[fn91 for "rights" read "rites">[
[fn92 delete "the">[
[fn93 According to 1 Chron. ch. xxix, 3, &c. the gold employed in adorning the Temple, amounted to at least 8000 talents, and the silver to 17000 talents. This vast mass of treasure was given by David and his princes: how much was added to it by Solomon is not said.]
[fn94 The number of the males of the tribe of Levi in the time of Moses, is said, Numbers, ch. xxvi. 62. to have been twenty three thousand. But in the reign of Solomon the number of males of the tribe of Levi from thirty years and upwards, was thirtyeight thousand. See 1 Chron. ch. xxiii, 3.]
[fn95 for "streaming" read "steaming">[
[fn96 The name of the Deity "JEHOVAH," is a compound of two Hebrew words, the first of which signifies "HE IS," and the second "HE SHALL BE." The word JEHOVAH expresses these two sublime ideas in three syllables.]
[fn97 for "unfeeling" read "unreflecting">[
[fn98 Mr. Everett represents me as supposing (because I maintain that it is the sense of the prophets that the temple of Jerusalem will oneday be the house of prayer for all mankind) that all nations must come and worship at the temple three times a year as the Jews were required to do. See Mr. Everett's work, p. 207.
But if Mr. Everett were more familiar with the Bible, he would learn that the prophets represent that this visit to the future temple, from other nations than the Jews, will be required only once a year. "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King Jehovah of Hosts, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles." Zech. ch. xiv. 16.
Now supposing that the Old Testament predicts the truth in affirming that the earth is to be restored to its primitive state, as it was at the beginning, when God viewed every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. If the earth is spontaneously to produce the delicious nourishment which we may suppose that Adam enjoyed, a journey once a year through an ever varied paradise to the temple of Jehovah, can surely be no toil. If a person will look at the situation of Jerusalem on a map of the world, he will be sensible, that no spot on earth is as eligible to be chosen for a common centre of worship for mankind as that city. It stands about sixty miles from the Mediterranean, which communicates with the Atlantic, and not many days Journey from the Red Sea, which communicates with the Indian Ocean. And when the winds and waves shall cease to be dangerous, who would not desire to visit as often as possible, the land which is said to be "the glory of all lands," and illuminated by the ineffable symbol of the immediate presence of the Lord of the Universe, at whose effulgence "the sun shall be ashamed, and the moon confounded."