* Oh! what a mountain of faith and prejudice is required to hide this glaring, this palpable truth! ** See Lucian's "Alexander." It appears an awkward business that the omniscient Jehovah could not safely undertake the midnight massacre of Egypt's firstborn, without some sign to prevent the possibility of his committing a blunder, by falling foul of his chosen Goshenites; and, therefore, another general order is issued, to smear their doorposts with blood as a mark of security, while the butchery was going on. This shocking tale might have arisen out of the historical fact, that the seventh Ptolemy caused all the young men of Alexandria to be murdered. This inference may be objected to on account of the supposed anachronism, respecting which we shall make a short digression. Precise historical dates have been carefully avoided or obscured by the Bible-makers; and there is scarcely any allusion to _time_, that is supported by concurrent testimony; and, therefore, it is only by a cross-examination of its internal evidence, that we can judge of the various periods when the Old Testament was compiled.* * All the narrative writings of the Jews, which betrayed too openly a recent composition, such as the Maccabees (which in a historical point of view, are the most valuable parts of the Bible), and many others were excluded, and declared apocryphal by the Old Testament composers; yet numerous tell-tale proofs escaped them; for instance, Nehemiah speaks of "Darius the Persian." Now, between Cyrus and that prince, there reigned fourteen kings of Persia, during a period of 280 years. Therefore, not only were the Jew books written after their Babylonian slavery, _but many centuries afterwards_.