The influence of these rights [fn91] and ceremonies--and no religion can perpetually exist without them, for after all the [fn92] man is the slave of his senses, and powerfully affected by the impressions made upon them--cannot be doubted by one who attentively considers their amazing magnificence. A temple blazing with the most precious productions of the mine,[fn93] and inaccessible to all but the consecrated descendants of one man, standing at the extremity of an immense area covered with variegated marble, and surrounded by magnificent corridors and porticos; a gorgeous host of nearly forty thousand priests,[fn94]: to minister at the ever smoking altar, and to nourish the eternal fire; the golden ewer containing the hallowed blood of atonement, and the censer streaming [fn95] clouds of fragrance, in the hands of the trembling descendant of Aaron approaching the inner sanctuary of the INVISIBLE AND ALMIGHTY; three hundred sons of song, accompanied with psaltery and cymbal, and "the harp with a solemn sound," resounding the attributes of HIM WHO IS, AND EVER SHALL BE;[fn96] and hundreds of thousands of worshippers prostrating their foreheads on the pavement in awe and extacy, as the temple shines forth with the Shechinah, streaming its rainbow glories into the heart of heaven, and covering the earth with its effulgence, plainly showing that GOD IS THERE! This, all this Mr. Everett pronounces, "all calculated to occupy the attention of a simple and unfeeling [fn97] people." p. 344.[fn98] There is, not however, a philosopher 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.