bold to infer
might be invented when that generation had passed, when the credulity of
coming ages might lead men to believe in such foolish and monstrous
imaginings, like the labours of Hercules, the amours of Jove, and the
cannibal exploits of Saturn."

"Nay, but hear me. Whenever such a story was first promulged, were it
then stated that not only public monuments remained to attest the event,
but that public rites and ceremonies were kept up for its express
commemoration, which rites were to that day continual, and to which
those writings appealed as evidence attesting the performance of such
miracles, then must the deceit have been rendered but the more glaring
and easy of detection, as no such monuments could exist, no rites, no
ceremonies demonstrating the truth of this appeal could be in
observance. Thus, if I should now invent the tale about something done
two thousand odd years ago, a few might, peradventure, be credulous
enough to believe me; but if I were to say that ever after, even to this
day, every male had his nose slit and his ears bored in memory of this
event, it would be absolutely impossible that I should gain credit for
my story, because the universality of the falsehood being manifest, and
the attestation thereof visibly untrue, would prove the whole history to
be false. Such were the rites and customs of the Jews."

"But still, rites and observances were practised by the heathen, which
ceremonies ye acknowledge to have been false and impious, yet their
followers worshipped and slid their neck into the yoke as readily as thy
favourite Hebrews, who are proverbially rogues and cheats in the
estimation even of infidels themselves."

"Ay, but impostors appeal not to facts, to eye-witnesses of some event,
confirming and attesting the authority of their mission. Moses could not
have persuaded half-a-million of persons that he had brought them
through the Red Sea, fed them forty years with manna in the wilderness,
and performed many other miracles during their journey, had not the
facts been well known; and down to this day the rites and ceremonies of
the Jews are, in consequence, linked to these main facts as securely as
though we ourselves had formed the first series of the chain,
eye-witnesses to the miracles they attest. Again, the books of Moses
expressly represent that they are the great history and transcript of
the Jewish law, and speak of their being delivered by him and kept in
the ark from