. . . . And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth : and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah : and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard : and he drank of the wine, and was drunken ; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father : and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years : and he died." — Gen. viii. 20, 21 ; ix, 18-28.

Here we have the character of the first of God's favorites after the flood. He gets drunk, and lieth naked in his tent. One of his sons happens to see him so exposed ; he told his two brothers, and they took a garment upon their shoulders, and entered the tent backwards, and covered their father, without seeing his exposed situation. But when this favorite awoke from his drunkenness, and understood that his youngest son had seen him in his beastly exposure, he became so enraged that he pronounced the bitterest curse, not on his son, but on his grandson, Canaan, who, it does not appear, knew any thing of the matter. And where was the necessity, the morality, the justice of this abominable curse, even if it had been pronounced against Ham, the pretended offender? but being pronounced against Canaan, it violates the fundamental principle of justice, — that is, each individual shall be accountable for his own acts only, — and becomes execrable in the extreme.

Chapter IV. Moses's God. — Abraham. — Isaac. — Jacob. — Joseph

I WISH it to be understood, distinctly, and remembered, that when, in this examination, I speak of God, I mean

Moses's Grod — a being, who, as appears to me, was created by Moses for the purpose of giving some show of plausibility to his account of creation, and of the origin and progress of the people from whom he sprang ; and to enable himself and his minions to humbug and enslave his own people, and to plunder and murder all others, of every nation, that his ambitious and malignant disposition prompted him to. We will examine somewhat Moses's progress hereafter.

The first act of any importance recorded concerning Abraham is his travelling, by the command of God, (Moses's God,) in search of a land which he would show him. And notwithstanding God had expressly declared that he would show him a land, and bless him, and make him a great nation, and make his name great, and said, " I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee," (Gen. xii. 3,) Abraham appears not to have had confidence in his God ; for when in Egypt fear caused him to instruct his wife to lie to the people thereof, and himself did lie to Pharaoh. Abraham and his wife, being sent by order of Pharaoh out of Egypt, journeyed on to Gerar ; and having succeeded so well in Egypt by their lies, when they entered into Gerar they followed the same policy ; and there they succeeded better than in Egypt. Abraham told Abimelech. King of Gerar, that Sarah was his sister, and she told the king that Abraham was her brother. (Gen. xx.) Thereupon Abimelech took her ; but, as the story goes, God, in a dream by night, warned him that Sarah was Abraham's wife, and that he must restore her to Abraham, under penalty of death if he neglected so to do ; and in the mean time God afflicted Abimelech's household. As the story is related by Moses, Abimelech appears to have been a man of sound heart and clean hands, (a thing not very common among kings even in our day,) for he told God that he had been deceived by the lies of Abraham and his wife, and that that which he had done he had done " in the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands." (Gen.

XX. 5.) And God acknowledged that he knew Abimelech had so done; yet God could not or would not pardon Abimelech and his household until prayed to so to do by the lying hypocrite Abraham. When Abraham was eighty-six years old, his wife's maid had a child by him. (Gen. xvi» 16.) His wife had never had a child ; but fourteen years after the birth of her maid's son, his wife had a son, and he called his name Isaac. And the day that Isaac was weaned Abraham made a great feast. Sarah became very much displeased at some of the conduct of Ishmael, her maid's son; insisted on Abraham's driving him and his mother from the house. And early in the morning Abraham gave Hagar and her son some bread and a bottle of water, and sent them away, and they wandered in the wilderness ; and when the water was spent, she " cast the child under one of the shrubs " while she went to seek for water. Abraham was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born ; he was one hundred years old when Isaac was born; therefore Ishmael must have been fourteen years old when Isaac was born ; and it was the morning after the great feast given at the weaning of Isaac, that Hagar and her son were driven out. (Gen. xxi.) As Abraham and Sarah were both old, and Isaac the only child his mother bad ever had, it is reasonable to suppose that he was two or three years old when weaned ; at any rate, we cannot suppose him less than one year old when weaned. Then, Ishmael was over fifteen, perhaps seventeen, when he and his mother were driven from his father's house, and wandered in the wilderness. The assertion that a boy of fifteen or seventeen years old was by his mother thrown under a shrub while she went to seek water, is certainly a bright idea for an inspired writer ! But what are we to think of the justice and morality of Abraham, who got a woman, that was under his control, with child, acknowledged the child to be his, kept the woman and her son in his house a number of years, and then, on charge of a little indiscretion in the boy, turned them both off with some bread and a bottle of water to wander in the wilderness, when he was rich, and feasting sumptuously at home ?

God told Isaac not to go into Egypt, but to dwell in the land which he would show him ; and that he would be with him, and give him the land. (Gen. xxvi. 2.) And Isaac went to the same place where his father and mother both had, by the king thereof, been reproved for lying before he was born ; and the same king, or another of the same name, reigned. " And the men of the place asked him of his wife, and he said. She is my sister," (Gen. xxvi. 7;) for notwithstanding God had declared that he would be with him, he had so little confidence in the promises of his God, that he was afraid to own that she was his wife. And after he had been there a long time the king told him that the woman who had come with him was certainly his wife, and asked him why he had said she was his sister ; and he answered, that he was afraid to say she was his wife. Though Isaac had, by lying, deceived Abimelech and his people, the king allowed him to remain among them, and told his people that if any of them touched Isaac or his wife, such person should surely be put to death. (Gen. xxvi. 11.)

It appears to me that any person who will candidly examine the lives of Abraham and Isaac must conclude that they were each very deficient in morals ; or rather, that they were very licentious characters. But when we examine the life of Jacob, the son of Isaac, and grandson of Abraham, we find that in hypocrisy, lying, swindling, lewdness, and injustice he much exceeded his father or his grandfather. Jacob's first act towards his brother Esau, as recorded by Moses, was brutal and unjust, and therefore immoral in the extreme. When Esau came in very faint, and "at the point to die," (Gen. xxv. 5,) he requested Jacob to give him some food, which Jacob would not do, only on condition that Esau should sell to him his birthright, and swear to resign it, which Esau did — observing at the time, that as he was at the point to die, his birthright would be of no use to him. (Gen. xxvii. 19.) Jacob's second act was yet more atrocious than the first : that is, base hypocrisy and lying to his father, and cruel swindling and injustice to his brother ; for by his infamous deceptions he obtained the blessing which his father intended for, and supposed he had conferred on Esau. (Gen. xxviii. 5.) After Jacob had committed these atrocious acts, fearing the resentment of his brother, he left his father's house, and fled to his uncle Laban, his mother's brother, where he was paid prettily enough in his own base coin. (Gen. xxix. 18.) Having fallen in love with Rachel, his uncle's daugh- 6* t^ TRUE HISTORY OP

ter, he agreed to serve tier father seven years for lier ; at the expiration of which, Leah, Rachel's sister, deceived him, and superseded her sister. (Gen. xxix. 5.) But Jacob determined not to be wholly cheated of Rachel ; he therefore married her also, and served her father other seven years. (Gen. xxix. 30.) And when Jacob and his father-in-law parted, Rachel stole some of her father's gods, (Gen. xxxi. 19 ;) and when Laban pursued, and charged them with the theft, Rachel, by lies and hypocrisy of the most shameful grade, deceived her father, (Gen. xxxi. 35,) so he did not find his property, though it was then in their possession ; and Jacob became very angry, and crimination and recrimination took place very freely between him and his wives' father. Finally, Laban, knowing that himself and son-in-law were both rogues, and not trustworthy in any respect, proposed that they should set up a landmark between them, and each swear not to pass said landmark on to the premises of the other with intention to do harm, (Gen. xxxi. 44 :) so they parted, and Laban returned home. Jacob, before his marriage, had made a vow which clearly showed his disposition to make contracts as favorable to himself as possible. He vowed, that " if God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God : and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house : and of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." (Gen. xxviii. 20-22.) Here was an offer which I suppose the veriest miser would at any time be glad to make, if he thought it would be acceded to ; that is, if God would give him a plenty of all that he should desire, he would certainly give back to God one tenth thereof. Jacob had two wives, and each wife had a handmaid which she gave to her husband to be his concubine. Jacob, having women so plenty, became indifferent about his first wife, (Gen. xxx. 16 ;) so much so that she had to pay hire in order to get him to lie with her one night. From such parents we ought not to expect virtuous or moral children ; and the record showeth that theirs were such as it is reasonable to expect of such parents. Their history can be read in the Bible, and it is disgusting to review such trash.

Joseph, according to the record, appears to have been the most virtuous and moral man of all his family, from his great-grandfather down to himself and brethren. Perhaps he owed his superiority of character to his being taken from his family and nation when young, seventeen years old, and brought up by a people of better manners and better morals than the corrupt, dishonest, and lewd Hebrews. Yet Joseph appears not to have had a very high regard for right and justice, but fully as much as is customary for officers of government to have where kingcraft and priestcraft have sway. (Gen. xli. 48.) In the seven plentiful years he gathered up all the surplus corn ; and when the dearth came, and the very people that had made all the corn that he had stored up were starving from want of corn, he made them first pay all their money, (Gen. xlvii. 14, 16-23,) then all their cattle, next all their lands, and finally themselves, to be servants to Pharaoh. The clergy were there, as in every other country, a privileged order, (Gen. xlvii. 22 ;) they were fed from the public cribs, gratis ; so they retained their property and freedom.