"devil was in them," and that damages from such a quarter were hopeless.

He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he who believeth not SHALL BE DAMNED" (Mark xvi. 16). Thus making man accountable for his belief. A most infernal doctrine, propounded by an ignorant impostor, or he would have known that belief and disbelief is entirely independent of an individual, and to damn him for it hellish tyranny, which no man or just god could inflict. Have not bigots and fanatics, ever since its promulgation acted upon it, to the wholesale destruction of their fellows ? And who shall say, provided they believed in it, that they did wrong? Does it not warrant the use of every means, even to the taking of life to induce men to believe, rather than they shall suffer damnation? The few years they would have passed here will not be noticed in eternity. Christ has nowhere more clearly defined his mission than in Luke xii. 49, 51, "I am come to send fire upon the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled ? Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division.” can look into the world and say-christianity has failed? W. C.

PUBLIC INTEGRITY.

Who

"It has been said of the celebrated Andrew Flet

cher that he would have sacrificed his life to serve

his country, but would not do a base act to save

her."--Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH.

AN apologue of Herodotus relates that a young man who entered the great Egyptian temple, and rashly tore the veil from the statue of truth, was struck with amazement and horror, at the hideousness of its features. The moral of this apologue, or fable, seems to be that truth, which has been aptly defined, as the image of things, should not be examined too closely, it being, except seen through a veil, one mass of horrible defor mity. This doctrine was, doubtless, picked up by Herodotus, from the priests of Judea and Egypt. The frightfulness of unveiled truth has been the practical principle of priests and statesmen in all ages; it is now the practical principle of those who govern mankind in all the nations of the earth. bazy idea-an idea not clearly perceived cannot be true. To call such an idea, or assemblage of ideas, truth, is an abuse of language, a misnomer; falsehood it should be called.

A

Those, therefore, who cover truth with a veil, in effect, destroy it, or at all events, hinder that its features should be seen. The troops of deluders who, under various names, have fattened upon human credulity, and abused, that they might freely use the human animal, were not themselves startled or terrified by truth in native naked

ness, but they were startled, they were terrified lest the mob, the rabble, the swinish multitude, the unwashed slaves, should enjoy the same sight, should revel in the moral voluptuousness, which seeing things as they are, never fails to give birth to. The fable, therefore, was cunningly devised, an admirable stroke of crooked wisdom; as it would be in a man who having secreted immense treasures in a cave, should cause it to be believed, the cave was guarded by sphinxes and fiery dragons. The American Emerson rightly says, that the world is their's who can see through its pretensions; the madness, the stone-blind custom, we everywhere behold, exists only by sufferance; once seen to be a lie, it has received the death blow. Philosophers do, and have long since seen the lie, but they are the few; simpletons are blind as bats, stone blinded by custom, maddened by fanaticism--and they are the many. Is it then wonderful that the many should be willing slaves to the few? Is it at all marvellous that the few should find it more to their taste-far more convenient to delude, mistify, and plunder, rather than enlighten or do justice to the many? Is it surprising that politics should be reduced to a science of villanies, morals be everlastingly talked about only, and religion be an instrument of disgusting oppression? The secret spring of all this complicated machinery of villany is not at all remote, it is seen in the obvious surface, every-day-fact, so well stated by Miss Frances Wright, that society is divided into foxes and geese, but as the geese are as nine hundred and ninety-nine to one of the foxes, the foxes have a glorious time of it. To perpetuate the fox-and-goose system, men have been systematically taught to hate the truth; to hate all those who dared to teach it; to persecute even unto death the noble and enlightened, who, like the rash Egyptian youth, penetrated delusion's temple, and rent the veil with which artful priests had covered the statue of truth. Why did Plato teach, that "he may lie who knows how to do it in a suitable time?" Why did Meander, that "a lie is better than a hurtful truth ?" Why Proclus, that "good is better than truth?" Why did Maximus Tyrius say, "there is nothing decorous in truth but when Yes that sometimes it is profitable?" truth is hurtful, and lying profitable to men. Why did Darius teach, that "when telling a lie will be profitable, let it be told?" And why did the Platonists, the Stoics, nay, almost all the Greek philosophers, allow as part of their morality, that "a wise man may embrace a lie craftily, and for gain, but he must not embrace a falsehood, through ignorance, or assent to an untruth?" The because for all these whys, has been already given. They all admit of one very brief and

simple answer, the wise few must live, to live safely, comfortably, and honourably-they must lie. A folio would not throw a single ray of light more upon the matter. Where are the philosophers who will tell an important truth at the expense of station, liberty, perhaps life? Where are the sages who will purchase the gratification of attacking error or exposing falsehood at such a price? Small blame to them if they refuse so expensive, so unthrifty a bargain. If one in an age, pearl the swine, let us not complain of human virtue; let us not conclude that men love lies, but rather that they fear to speak the truth. Diogenes could not, in broad day-light, even by the aid of his lanthorn, find one honest man. And shall we be mad enough to look for honest men now, when not to lie is a crime in law; when wretched pettifogging attorneys and bumpkin nincompoopish justices send thief-catchers to protect morals, and put down free debate, in Mechanics' Institutions; when, as in the case of Mr. HOLYOAKE, by a conspiracy of such thick-skulled scoundrels, a man is to be dragged through the streets, catechised, insulted, and fettered like a felon; when I say all this is done, and the foul outrages on liberty applauded by an overwhelming majority of society is it not absurd to look for integrity in public men?

Is it not mar

vellous that any should be found who abhor hypocrisy and rascality more than they fear physical torture, and the yell of public indignation? When Francis Maria, second Duke of Rovero, proposed to Sperone Speroni, the question, which was preferable, the republic or the principality, the perfect and not durable, or the less perfect and not so liable to change, he replied, that our happiness is to be measured by its quality, not by its duration; and that he preferred to live for one day like a man, than for a hundred years like a brute, a stock, or a stone. "This was thought," says Lord Byron, "and called a magnificent answer, down to the last days of Italian servitude," and I doubt whether in this cowardly slavish age, the most cowardly and the most slavish would fail to admire, though only a few rash enthusiasts have consistency and coarage enough to act like men, but are quite content to eke out life as brutes, stocks, and stones. Society has no right to expect integrity in public men, if it throw not over them the broad shield of its protection. As long as men are men they will count the cost of telling truth, and the profit of lying. Let those who love nobility of soul, give substantial support to those who display it; let the lovers of truth rally round those who dare proclaim it, and falseheod with the hellish train of vice to which it gives birth, will speedily be annihilated. Poland was ever

lastingly disgraced during the last century by an act of persecution the most cruel and atrocious it is possible to conceive. A Lithu anian nobleman, said to be religious and benevolent, but sufficiently intelligent to ri dicule the prevailing superstitions, had in cautiously written some marginal notes of an atheistical tendency in the book of some stupid German priest, "he was tried (says Mr. Stephens, in his Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland) for atheism, by a council of bigotted Catholic bishops, and found guilty, not only of having denied the existence of a god, but the doctrine of the trinity, and the divine maternity of the virgin Mary." Zaluski, one of the villains concerned in the torments writes, "the convict was led to the scaffold, where the executioner, with a red-hot iron tore hig tongue and his mouth, with which he had been cruel towards god; then they burned his hands, instruments of the abominable prodution, at a slow fire. The sacrilegious paper was thrown into the flame; himself last, that monster of the age, that dei-cide was east into the flames of expiation, if such a crime could be atoned."

Such was the spirit of priestcraft-such the fate of those who denied a god-such the fiendlike malignity with which the savage Christian butchers pursued all but fools or hypocrites to the stake. Poland is fallen, aye, and deserved to fall; say advisedly, deserved to fall. The people so utterly beastialized by fanaticism, as to suffer such a cruel bloody act, or not to raise en masse and hurl down the brutal priestly thieves who perpetrated it, are fit to be slaves; fit to lick the dust on which tyrants tread, and deserve to wear the heaviest chains forged in the furnace of despotism! Talk not to me of Polish nationality, Polish patriotism, and struggles with their brutal oppressor! Why, all the collected crimes of the Russian Nicholas would not outweigh this one outrage against the very principle of liberty. I lay claim to be an ardent lover of liberty, but would not wag my finger for the nationality and glory of a people, who stood by and saw a fellow-creature's tongue torn from its root by red hot iron, his hands burnt before his face, and his body's remnant cast into flame. Nothing can ever wipe off this foul stain from Poland's annals, nothing obliterate the memory of the most villanous transaction that has for many centuries past disgraced the character of humanity. If the fallen glories of Poland were resuscitated, if her children had a nationality, and Warsaw again become the proud capital of a great and powerful kingdom, is it likely her people would enjoy the blessings of liberty, would they enjoy that liberty of liberties-the liberty of the mind? Is it probable, nay is it pos

sible, that a nation of priest-ridden serfs would be other than cheated and mocked by the name, the merest shadow of freedom? Any despatism is better than the despotism of priests, any tyranny far better than sacerdotal tyranny; and the worst cruelties of the monster Nicholas, fall far short of the abominable wickedness daily and hourly practised by those fiends in human shape who call themselves god's vice-gerents upon earth. But the question returns upon us how honesty and the practice of truth can he expected in such a state of things-who that saw the horrible sacrifice above described, would not studiously keep whatever

Who

forbidden truth be had to himself? in such a country would hesitate to adopt the hint of Fontenelle-and if his hand were full of truths, would not keep it clenched fast, lest a dangerous one should escape to the vulgar? What man of sense and caution will say there is no god at the expence of life and limb- or deny the immortality of the soul with gallows or stake in the distance The fable-fed multitude, must be fable-fed still, and he who would change the character of their diet, must look for martyrdom as his reward. Some people wonder that such a glorious genius as my Lord Bacon should not have seen quite through theological delusions, and the evil influence of religion. But it would, I think, be difficult to say what Bacon did or did not see; none are so blind as those who won't see, according to the proverb, and Bacon had too many reasons of state to see an inch farther or one whit clearer than it was expedient or safe in those times. Atheism would hardly have been tolerated in Elizabeth's time, therefore, like a pradent philosopher, Bacon contented himself with apologising for atheism; he did not directly teach it. Bacon craved not martyrdom, and Pope was not very wrong when he called him the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. Supposing Bacon to have been an Atheist, which I think it would be far from difficult to prove by a careful review of his writings, what posible inducement could he have had to proclaim the truth? It was much more convenient for him to say, whatever he may have thought, that a little knowledge inclineth a inan to atheism, but a great deal bringeth him back to religion again, rather than that a little knowledge maketh a man religious, but a great deal turneth him into an Atheist. The first opinion was safe, and opened road to wealth, honours, and distinction; the second was dangerous, and would infallibly have blocked up every road save that which led to a prison and to death. So far from wondering that Bacon did not declare for atheism, my astonishment is great that he should have had the hardihood to publish or breathe anything in its favour. James the First always recommended Atheists to the Hames; his predecessor, Elizabeth, was no less rigid and wise a Protestant than the Solomon of the west. She most heartily detested heresy, and it may reasonably be concluded that an atheistical heresy would have had few charms in her eyes. Good queen Bess was by no means so fond of fire as her pious sister of red-hot memory, in the work of extirpating heretics. She liked hanging better than burning ropes better than fagots. She only burned two Dutch Anabaptists, who, according to Hollingshead, " roared most piteously." She hung beretics by the score; but burning evidently shocked

one or the other.

HISSING AN ATHEIST! "A true Christian, that is, a being regulating all his thoughts and action upon the principle of do as you would be done by,' is scarcely to be met with."-Monthly Repository.

IN accordance with an intimation in last week's number, I shall proceed to offer a few remarks upon the criticisms of the writer, under the above head, which appeared in No.'s 30 and 31. The injustice and grossly indecent proceedings which took place in the court of law, as described, having been se verely descanted upon by the critic in the Repository, and the character of the counsellor Phillips, very properly exposed and contrasted with the despised but amiable HIBBERT, it is unnecessary that I should occupy further space with the matter. Merely observing, as I pass, that the C. Phillips spoken of, and who was publicly thanked for the help he lent the lord, by a guttling beast of an alderman, is the same with him who defended Cuvoirsier, for the murder of Lord William Russell, and who, after the murderer (from necessity) had divulged his crifrom the insufficiency of the evidence, intending to fix minality to him, endeavoured to prove his innocence the crime upon the fellou-servants of the prisoner. As a paid advocate, acknowledged by the law, he had a legal right to contend against the inefficiency er's own lips he was guilty; for unless his guilt was of the evidence, although he knew from the prisonproved in court by the witnesses for the prosecution, he was entitled to an acquittal. But to endeavour to shield the real assassin at the expense of the life or lives of innocent individuals, was worthy of the most deliberately cruel, bloody-minded demon that ever existed. And yet this man professes Christito be found in the laws of England. Where is the anity, and is, moreover, an expounder of it as it is holy fire-which is said to have descended from heaven-to devour such wretches? Jehovah would appear to be gone to sleep, or that his notions of right and wrong are changed.

So long as the objections to be taken to the treatmoral character-so long as they affected, though ment of Julian Hibbert and M PHERSON partook of a Perhaps indirectly, the social happiness of the critic, there were some illiberal laws and unjust instituagainst whose peculiar views, most probably, tions existing--so far as the defence of an Atheist condition by showing the absurdity of such conduct from injustice would tend to ameliorate the critic's and by bringing contempt upon the law (a sure way certainly be benefitted; for if the Atheist be tolerated of obtaining its repeal), by which he would most any thing short of atheism is sure to be--so long far I find the critic in the Repository fair and manand so far, I say, as these considerations went, so ly. But it is when he enters upon the question of belief and disbelief-atheism and christianity-that we find all the hateful, stupid, and contemptible qualities and ingredients of religion develope them