any other man. It is enough to spoil a good king; that is, good in relation to the worst: for a good king may be a great way off from being a good man and a good citizen, so generally bad have kings been.

I am, Sir, your prisoner,

RICHARD CARLILE.

Just published, price one shilling, Toulmin's "

Eternity of the Universe." His "Antiquity and Duration of the World" may be also had at the same price. These are all the known philosophical works by this author.

We shall shortly publish for a young gentleman, being his first appearance as an author, "Wrongs of Man" a pamphlet at or near the price of a shilling. It is a work in prose. Mr. Howard Fish published in verse a pamphlet under the same title in 1819. This new work will be further described when it appears..

We shall also proceed to the completion of Vol. I, of The Moralist, and of a new edition of Palmer's Principles of Nature, to be sold at 3s. stitched, being the same type and paper as was first sold at 5s., in bds.

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 135, Fleet Street.-All Correspordences for "The Republican" to be left at the place of p blication.

No.7, VOL. 12.] LONDON, Friday, August 19, 1825. [PRICE 6d

TO WILLIAM WILLIAMS, ESQ., M. P. PROVINCIAL GRAND MASTER OF THE ASSOCIATION OF FREE MASONS FOR THE COUNTY OF DORSET.

LETTER V.

(Concluded from page 192.)

The whole ceremoney of Masonry, in all its ramifications, centers in the fabled temple of Solomon. If we had any thing like authentic history for the existence of such a temple, the association of Masons might be said to have a good foundation. But as the description of such a temple is evidently fabulous, and as the reality never did exist, the proof of this shakes the whole fabric of their pretensions and convicts them of habitual lying, notwithstanding their affected regard for their oaths, there is but one authority for the existence of such a temple; that authority is the Bible; a book that stands convicted of being fabulous from the beginning to the end. Josephus, who could add hyperbole, to hyperbole has a description of Solomon's Tem ple; but his authority was the Jew Books; or what we now call the Old Testament, that and that only; therefore, Josephus, here, can be no authority. Excepting the Bible and such writings as have emanated from it, there is not a record in existence of such a temple as that attributed to Solomon. And such a temple could not have existed, at such a time, without records coming down to us describing it, as we have descriptions of all that was celebrated from that time and neighbourhood. There is not even a record but the Bible and its emanations that such a people as the Jews inhabited Asia before the Babylonian Colonization at Jerusalem; and after that colonization, granting the truth of the contents of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, many generations must have elapsed before that colony could have formed any thing like a nation. There is fair evidence that

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.

the Jews were a colony under the protection of the princes who reigned at Babylon, until Alexander of Macedon destroyed that empire: and till after the appearance of Alexander, nothing whatever was heard of the Jews by the people of Europe, either as a colony or as an independant people. They were not competent to offer the least resistance to Alexander; whilst, at Tyre, a mere day's journey from Jerusalem, he met the most determined resistance from the Phenicians. After the death of Alexander, we have accounts, that the Jews resisted some of his captains, who had divided his empire among them; but those accounts are no where to be found but in books which the Jews themselves acknowledge to be apocryphal. It is probable, that, on the breaking up of the empire which was centered in Babylon, the Jews might have entertained notions of independence, their old masters no longer existing with power; and that this spirit of independence, or the attempt to gain it, might have brought down the vengeance of the Grecian Captains upon them. They were evidently tributary, first to the Persian and next to the Grecian power: and, on the decline of the Grecian Empire, we find them attempting to assert an independence of the Romans, in which they failed, and to whom they again became tributary until their dispersion. In fact, there is not a shade of evidence that the Jews ever formed an independent nation: there is not a shade of evidence that they were a commercial people in Asia; and being neither powerful by arms nor by commerce, it is impossible, that they could have built at Jerusalem such a temple as that described as the temple of Solomon.

I allow the Bible to be an authority for nothing but the exposure of itself. Where we can play off one part of it against another, there and there only are we justified to use it as an authority. Here I am quite content to rest all my arguments for the non-existence of such a temple at Jerusalem as that called the temple of Solomon. Correct history is uniform at all points. Fable may be so constructed; but this Jewish Fable has been the work of very ignorant men. Let us take the history of the materials as it stands in the Bible. Solomon is stated to have been the third king of Israel. And here a difficulty occurs, for we have no authority that the Jews are a remnant of a people once called the people of Israel. For ought we know, Israel is as fabulous a people as the Lilliputians of Swift. But for the sake of argument, we will take the tale to be a fact, and allow that a people called the people of Israel did once occupy a few

square miles on the coast of Asia that bounds the mediterranean Sea on the east. We have such a tale in a book which we call the Bible. Saul is stated to have been the first king, David the second and Solomon the third. The two first we are told, were appointed by Samuel their first prophet. Solomon, to the exclusion of elder brothers, by his father David, though the most unqualified as it respects his mother. Saul was appointed king because he was a head taller than the others and seems to have been the greatest ruffian. David was appointed, because the first ruffian was not subservient enough to the prophet or priest, and a eivil war was for a long time carried on between them.

After a series of successful battles on the part of Saul against all his neighbours, for war is the game of kings and not of a people, we find at the close of his reign, and after another was appointed by the following singular admission. 1st Samuel, Chap. 13, ver. 19. "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears: But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock. Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads. So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the band of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found." Here is a pretty story! Here is stuff that would do for no other book. Here is a king that has been fighting battles against all his neighbours, and successful with all, with an army that had not a single regular weapon and subject to a neighbour that would not allow a smith's forge to be among them, for fear they should make weapons for war! Here is a nation of Israelites, going into the land of the Philistines, of an enemy, to get there implements of husbandry sharpened, whilst they had files at home to sharpen them with! And lastly, here is an army without weapons, beating armies with weapons; by scratching their faces, I suppose! Wonderful book! Astonishing people of Israel! Gulliver's travels have nothing original: they are some of Dean Swift's plagiarisms and paraphrases from the Bible.

But this bit of banter is not the only purpose of this extract. After this degraded state of the Israelites, we see no means whatever by which they gained power or riches. Almost from that time, Saul and David are chasing one

another, in the characters of leaders of two gangs of robbers. We read, at 2 Samuel, Chap. 3, Ver. 1, "Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker." Still this must have been a general impoverishment of the whole as a people or nation. And even after the Death of Saul, Absalom carried on a civil war against his father David.

Here we see no means whatever, by which Solomon could' become possessed of riches and influence enough to build so expensive a temple as that which is attributed to him. David is said to have carried on successful wars in the latter part of his reign; but the state of the Israelites, as described in the reign of Saul, will not admit the idea, that they could, for a hundred years from that time, carry on successful wars against well armed nations. After David was firmly seated on the throne, it is said, at 2 Samuel, Chap. 21, Ver. 1, "Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." Seven of Saul's sons are hanged and the Lord is appeased! What a Lord! What villainy do we find in religion! A religious villain in power wants no excuse for any purpose. Lord is always at his elbow to sanction his villainies.

The

We are told that Solomon made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem; but we are not told how he did it. There were no silver mines in Judea. It was a land of stones not fit for cultivation. Where then did he get the silver? We are told, that he sent ships to Tharshish and Ophir to be laden back with Gold, Ivory, and Precious Stones. But what did he send in exchange? That is the question. The stones of Judea would not purchase the gold, &c. of Ophir and Tharshish. Let our merchants send out empty ships and see if they can get them laden back with gold, ivory, and precious stones. The manufactures of Tyre were the proper produce to be exchanged for the gold, &c. of Ophir and Tharshish; but these would not go unless Solomon paid for them in specie. And that would be like sending specie to buy specie. Judea never produced any thing by its soil, or by the skill of its inhabitants that could have accumulated such riches as were requisite for the building of such a temple. And when we are told, as I Kings, Chap. 8, Ver. 5, that the sheep and oxen sacrificed at the dedication "could not be told nor numbered for mul