“The antiquities of every nation under Heaven are no less sacred than those of the Jews, they are the same thing, as Jacob Bryant and all antiquaries have proved. How other antiquities came to be neglected and disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected and arranged is an enquiry, worthy of both the Antiquarian and the Divine. All had originally one language, and one religion, this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preached the Gospel of Jesus, the reasoning historian, turner and twister of courses and consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, cannot with all their artifice, turn or twist one fact, or disarrange self evident action and reality. Reasons and opinions concerning acts are not history. Acts themselves alone are history, and they are neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire, Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the acts O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading. Tell me the What; I do not want you to tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable, or impossible. His opinion, who does not see spiritual agency, is not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is improbable, must reject all History, and retain doubts only. “It has been said to the Artist, take the Apollo for the model of your beautiful man, and the Hercules for your strong man, and the Dancing Fawn for your ugly man. Now he comes to his trial. He knows that what he does is not inferior to the grandest antiques. Superior they cannot be, for human power cannot go beyond either what he does, or what they have done, it is the gift of God, it is inspiration and vision. He had resolved to emulate those precious remains of antiquity. He has done so, and the result you behold. His ideas of strength and beauty have not been greatly different. Poetry as it exists now on earth, in the various remains of ancient authors, Music as it exists in old tunes or melodies, Painting and Sculpture as it exists in the remains of antiquity and in the works of more modern genius, is Inspiration, and cannot be surpassed; it is perfect and eternal: Milton, Shakspeare, Michael Angelo, Rafael, the finest specimens of ancient Sculpture and Painting, and Architecture, Gothic, Grecian, Hindoo and Egyptian are the extent of the human mind. The human mind cannot go beyond the gift of God, the Holy Ghost. To suppose that Art can go beyond the finest specimens of Art that are now in the world, is not knowing what Art is; it is being blind to the gifts of the Spirit. “It will be necessary for the Painter to say something concerning his ideas of Beauty, Strength and Ugliness.