urner's Anglo-Saxons, b. vii. chap. 13.

[58] Diodorus Siculus, b. xx. chap. 14.

[59] Aristotle, Polit. lib. vii. chap. 17.

[60] Horne's Introduction of the Scriptures, Vol. I. page 25.

[61] Printed repeatedly in New York newspapers, and given entire in the
report of the discussion between Dr. Berg and Mr. Barker. W. S. Young,
Philadelphia, 1854.

[62] _The Occident_, 20th August, 1874, San Francisco.

[63] Ardeches' Life of Napoleon I. 222.

[64] Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures, Vol. I. page 26, where
ample references to contemporary French writers are given.

CHAPTER V.

WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT?

"The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token
in every epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you all. Amen."--2 Thess. iii. 17.

Religion rests not on dogmas, but on a number of great facts. In a
previous chapter we found one of these to be, that people destitute of a
revelation of God's will ever have been, and now are, ignorant,
miserable, and wicked. If it were at all needful, we might go on to show
that there are people in the world, who have decent clothing and
comfortable houses, who work well-tilled farms and sub-soil plows, and
reaping machinery, who yoke powerful streams to the mill wheel, and
harness the iron horse to the market wagon, who career their floating
palaces up the opposing floods, line their coasts with flocks of
white-winged schooners, and show their flags on every coast of earth,
who invent and make everything that man will buy, from the brass button,
dear to the barbarian, to the folio of the philosopher, erect churches
in all their towns, and schools in every village, who make their
blacksmiths more learned than the priests of Egypt, their Sabbath
scholars wiser than the philosophers of Greece, and even the criminals
in their jails more decent characters than the sages, heroes, and gods
of the lands without the Bible; and that these people are the people who
possess a Book, which they think contains a revelation from God,
teaching them how to live well; which Book they call the Bible. This is
the book about which we make our present inquiry, Who wrote it?

The fact being utterly undeniable, that these blessings are found among
the people who possess the Bible, and only among them, we at once, and
summarily, dismiss the arrogant falsehood presented to prevent any
inquiry about the Book, namely, that "Christia