managed to checkmate all the best intentions of the Christians' God. And let us not forget this instance has not happened during the times of oral tradition, or when scribes could expunge from, or add to a manuscript, or in times when one man only out of a thousand or upwards could either read or write, and that one was always by force, fraud, or interest, made to see the prudence of going with the tide, of seeing, like Polonius, a whale or anything else in the clouds that anybody gammoned him was there, or might be there. No; this man or monster, this demi-god or demi-devil, for I know not by which appellation he deserves to be known, lives and exists, and the fingers of the faithful may be put into his mouth to convince them he lives, if they doubt it. Yet two such distinct histories of this man in this age of steam printing, electric telegraphing, and railroad flying, can be perpetrated, and thousands religiously believe both. Let those who are wise inquire before they accord belief; and as they would judge and discriminate on an ordinary matter, so let them do their theology, and if they do we feel confident their book, the book, contains more than one case to parallel that of Dr. Achilli.

Now, against both sides we lift up our voice and say to the deluded people, be not ensnared, be not deceived, all the scrubbing in the world will not make a black man white, neither will all the plausibillty and casuistry in the world make a priest anything but a deceiver, or an impostor, so long as there is anything to be got by that deceit and imposture. Once let them see the game is up, and from interested motives, always a governing principle with priests, it is just possible they may join the good cause of progress.

The Sabbath Bill, that blessed proposed enactment for stopping Sunday shaving if done by the poor man's barber, sleeps quietly in the tomb of the Capulets. Mr. C. Hindley was just one hour too late: poor innocent, let him luxuriate in dreams of Sabbath misery till next sessions, where, if his vinegary and miserable clique should again propose the measure, and should no untoward accident rob heaven of the services of so pious a man, he will find us ready to lift up our voices, saying, Woe unto ye Pharisees, ye came nigh unto me with your lips, while inwardly ye are ravening wolves.

The Post-office it is certain will now be re-opened. It has never been anything else but a shameful imposture, both upon the advocates and the opponents of the measure. Government letters have not been detained, they therefore have felt no inconvenience; but like true Whigs, if there should happen to be a straight and crooked road leading to the same spot, they have an intuitive preference for the crooked one. Really we feel almost as much inclined to use the text against Whigs as against priests, but we forbear, or rather have not strength enough left, after exhausting ourselves in anathematising priesteraft, to tackle Whiggery.

But the Church. Priestcraft, under whatever name it may be known, and under whatever covering it may disguise itself, what is it but an unmitigated evil-an engine of deceit and plunder-the cause of war and dis

sension in the family of man? Its doctrines, that part that happens not to be false, is a mass of impious absurdity, to say nothing of a large part that is absolutely demoralising. Its ministers, what are they? Either hypocrites or perjurers; men who for lucre make a profession of faith that they neither believe nor understand. Their government, what is it but a huge and monstrous fabric of injustice-a system inimical to the best interests of actual religion, and thoroughly subversive of truth and probity, and which only exists by adding to fraud and imposture the sin of coercing men into forced support of systems that they deprecate and abominate? Their property, obtained, say actually stolen, by the clergy from our pious ancestors, who themselves obtained it by plunder, by wholesale robbery, and by the enslavement and murder of the weak poor who previously inherited and lived upon the property. Their belief, what is that ? A system of mummery, or worse, a system that tacitly winks at the blackest crimes if he who commits them only has the unblushing impudence to enter the middle aisle on the Sabbath, and there and then declare himself to be a miserable sinner. They to dare to talk of piety or virtue, to profess religion, to call themselves servants of the Most High, and ministers of His word; say, rather base truckling panders, against whom, as commanded by the text, we cry out, saying, in the words of Isaiah, 'Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity.'

In conclusion, let freethinkers steer the middle and the straight path: let them shun evil, because its committal will certainly entail upon them misery and tribulation in a thousand shapes and forms; and let them cultivate virtue, because the practice of it is both a benefit to mankind, and the only source from which springs genuine personal happiness to ourselves; and while practising virtue and shunning vice, we shall need no beadsman's orisons, be he Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, or a member of the purest system of theology that ever the sun shone upon.

R. L. B.

A PUN ON THE PATRIARCHS.-A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings-the one common and obvious, the other more remote; and in the notice which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful that he could never be brought to read the word patriarchs, but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs. -Rev. Sydney Smith

THE GENUINE GIBBON.

A REPRINT OF THOSE PORTIONS OF THE FAMOUS HISTORIAN THAT CHRISTIANS CONSIDER IT TO BE THEIR DUTY TO SUPPRESS, IN ORDER THAT DOUBTS MAY NOT BE RAISED AS TO THE INFALLIBILITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.

[Chapter XV. Continued from p. 90.]

Ir we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods, and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks, were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the dress, and the furniture of the Pagans.* Even the arts of music and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses were the organs of the infernal spirit, Homer and Virgil were the most eminent of his servants, and the beautiful mythology which pervades and animates the compositions of their genius, is destined to celebrate the glory of the dæmons. Even the common language of Greece and Rome abounded with familiar but impious expressions, which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly utter, or too patiently hear.+

The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always wore the appearance of pleasure and often of virtue. Some of the most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute the new calends of January with vows of public and private felicity, to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and living, to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property, to hail, on the return of spring, the genial power of fecundity, to perpetuate the two memorable æras of Rome, the foundation of the city, and that of the republic, and to restore, during the humane license of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind. Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians for such impious ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which they displayed on a much less alarming occasion. On days of general festivity it

* See every part of Montfaucon's Antiquities. Even the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were suspended by a stronger passion. + Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a Pagan friend (on the oc casion perhaps of sneezing) used the familiar expression of Jupiter bless you,' the Christian was obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter.

Consult the most laboured work of Ovid, his imperfect Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia, but it is only a small part of the first book that bears any relation to the title.

was the custom of the ancients to adorn their doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and elegant practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a mere civil institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors were under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers, though frequently worn as a symbol either of joy or mourning, had been dedicated in their first origin to the service of superstition. The trembling Christians, who were persuaded in this instance to comply with the fashion of their country, and the commands of the magistrate, laboured under the most gloomy apprehensions, from the reproaches of their own conscience, the censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine vengeance.*

Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the chastity of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry. The superstitious observances of public or private rites were carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they afforded the Christian an opportunity of declaring and confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent protestations their attachment to the faith was continually fortified, and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they combated with the more ardour and success in the holy war, which they had undertaken against the empire of the dæmons.

II. The writings of Cicerot represent in the most lively colours the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate, as an obvious, though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the calamities of life, and that those can no longer suffer who no longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster idea of human nature; though it must be confessed that, in the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most

Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather panegyric, of the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed himself and his brethren to the most imminent danger. By the mention of the emperors (Severus and Caracalla) it is evident, notwithstanding the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian composed his treatise De Corona, long before he was engaged in the errors of the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii., p. 384.

In particular, the first book of the Tusculan Questions, and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, everything that Grecian philosophy, or Roman good sense, could possibly suggest on this dark but important object.

important labours, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave; they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they entertained the mos sincere admiration, could be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this favourable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science, or rather the language, of Metaphysics. They soon discovered, that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal prison. From these specious and noble principles, the philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato, deduced a very unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only the future immortality, but the past eternity of the human soul, which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the universe. A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the experience of mankind, might serve to amuse the leisure of a philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the faint impression which had been received in the schools, was soon obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Cæsars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers, by exposing that doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of a liberal education and understanding.†

Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence, and describe the condition of the invisible country which is destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body. But we may perceive several defects inherent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very unequal to so arduous a task.

*The pre-existence of human souls, so far at least as that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. vi., c. 4.

† See Cicero pro Cluent., c. 61. Cæsar ap. Sallust. de Bell. Catalin., c. 50. Juvenal. Satir., ii., 149.

Esse aliquos manes, et subterranea regna,

Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.