osopher on earth that would [fn99] walk barefoot over its whole
circumference to witness such a sight.

With this terminates my reply to Mr. Everett. I leave it to his
consideration, whether he has fulfilled the magnificent promises
held out to the public in the splendid table of contents prefixed to
his book, from which it should seem as if I were actually crushed
into the dust; and I leave it to the consideration of my abused and
deluded countrymen, whether the heavy artillery of the law and
the prophets, which I have wheeled but from the Old Testament,
has not fairly blown the old board fences behind which a crazy
superstition is ensconced, and which Mr. Everett has painted up to
look like real fortifications, and mounted with quaker guns, to
splinters and fragments.

THE SLING.

WHAT was the real history and character of Jesus Christ?

Mr. Everett had a right to consider my expressions, relative to this
subject contained in my first work, as "far from being explicit;" for
in fact I hardly knew what to think of the unparalelled son of Mary.
That he was a pious and blameless man, I conceived that no man
of good heart could doubt, while the supposition that he claimed to
be the Messiah, I believed and still believe to be incompatible with
such a character as his.

With the reader's permission, I will now state what I conceive may
have been the real truth with regard to him.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was certainly a righteous man,
and probably one who wished to bring back his countrymen, to a
rational observance of the law, and to abandon their traditions.

He appeared in an age when the religious part of the Jewish
nation had made the law in many respects of none effect by those
traditions, and had rendered their religion a stumbling block to the
Gentiles, by reason of the puerile superstitions they had added to
it: thus counteracting the express design, for which they had been
set apart from other nations, viz. to bring them to the knowledge
and acknowledgement of the unity and supremacy of God;) and
violating the command of Moses, "ye shall not add unto the word
which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it; for
this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the
nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this
great nation is a wise and understanding people." Deut. ch. iv.--
and when the irreligious part of the nation, had become dreadfully
corrupt.