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withstand the brow of priestcraft, to overwhelm imposture with the treason of its own evidence, and to challenge the Christian in the terms of his own prescription-" Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked Servant!" In the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, we have the gratuitous and uncalled for admissions of that Chief of Sinners, that "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil,”—that “ they are God's Ministers for good," &c.: and his charge to the Christian"Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power, do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same." (Romans 13.) I ask any man who can count his fingers, whether this be a tone of language which could possibly have been used, if the sect of Christians, to whom it was addressed, ever had been the victims of persecution on account of their christianity merely, or were considered by the writer as liable to be so? And if this were delivered as it purports to have been in the City of Rome, and under the Government of the tyrant Nero;-when and where, I ask, could it have been that Christians were ever called on to endure (either from pagan or infidel hands) so much as the millionth part of the cruelties they have inflicted on each other, and on all who ever stood in the way of their exitiabilis superstitio. Nor rob we Peter to pay Paul: the first Epistle ascribed to him, contains in its second chapter, the most complete vindication of the Pagans, and of the Pagan Magistracy, from the charge of intolerance, or of a disposition to deal hardly with any sort of good men. Could a higher compliment have been paid to that flower of christian graces King Henry the Eighth, whom *Dr. Rowland Taylor, even when about to be burned at the stake, (by none but Christian hands,) pronounces almost with his dying breath to be " that Prince of most blessed memory;" -than Peter pays to Nero-" the King as supreme, who only employed his Governors for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well."

In the Apology of Justin Martyr, supposed to have been written within 50 years of the Revelation of St. John-that renowned Father, in complaining of the ill treatment which Christians received under the Emperor,Titus Elius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cæsar, his son Verissimus, and Lucius the Phi

*See His Life, in words worth ecclesiastical biography, sub nom. and let imagination ransack the identity of horrors for any thing more horrible than this madness, of a man believing himself a Martyr for truth, yet dying with a known LIE in his mouth: not even in the death of fire, relaxing from the Esprit du Corps, nor surceasing from the characteristic villainy of religion to curry favour with tyrants, and buckle the Church's interests on the State's power. The Church maxim has always been, that, if the powers that be, should say it were night at noon-day, the Clergy should swear they saw the moon and stars, and be ready to seal it with their blood-Xavier, Borgia, Henry the Sth, severally were, and the Devil himself would be, a most religious and gracious Prince.

losopher, to whom his Apology is addressed, makes it the main argument of his remonstrance, that "none of their royal ancestors, or imperial predecessors, had ever persecuted the Christians; and that, if they presumed to do so, they should one day dearly pay for it, in fire everlasting for tell you I must, he adds, that, if you persist in this course of iniquity, you shall not escape the vengeance of God in the other world."

Without denying or doubting that the temper and conduct of Christians must very often, and perhaps sometimes to an unjust and extreme extent, have brought on them a severe retaliation from men who never professed that their feelings were under any supernatural restraint: it is impossible not to see, that men who could address their Pagan Emperors in such a style, could never have feared from them the animadversion that such a style would have been likely to incur from the mildest and most liberal Prince that ever sat upon a Christian throne. In the fifth chapter of Tertullian's Apology, addressed to the Roman Senate, and dated by Mosheim about A.D. 198, that great father, actually challenges the Senate-"Of all the Emperors down to the present reign, who understood any thing of religion or humanity, name me one who ever persecuted the Christians?"

The learned Origen, in the third century (A.D. 253), who, from his experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms, that "the number of Martyrs was very inconsiderable.” Gibbon, Ch. 16. In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to the single persons of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James.-Ibid. And of the martyrdom of the two former of these, there is no record in existence, but such as the Church has rejected as spurious and apocryphal. Even Dr. Lardner, whom, in my SYNTAGMA of the Evidences of the Christian Religion, (not without innumerable proofs against his fair dealing,) I designate as the great Christian Evidence Manufacturer, presents evidence in utter defeat of the conclusions to which he would marshal us. The strongest and most probable proof of all persecutions endured by Christians; the apology of Melito Bishop of Sardis about the year 177, betrays more than it supports the pretence :-"Pious men (says he) are now persecuted and harassed throughout all Asia by new decrees, which was never done before." The learned Dodwell, in a dissertation expressly on the subject, tho' himself a firm believer in Christianity, has shown, and the ablest Christian writers since his time, have admitted" that whatever may have been the calamities which the Christians in general suffered for their attachment to the Gospel," (such as rectories, lordships, bishoprics, and fortune buckled on their back to bear her burthen, whether they would or not,) "there were very few who were put to death on that account."

Mosheim. Vol. 1, p. 78. But whence then our Martyrologies, the long and tragical accounts of such horrors? Why the holy-idiots would have it so! The maxim which the sanguinary temper of the church had adopted was, "Fides nostra non probatur nisi per illorum sanguinem." Our faith is not proved but by their blood. And so to be sure, could this Lardner himself, who in his whole life never so much as encountered the contradiction of an unbeliever, never had to fear even an inconvenience, never wrote in the advocacy of Christianity, but in the sure prospect of fame and honour, never preached for it, but upon the still surer guarantee of a competent income, never knew of any sufferer for conscience sake, but the infidel Woolston, and never entertained any sentiments towards him, but the chuckling tyrant's triumph" Why then, let him suffer," he who never gave aid in his life, nor meant, nor wished it, to any virtue that ploughed not in his yoke; this trickster of divinity, could in robes of silk, and from cushions of velvet, affect to be moved with sympathy for the persecutions which Christians were still undergoing. When he knew and saw, that imagination itself could not imagine a grosser falsehood than the pretence that they were undergoing anything, Yes, the most learned Lardner could cant thus vilely:-"Finally my brethren, by these examples of the patient and victorious confessors and martyrs, let us be animated and encouraged to steadiness in the cause of truth, humbly depending upon God, and earnestly praying that we may have strength from above, equal to the trials which we may meet with; and certainly there remains a rest for the people of God, for in this world they scarce ever have security and protection, but are treated as impious, profane, and disaffected." Vol. 2. p. 344.

Is it you, Mr. Carlile, and I, that have been the people of God all this while, without knowing it? For who but we, and those who think and feel as we do, have suffered persecution, or have ever had to fear it, since the blood-stained banner of the cross established the necessary reign of universal hypocrisy, or universal ignorance; the argument is still, a-fortiori, if thus would such a man as Lardner; what would not the ourang-outang saints from whom his creed, and his credibility are derived? the subject is little suitable to the range of meditation which the thermometer would prescribe. I hold myself therefore sufficiently to have proved, and here conclude my proofs, that PERSECUTION,

18 PECULIARLY CHRISTIAN.

I remain, your's truly,

Evidence, Oakham, June 25th, 1828.

ROBERT TAYLOR.

COMPETITIVE CO-OPERATION versus CO-OPERATIVE COMPETITION.

WE have before placed on record our judgment on the defects of the co-operative project of Mr. Robert Owen and others, and we have now to record another practical proof of those defects. The trial of the scheme at New Harmony, in the United States of North America, is evidently a failure. It has presented nothing but instability and change, until, at last, it is reduced to the common state of competition. We look at schemers about states of society, who do any thing more than assail the superstitions and tyrannies that degrade it, as persons of excited imaginations, similar to those who have been in search of the millenium of human happiness, or of the philosopher's stone, that is to turn every thing to gold. The project of Mr. Robert Owen appears to us to have radical defects in the view which he takes of the animal nature of man.

ADDRESS DELIVERED BY ROBERT OWEN

At a public meeting of the inhabitants of New Harmony, on Sunday,

April 13, 1828.

Since I left you, I have made another visit to the old world to see what had been doing there in my absence. I found the same overwhelming causes of distress in full activity that were in progress when I left it, and which causes had been continually advancing for several years previously. I mean inventions and discoveries to supersede manual labour in all the principal departments of life, and an increase of poverty among the producers of real wealth in proportion to the increase which had been made in these scientific improvements. Every step in this progress tends to accumulate large masses of useless wealth in the hands of a few individuals, and to withdraw it from the industrious producer.

The necessary consequence of a diminution of manual labour is an increase of crime; which again necessarily produces through all the ramifications of society, from the lowest to the highest, an increase of misery. The only remedy proposed in Great Britain by the united wisdom of its parliament, is to induce a spirit of emigration among the producing classes. And while the individual system shall prevail, a continued emigration will be their only relief.

The United States are following the example of Great Britain in its rapi-, dity of production; and they will soon experience many of its evils. The productions of this continent which are necessary to the best state of human existence, will very shortly be in such abundance as to exceed the demand for them; and as soon as that period shall arrive, manual labour will decrease in value, and the non-producers will become the lords and oppressors. Experience has proved that the happiness of states is always in proportion to the equality of their population in knowledge and wealth; but the system in progress in the United States tends to form an aristocracy composed of the priesthood, the lawyers, and the wealthy; and threatens to produce a state of so

ciety the least calculated to promote the general welfare and happiness of any population.

These are the evils to be guarded against. On the other hand, there are inany reasons to rejoice in the prospect of the future. Owing to various causes, knowledge in the old as in the new world is making a silent yet sure progress among the mass of the people. The introduction of Infant Schools * and Mechanic Institutes, and their almost daily increase in Great Britain, imperfect as the new modes of instruction are, is effecting such a gradual change in the minds of the superior producing classes, as will enable them, ere long, to give a new and very different direction to the progress of inventions and discoveries which at present threaten to overwhelm them and their posterity. Superstition, also, among the enlighted part of society, is rapidly on the decline; Free-Press Associations are becoming popular, and the minds of the better informed among the middle classes are daily collecting strength to throw off the shackles of religious oppression, together with the deception and vice which these every where produce. A little longer, and the priesthood will have no influence over any portion of the population except the most ignorant, and those who are compelled to become hypocrites to gain elections into office to obtain a livelihood. No one but these will believe, or pretend to believe, that a Power infinitely wise and good, and who does all things by his might, should, knowing what he was about, make a devil to counteract his own operations, and create human beings to disobey his express wishes and commands. None but irrational beings could be made to believe, or rather to think they believe these or any such palpable contradictions and absurdities.

The time is at hand when the priesthood will discover that they individually suffer, and grievously too, by teaching mankind these degrading errors, and keeping men, in consequence, so profoundedly ignorant as we find them at this day. They will, I conclude, now speedily perceive the mistake which they have made, and pursue a different and much wiser course. They must do so shortly, or they will find the whole of the intelligent part of society opposed to them. Let them instruct the people in real knowledge that might be of use to them, instead of filling their minds with imaginary nctions of useless speculations about incomprehensible superstitions, and they will then render their fellow-creatures a real and permanent service. At present they are a stumbling block in the way of every valuable improve. ment. They are an incubus, pressing the population of all countries down to the lowest point of mental degradation and vice, and rendering the rational faculties of mankind a continued curse to the world-those faculties which under a different direction might become an invaluable blessing.

The priesthood will make this change in their conduct speedily, or they will prepare themselves to enter into an open mental conflict with the most intelligent and conscientious of the human race. It is my opinion that they will act rationally, and adopt the former alternative, and every facility ought to be offered them to do so with the least inconvenience. The world had better pay them twice or ten times as much for instructing it in what is true, than pay them as it does at present for perpetuating ignorance, poverty, and vice, by destroying the reason of man.

From the facts and considerations which I have now stated, my conviction

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