The Lion. No. 11. VOL. 3.] LONDON, Friday, March 13, 1829. [PRICE 6d. INFIDEL RENT. ON Sunday evening last, the Rev. Robert Taylor addressed a company of near one hundred persons, at 62, Fleet-street, on his past proceedings and present prospects and purposes; on his imprisonment and the reasons for yielding the recognizances required of him; on Lord Tenterden's definition of the law, that it was lawful to bring the Christian religion into disbelief by serious argument, but not by sarcasm, jest and reviling, and on his intention for the future, or for five years at least, to adhere to Lord Tenterden's definition of the law, as to the lawfulness of infidelity. With these preliminaries, he avowed his intention of going through the country to lecture on and expound the work which he had written in prison, entitled "The Diegesis;" to meet all persons who were willing to meet him to hear him, or, if competent, to discuss the merits of this book and of the Christian religion with him. He should leave the question of deity, as to its physical or moral attributes, to Mr. Carlile, and granting his opponent's assumption of a moral or intelligent deity, he would show the invalidity of the Christian religion. To this end, after expressing gratitude for past support, he called upon his friends to make, as a greater surety and encouragement to his proceedings, A DIVISION OF HIS RECOGNIZANCES. One gentleman had undertaken to provide fifty pounds, in case they were endangered. Other promises were made; but he wished to reduce those promises to a written obligation. He would, therefore, require from such friends, as approved his proposition, and who were equal to the undertaking, a promissory note, for any sum not less than twenty pounds, to be payable as soon as any new prosecution should be instituted against him, Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street. No. 11.-Vol. 3. and the money to be returnable to the subscriber in exchange for the note in case that prosecution failed, again to be available on every new prosecution, until the expiration of the five years. This was due to those friends who had bailed him, and without this, he could not hold himself free to act in that cause which was nearest his heart, and which, with his friends, its supporters, shared no division in his affections. In addition to this measure, for his future support, and for his better promotion of the grand and glorious cause of infidelity, he would call upon the friends to that cause, in this and every other country, to support him with AN INFIDEL RENT. There were many who could not afford to give him the promissory note before mentioned, who could still afford to do something, and as promissory notes of a smaller amount would be neither desirable nor necessary, he would call upon such friends to give him, at once, in money, and by periodical subscriptions, either yearly, quarterly, monthly or weekly, such sums as they could afford, and as they thought his exertions and his applications of those sums worth. For himself, he would undertake, that, when settled in one place, his individual wants or consumption of that rent should not be two hundred pounds a year; but as a fixed sum fully applicable to his private support, he would say two hundred pounds a year, and pledge the application of all receipts beyond that sum, whether they came by the exercise of his own talent, in writing or lecturing, or whether they came by a subscription, to the immediate furtherance of the cause of infidelity. As he had had enough, and more than enough, of connection with committees and secretary-ships, treasurer-ships and trusteeships, he would have no more, nor hold himself responsible to any persons or person, for the application of his receipts; but he would publish those receipts, and the application upon his own judgment of those receipts, and thus place his continued support on his moral responsibility to the subscribers. He wished to rest on his own individual responsibility, as he had no family, no friends, no interest to serve, but that which arose from the cause itself. And he felt that he could not act most freely, most usefully, and most unshackled, unless he were allowed to act upon his own judgment, unclashed with any other person's judgment. Books for this rent should be immediately opened, and, in addition to his private lodgings, 17, Carey-street, Lincoln's Inn, one should lie at the shop of this house, 62, Fleet-street, under the responsibility of Mr. Carlile. Our opponents, with their almighty God on their side, confess, and so act, that they cannot serve him without money: they collect immense revenues wherewith to serve their cause and their god: how much less can we then, who, they say, serve their devil, a secondary power, who is not so much the root of all evil as to have all the money at his command, proceed without similar assistance? This was an outline of the project, and books have been accordingly prepared and a good promise of success commenced. INFIDEL RENT. Δος που στω και ουρανον κινήσω.-ARCHIMEDES. TO THE FRIENDS OF THE GREAT CAUSE OF INTELLECTUAL A word with you, Sirs! Has our great cause ever yet had standing room? No. Has its great challenge failed therefore? No. Are wE, the advocates, the champions, the martyrs of this cause who have stood the brunt on't, ta'en the blows, borne the smart, and paid the cost, to our own great detriment, less entitled to the cordial confidence of the public in the sincerity and disinterestedness of our motives, than any man can be to the conviction of his own heart of the purity, propriety, and dignity of the cheap virtue of good wishes merely; of services which cost him nothing; and patronage which spends itself in wind? Are we, the avowed and professed disclaimers and opponents of all pretensions to either motives, feelings, hopes, or interests beyond the claims of this material flesh, that walls about our life, to be held in suspicion for the sincerity of our avowal, that we are no cherubims; that we live on food, taste grief, need friends, want help, and that Virtue herself cannot make breakfast on ambrosia? Look ye, Sirs, but at the fleshy legs, the brawny thighs, and sinewy shoulders of the Atlases that underprop Olympus! And shall our assault upon it be a skiomachy? And can we give the gods a somerset by a force unnerved of flesh and blood; o'erthrow their substantial spiritualities, by an unsubstantial materialism; and conquer them by dreaming? Ah, no! Men, brethren, friends, philanthropists, and lovers of mankind, give us our standing room. If Christianity seems to you to be, what it seems to us, the greatest curse that ever befel the human race; if religion be in your reckoning what it is in our's, the most bitter affliction, the most terrible insanity, to which the human intellect is liable, the bane of all happiness, the destruction of all securities and bonds of peace, affection, confidence, and honesty among men-and if to have done something to make the world in which you have lived the better for the part you have borne in it, be, in your conviction, nobler and wiser than to have eaten your pudding and gone out of it-be faithful to that conviction-be just to the great debt and rental for your lodging among men-pay, aid, help, and bear your charges of this service. More than ten millions a-year is raised and expended in the support and continuance of superstition in this priest-ridden country: a hundred-thousandth part of that sum, would be enough to rid England of its priests, and force them to turn honest. I propose to you the PLAN for raising such a sufficient, solid, secure, and permanent fund as shall bring to pass and to effect the established respectability of AVOWED INFIDELITY in this country, and thus inaugurate the dawn of a happier day than ever shed its light on our horizon. 1. Let our friends, individually, or in coteries and meetings, wherever it may be convenient to them to assemble, charge themselves with a weekly, monthly, or quarterly RENT, to be considered as a charge and debt, to be remitted regularly to Mr. Richard Carlile or myself, without trouble or expense of collecting. 2. Let each or all who may, without wrong to paramount claims, bequeath by WILL such properties as they may, to the continuance and perpetuation of this infidel fund, giving due notice of such intended bequests. 3. That there be no secretaryship, committeeship, nor any of that expensive and futile apparatus which, under pretext of essening individual responsibility, opens the door to infinite peculation, and the ultimate evasion of all responsibility altogether. 4. That our arithmetic henceforth hold commerce only with addition and multiplication, but have no dabbling in subtraction and division. 5. I myself will be responsible for the faithful and effectual application of all sums that shall be paid into my hands; I pledge my own responsibility, and in pledging THAT do pledge the responsibility of "as honest a man as ere my conversation coped withal." 6. But responsible only, and never in any case to respond to any but actual and real payers and contributors, in the greatest amounts that shall have been contributed; so that there shall be no possibility of ROOM for an Iscariot among us. 7. That, of the sums so raised, the disposition and engagement shall be in order of appropriation and consequence in proportion to the amount, as follows: Firstly, The payment of a fixed and assured revenue, of not more nor less than two hundred pounds per annum, to the person whose life and service shall be devoted to the cause. Secondly, Of whatever shall be over and above that sum to the rent and taxes of the shop in Fleet-street, as a common interest and property, for the sale and circulation of infidel tracts and books Thirdly, For the permanent property and perpetual guarantee of a printing press, and printing expences, of" The Lion," as a weekly publication, to be more widely and effectually circulated among all classes of society. Fourthly, For travelling expenses, advertisements, and hire of lecture-rooms, or chapels, for the public advocacy and propagation of infidel principles. Fifthly, For the purchase, hire, or building of a suitable Areopagus, chapel, or chapels, in London, and elsewhere, for the permanent establishment and defence of infidel principles. Sixthly, For the establishment of a perpetual lectureship or lectureships in London, in each of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, and in all the great towns of England, of not less than FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS a-year, to be settled on persons of learning, talent, and high moral character, elected by ballot to hold such lectureship, and to preach (upon the principle of FREE DISCUSSION) in exposure of the errors and evils of all pretences to communication with the Deity, and, generally, by such means as are and shall be by law allowed," to bring the Christian religion into disbelief." I would undertake to turn Christian myself, and should indeed believe that Christianity was supernaturally supported, if it fell not in one generation, before the assault of such an honest hostility. It only stands because it has never been fairly assaulted. Have at it, and it shivers! The sum of ten thousand pounds a-year (perhaps half that sum) thus applied, would bring about the greatest and happiest revolution the world has ever witnessed. The contributor or contributors to the appropriation of such a means to such an end would be the wISEST, GREATEST, and BEST the world has ever seen. ་ Had this not been the true augury of the present reign of universal hypocrisy, I had never been in Oakham! Down with it! Down with it! DELENDA EST CARTHAGO. 17, Carey-street, Lincoln's Inn. ROBERT TAYLOR. SCHOOL OF FREE DISCUSSION. FOR the first time, on Sunday last, we were obliged, from the want of room and seats, to turn away several applicants for admission. This circumstance puts us upon the necessity of improving the accommodation as to seats, which will be accomplished by the next Sunday; and as a set discussion upon the attributes of Deity is appointed for that evening, to be opened by a new and energetic opponent from the West of England, we shall proceed to the business of the School immediately after seven o'clock. |