I am glad there is now a probability of coming to close quarters with my friend and opponent.

      [Here the Honorable Chairman rose and stated, the impression of the Board to be, that the affirmative of the proposition now in debate rests with Mr. Owen. Unless he make out the affirmative, that his facts are irreconcilable to the Christian religion, he fails to establish his proposition. The bare proof or admission of the twelve facts by no means establishes the proposition of Mr. Owen. It is one thing to lay down facts and prove them to be true, and another thing to ascertain the legitimate results from these facts. Mr. Owen succeeds but in part when he proves his facts. If the argument were to be suspended, Mr. Owen's proposition would not be sustained. Holding the affirmative of the proposition, Mr. Owen's onus probandi is not only to show that his facts are true, but that they are irreconcilable to Christianity, and all other religions assumed to be veritable systems.]

      Mr. Owen rises--Mr. Chairman: I accord with this view of the [181] Board, and shall proceed to-morrow to demonstrate the discrepancies between Christianity and these twelve facts.

      Mr. Campbell rises again--Mr. Chairman: In the meantime I ask to be indulged with permission to prosecute the argument which I have thus far introduced. When I sat down, I had got to the position that all the experience of man amounted to no more than his memory; but this is to be understood sub modo. When I defined experience thus, I meant to exclude every particle of knowledge derived from faith in testimony. I meant personal experience in the strictest sense, and had reference only to the precise quantum of information to be acquired by individuality of experience. But as we have advanced thus far toward the true point on which Christianity is founded, I deem it important to aid my opponent by adducing facts, additional to his twelve, in evidence of the verity of the Christian religion. I require the concession of only one postulatum in order to establish the verity of the Christian religion. That postulate I will couch in the following terms: The Christian religion, as well as the Jewish, is founded upon certain matters of fact--or rather, these religions being founded upon certain matters of fact, it follows that, if these facts be true, the whole system of the Christian religion must be true. Well, then, my postulate is, that the Christian religion, as well as the Jewish, being founded upon matters of fact, it follows, logically, that, if these facts are proved to be true, the religions founded upon them are thereby demonstrated to be equally true. In producing our deductions concerning the truth of Christianity, it is necessary first of all to have respect to the Jewish religion. This is not an inquiry into any matter of abstract, or philosophical, or mathematical, or political speculation. The seven sciences have nothing at all to do with it. The subject of inquiry is now, What is or is not matter of fact? We are fully warranted in premising that the question concerning the verity of Christianity is exclusively a question of fact, to be tried by all the rules of evidence which govern our decision upon any question of historical fact derived from times of equal antiquity. We contend that every faculty of mind, and every mode of reasoning that can be brought to bear upon any question of fact, may be legitimately exercised upon all the facts connected with the Christian religion. Let us then adduce these facts.

      In the first place, it is recorded that in the days of Moses the children of Israel amounted to six hundred thousand fighting men, exclusive of the old men, the females, and the children! most probably the whole Jewish population at that period did not fall short of two [182] millions. At any rate, we have the fact that six hundred thousand fighting men passed out of Egypt and walked through the Red Sea; that they reached Mount Sinai; that there they saw a visible manifestation of Deity; that they heard his voice proclaim the decalogue; that they were fed with manna in the wilderness for forty years; that they had a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to guide them through the wilderness; that they were fed with quails, and drank limpid water from a rock of flint, smitten by the rod of Moses; and that they passed through the river Jordan as over dry land. These are the matters of fact which constitute the foundation of the Jewish religion. And these being proved to be matters of fact, it follows that the religion founded upon them is true. I presume that my friend and opponent would admit that if it were proved to him that these six hundred thousand men passed through the Red Sea as over dry land--heard the voice of God, and witnessed the awful symbols of his presence from Mount Sinai--that they gathered manna in the wilderness--drank the living water which issued from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses--paused through the refluent waters of Jordan--I presume, I say, that all these things being proved to my opponent to be facts, he would admit, without scruple, that the religion built upon them is true.

      Now, I do assert that of the verity of these facts we have every species of evidence that human reason requires, that the most skeptical mind could require upon any other subject of equal antiquity, or that the nature of the case permits to be adduced in attestation of the verity of ancient historic facts. I have asserted that we have every species of evidence of the verity of these facts, and of this religion, that right reason requires. In order to prove these facts, we must lay down certain criteria by which we are enabled to decide with certainty upon all questions of historic fact. In the first place, then, you will observe that we have certain criteria by which we are enabled to discriminate between the truth and fallacy of testimony; and it is our every-day practice, in the ordinary concerns of life, to avail ourselves of these criteria. We do not believe everything without scruple. We are often glad of the opportunity of examining oral and written testimony, and we generally find some way to elicit the truth, or detect the fallacy of certain reported facts. These criteria, when applied to any reported fact, force us to the conclusion that it is either true or false. Were it not for these criteria, by which we are enabled to appreciate the value of testimony, we would, in the ordinary course of society, be liable to constant deceptions, inasmuch as the conscientious speaking [183] of the truth is not the distinguishing virtue of the present age. These criteria are various; but wherever there is a perfect consistency and accordance between the fact reported and the testimony, adduced to prove it, conviction of the verity of that fact necessarily follows. In the first place the consistency of the testimony, with our present experience in matters of this sort, is a safe criteria whereby to test the verity of all matters of ordinary occurrence, i. e., taken in connection with the character of the reporter, and all the other media through which we receive the testimony. All these are scrutinized in order to ascertain the truth in ordinary cases; but to facts incrusted with the venerable rust of antiquity--a rust which has been accumulating for four thousand years--the application of the ordinary criteria of more recent facts would be futile.

      The desideratum is to establish certain criteria which will satisfactorily demonstrate that facts reported to have occurred four thousand years ago are true. And these criteria I now propose to present to you--not the criteria of facts which occurred yesterday, or today; but of facts which transpired four thousand years ago. These criteria, then, are resolvable into four particulars. (And, by the way, we wish any defect or imperfection in these criteria to be designated by any person who can discover it.) First, then, we allege, that, in order to judge with certainty of the truth of facts which occurred so long ago, the facts reported must have been what we call sensible facts; such as the eyes of the spectators, and all their other senses might take cognizance of. Secondly, that these sensible alleged facts were exhibited with every imaginable public and popular attestation, and open to the severest scrutiny which their extraordinary character might induce. The facts we are now testing by these two criteria, were, I affirm, in the first place, sensible facts; and secondly, they were exhibited under circumstances of extraordinary publicity. Thirdly, that there have been certain monumental and commemorative institutions, continuing from that time to the present, as a perpetual attestation of these facts--that each of these observances was instituted in perpetuam memoriam rei. Fourthly, that these monumental proofs existed simultaneously with the transpiration of the facts which they are intended to perpetuate--that they continue in existence up to the present hour:

      1. The facts relied upon were sensible facts.

      2. They were facts of remarkable notoriety.

      3. There now exist standing monuments in perpetual commemoration of these facts.

      Lastly, these commemorative attestations have continued from the [184] very period in which the facts transpired, up to the present time. The facts on which we rely have all these four criteria. I am willing to submit them to all the tests which can be applied to any other recorded facts of antiquity. And I repeat, with a confidence that fears no refutation, that no fact accompanied with these four criteria ever was proved to be false. Nay, we will demonstrate that no fact which can abide these criteria CAN be false.

      Let us now come to the prominent facts on which the Jewish religion was first founded. 1st. I have stated that six hundred thousand men are said to have walked through the Red Sea as over dry land, in consequence of Moses' rod being extended over it; they are said to have stood still upon the opposite shore, while the Egyptians, their pursuers, were drowned by the returning of the waters. The question is, Was this a sensible fact? We will say nothing at present concerning the ten plagues of Egypt, but will now advert to another fact intimately connected with this subject. On the night immediately preceding the departure of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, it became necessary, before the hard heart of Pharaoh would relent so far as to let these people go, to send forth a destroying angel, by whom the first-born of the land were slain. This was, most certainly, a sensible fact, of such paramount and engrossing interest as to arouse every sense, and call forth every faculty in the thorough investigation of it. These two facts, to pass over all others, are of the character promised. They are not only sensible facts, but they are facts of a character to take hold of, and to make an indelible impression upon, every faculty and sense belonging to mankind. Well, now, so far these facts correspond with our first criterion. The next question is, Were they publicly exhibited in open day and in the face of witnesses? I only propose this question in order to fix your attention. Every man who has heard of these facts, knows that they were exhibited in the face of the most enlightened realm of antiquity, many of them in the very court of Pharaoh, which was crowded with the greatest statesmen and scholars that then existed. The people to be delivered were themselves six hundred thousand in number, each of them individually and deeply interested; so that all the recollections connected with their state of vassalage; all their national feelings of hostility toward their oppressors; in short, every sort of feeling which belongs to man, was called into exercise to the very highest degree of excitement; and all these concurring to impress their minds indelibly with the marvelous and stupendous character of the fact. Therefore, there is no matter of fact on record more notorious than these. In like [185] manner, the eating of the manna and drinking of the waters from the rock are sensible facts, and in their nature must have been most notorious. In them all there is not a single matter of fact on which the Jewish religion is founded that is not in its nature sensible and notorious.

      We next ask, Are there any commemorative institutions now existing in attestation of these facts? Yes, for the whole Jewish nation exists at this day. Notwithstanding all the mighty empires of antiquity, which once flourished in history, and in their turns controlled the temporal destinies of the world, have sunk, one after another, into dust--have so crumbled to atoms, as to leave no trace behind them--not even a living man who can say one drop of Grecian or Roman blood flows in his veins--one nation, one monumental nation of antiquity, yet remains--a nation who can trace their lineage up to its source--a monumental nation, with monumental institutions, which prove them to be the legitimate seed of Abraham, and which stamp the seal of verity upon the historic facts recorded of this people. Do not their circumcision and their passover still exist?

      We have now applied three of our criteria in attestation of the facts relied upon. The fourth is, that the commemorative monuments instituted simultaneously with the transpiration of the facts to be preserved and perpetuated, have never been out of existence from that period up to the present hour. Moses tells them, on the very night preceding their departure from the land of Egypt, to take a lamb, to be called the Paschal Lamb, and to dress and eat it in a peculiar manner. This festival was to be observed on that night, and under circumstances calculated, on every return of its anniversary, to excite the recollections and the feelings of the Jewish nation. He tells them that they must, on every anniversary of this festival, eat the passover with a strict observance of all rites and circumstances; that they must eat with their loins girded, and with such other adjuncts as should remind them of the sorrows of their captivity in Egypt. Now we are able to show that there never has been an interval from that period down to the present, in which the anniversary of the feast of the passover has not been solemnly celebrated. This feast was instituted on that memorable night, and has continued unchanged down to the present period. But this is only an item of the monumental evidences of historic truth pervading the singular annals of this most interesting people. This signal deliverance from the house of bondage is commemorated by institutions attended with such peculiar adjuncts as entwine themselves around the hearts of men--adjuncts, which, in the very act of [186] commemorating, call into exercise all the feelings incident to human nature. Of this character is the institution which devotes the first-born of the land to the Lord.

      The Jews were not permitted to consider their first-born as their own, but as belonging to the Lord, as given to him in memory of their redemption from the house of bondage. It is now not simply the passover which commemorates the fact of deliverance from the land of Egypt, but this separation and appropriation of the first-born of the land to the Lord perpetuates the fact. This devotion of the first-born to the Lord is calculated in its nature to engross the whole heart of man. Men are not to be persuaded to part with their children, or their substance, except by the most cogent reasons. These people, proverbially avaricious, not only observed the passover, but resigned all property in the first-born of the land to the Lord. In process of time, when the nation was brought into a state of municipal order, and under a national covenant, it was then so ordered that one tribe was selected to be given to the Lord in lieu of the first-born. And here we see the whole nation agreeing to support that tribe forever. This selection was made from the tribe of Levi. To superficial observers the ingenuity displayed in the erection of this monument in perpetuation of the memory of a leading fact in Jewish history, may not appear; but it is a monumental institution, eminently calculated in its nature to keep the recollection of the fact which it commemorates fresh and vivid in the hearts and minds of the Israelites. The whole number at that time of the first-born of the whole twelve tribes was twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three. Moses was commanded to calculate the number of the tribe of Levi, which was twenty-two thousand. The whole tribe of Levi was taken, head for head; and the two hundred and seventy-three of the first-born, over and above, were redeemed at five shekels per head. Observe the exactitude and particularity of this arrangement. First, the institution of the passover; next, the segregation of the first-born of the land as the Lord's; and after this, an arrangement to appropriate the whole tribe of Levi--two hundred and seventy-three lacking in number were to be redeemed at one hundred oboli apiece.

      Thus the avarice, the gratitude, and every other passion of the Jewish nation, were made to co-operate in attestation and perpetuation of this leading fact. Here we may remark, that as these sensible demonstrations, and the very manner of their exhibition, exclude the possibility of imposition upon the minds and senses of the first actors and original witnesses of these facts; so the criteria of these monumental [187] and commemorative facts equally preclude the possibility of imposition upon us. Let us dwell for a moment upon the influence of this commemorative institution of the passover, and the conventional segregation of an entire tribe to be supported forever by the great body of the people--a tribe who were to have cities built for them--who were made proprietors of all the circumjacent lands, and who were exonerated by the new social compact of the nation from all personal care and anxiety concerning their own support. The tribe of Levi, and all their personal property, were segregated to the service of the Lord. This was a concession demanded of this people as a condition precedent to their enjoyment of the new national covenant. And thus has divine wisdom perpetuated a standing monument in commemoration of the miracles of Moses. To bring this matter home to every man's business and bosom, I would ask all of you if it would be possible to induce you to sanctify and segregate one child of your family, or one lamb of your fold, or to celebrate a certain annual festival in commemoration of a fact which never occurred? Does the wildest range of human experience warrant the supposition that any people, under any circumstances, could be induced to do this?

      We are now to try this matter by the tests of reason, and to examine whether it were possible, in the first instance, to fabricate these monumental evidences. Let us ask ourselves seriously if any nation under heaven could be induced to celebrate a solemn annual festival in commemoration of a false fact--a fact which never did occur. Could all the magi, sorcerers, and wonder-mongers of eastern antiquity, if they were now alive, compel the North American nation to observe the first day of January in commemoration of their declaration of independence when the whole nation knew that its anniversary was the fourth day of July? To suppose such an absurdity as this--to admit for a moment the possibility of such a national extravagance--is to suppose men to be very differently constituted now-a-days from what all former experience has ever demonstrated them to be.

      If these mighty miracles of Moses had been performed in a dark corner of the earth, in the presence of only a few wandering tribes, or of a rude, unlettered nation, without records, some skeptical scruples might arise in our minds. But the Most High has so contrived it as to leave no room for any cavil of this nature.

      These facts transpired in an age when the human faculties were highly cultivated; Moses himself was brought up in all the learning of the Egyptians, a nation at that period pre-eminently distinguished for scientific acquirements. Who is not acquainted with the scientific [188] reputation of ancient Egypt? Who has not heard of her proficiency in the arts, particularly in the art of embalming, of which we are ignorant? Standing monuments of the scientific attainments and luxurious refinement of this people abound at the present day. From their own annals it appears that they were quite as skeptical as the people of the present day. Here I will take occasion to remark that the facts on which the Jewish and Christian religions have been founded, have been wisely arranged so as to transpire in the presence of nations as bold, daring, politic, ambitious, and intelligent as ourselves. We are wont to think slightly, and to speak disparagingly of the intellectual powers of the ancients. But there were a great many highly polished and severely disciplined minds among them. And it was in the presence of such a people, shrewd, keen, and skeptical--in their metropolis, within the precincts of the court, in the face of kings, courtiers, sages, and statesmen--that these evidences were adduced, these miracles were wrought, and these monumental commemorative institutions were erected. Everything was so ordered in relation to these facts, as to remove forever all rational ground of doubt or skepticism. So far, then, I have proceeded to give a general idea of the argument which I am now to submit in attestation of the facts on which the Jewish religion is founded.

      In the further prosecution of the argument, we shall illustrate other facts analogous to the preceding, embracing similar objects, and, like them perpetuated by monumental commemorative institutions. We shall briefly analyze the institution of the Sabbath, the celebration of the passover, and other festivals of the Jewish ritual. To support these monumental commemorative institutions a levy became necessary to a greater amount than ever was exacted by the fiscal polity of any other nation; and such was the veneration of this people for their ritual, that this enormous taxation was submitted to without a murmur. I have been calculating the amount of property necessary to the support of the Jewish religion, and have elaborated this result: that one-half of the time and money, a full moiety of the whole resources of the nation, was exacted; and one chief object was to keep these miracles, with their monumental attestations, in perpetual remembrance. The cheerful relinquishment of one-half their whole personal property goes to repudiate the idea that this people were cajoled by intrigue into submission to such an oppressive taxation. We shall further show that all the other facts on which religion is founded have been accompanied with the same commemorative and perpetuating [189] attestations from the moment of their transportation down to our present times.¹

[COD 181-190]