lling to
allow to facts attested under the _solemnity_ of _an oath_. One could
hardly have anticipated this _atheistical_ appeal to the credulity of
the public, even tho' human nature were as vile and monstrous in
_others_, as it appears to be in _that author_. But perhaps there was a
necessity for it, in order to preserve the _dark_ uniformity of his
production. If, as has been asserted more than _one_ of his prominent
certifiers (among whom I would by no means rank these men) are
themselves _atheists_, what could he swear them upon?--Upon the
evangelists think you?--He might as well swear them on Payn's age of
reason, or his own vile book itself. Where they "believe that their
miserable bodies must take eternal refuge in the grave, and the last
puff of their nostrils will send their souls to annihilation, they
laugh at the solemnity of an oath and tell you that the grave into
which they sink as a log, forms an intrenchment against the throne of
God, and the vengeance of exasperated justice!" Such is the character
which the writer fixes upon _himself_.--Such is the character which
several of his _disciples_ sustain in public.

True, the falsity of an extra-judicial oath, carries with it no
_temporal_ punishment; but the _moral obligation_ remains to give it
validity. That _eternal reward or punishment_ which the _Citizen_ has
taken so much pains to blot out from the mind of his readers, will
still continue the delight and terror of the Christian, the eternal
fountain of his hopes and fears;--with him a sufficient motive to
truth, without the artificial and imperfect aid of _national law_. The
affidavits of four or five _credible witnesses_ were already before the
public, that Mr. Young's Colleagues did make a charge against him; but
it seems that every moral sanction must be trampled upon or trifled
with by the _Citizen_, to secure a triumph for his false and infidel
principles. He skips, like a grasshopper, over facts and premises and
propositions, and perches upon his pitiful assertions, which he wishes
the public to pervert into conclusions. Why did he not give these
affidavits lo the public?--He cannot surely complain that he forgot
them, for they appear to haunt his guilty imagination through the whole
of his progress; nor can he complain of wanting room. But the answer is
easy. He knew it would make his bait so very bad that even his own
gulls would not nibble.--

He was afraid of injuring his credit as an auth