Produced by Charles Klingman
From
A Reply
"Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with theeast wind?""Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speecheswherewith he can do no good?—Thou chooseth[fn1] the tongue ofthe crafty. Thy own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thineown lips testify against thee.""Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument havingteeth."
1824.
[PG Editor's Note: Many printer's errors in this texthave been retained as found in the original—in particularthe will be found a large number of mismatched andwrongspace quotation marks.]
WHEN I left America, I had no intention of giving Mr. Everett'sbook a formal answer: but having learned since my arrival in theOld World, that: the controversy in which I had engaged myselfhad attracted some attention, and had been reviewed by adistinguished member of a German university, my hopes of beingserviceable to the cause of truth and philanthrophy are revived,and I have therefore determined to give a reply to Mr. Everett'spublication.
In this Work, as in my prior writings, I have taken for granted theDivine Authority of the Old Testament, and I have argued upon theprinciple that every book, claiming to be considered as a Divinerevelation and building itself upon the Old Testament as upon afoundation, must agree with it, otherwise the superstructurecannot stand. The New Testament, the Talmud, and the Koran areall placed by their authors upon the Law and the Prophets, as anedifice is upon its foundation; and if it be true that any or all ofthem be found to be irreconcileable with the primitive Revelationto which they all refer themselves, the question as to their DivineAuthority is decided against them, most obviously and completely.
This work was written in Egypt and forwarded to the U. States,while I was preparing to accompany Ismael Pacha to the conquestof Ethiopia; an expedition in which I expected to perish, andtherefore felt it to be my duty to leave behind me, something fromwhich my countrymen might learn what were my real sentimentsupon a most important and interesting subject; and as I hopedwould learn too, how grossly they had been deluded into buildingtheir faith and hope upon a demonstrated error.
On my arrival from Egypt I found that the MS. had not beenpublished, and I was advised by several, of my friends to abandonthe struggle and to imitate their example; in submitting to thedespotism of popular opinion, which, they said, it was imprudent tooppose. I was so far influenced by these representations—extraordinary indeed in a country which boasts that here freedomof opinion and of speech is established by law—that I intended toconfine myself to sending the MS. to Mr. Everett; in the belief thatwhen he should have the weakness of his arguments in behalf ofwhat he defended and the injustice of his aspersions upon me,fairly and evidently laid before him, that he would make me atleast a private apology. He chose to preserve a sullen silence,probably believing that he is so securely seated in the saddlewhich his brethren