opponent, intending the most opprobrious inuendo against me, dedicates his HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY UNASSAILABLE to a Reverend Unitarian Minister, whose claim to the title of Reverend does not consist in Episcopal Ordination, nor in the imposition of hands, but in the sentiments of affectionate reverence, which all who know him, feel towards him. Now, how say ye, Gentlemen, shall we be bearded thus ?Shall we subscribe our own infamy, sell cur dear honour to this rascal taunt,-be what our enemies would have us be, read ourselves off at their appraisement, and own them for our betters? -Or shall we be the most ungrateful wretch on earth, and say we have no sense of dearness and property in the sentiments of affectionate reverence of those who know us, to justify our title? 14. Or am I to subscribe the reason which the Reverend J. Blackburn, of Claremont Chapel, gave before a crowded assembly, why I ought no more to be called the Reverend; even "because the Reverend Dr. J. Pye Smith, in his Answer to the Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society, had proved me to be so great a liar, that no man who knew me would take my word in private life." Oh! had these limbs lain at the mercy that dealt thus with my good name,-the carrion crows might have kept Lent on the poor pickings his teeth had left on me?— There was no notice to be taken of course of the existence of such a work as THE SYNTAGMA, in vindication of the Manifesto. O no! God forbid! for that could only make my lies so much the more flagrant, by exhibiting them in such a light, that nothing short of a miracle of grace could save the man who ventured to read them, from taking them to be truth! The infinite vituperators know enough of the merits of their own arguments, to be aware that it would be suicide to look on mind. 15. And when a thousand cruel slanders stand on tip-toe, to start upon my yielding of an inch; and when by such multiplied experience, I know that nothing that I ever have done or can do shall ever be heir to any other than the very worst construction that can be put upon it; shall I, for any reason that hatli not been reasoned twice, give up that addition to my name which is known as well to belong to me, as my name, and the foregoing of which, on my part, might be construed into a change of my name, or into an inference that I had once been what I had cause to wish that I had not been, or that there were some passages or actions of my life that needed to be concealed? 16. And give but these unconscionable slanderers the breath of so much verisimilitude as might grow out of this shadow of a shuffle, and they would write me to so black a grimness as innocence itself should despair to cleanse me from. 17. As it is, I live and breathe, and only live and breathe, in the proud soundness of integrity that stands before God and man in the challenge, Show me no favour. Put me off this, and make it necessary that I should have something in my name or conduct that needed apology, my pride would fall sick and die, and the sooner I died after it the better. 18. For any one person who could withhold from me the title of the Reverend, from a just and rational apprehension that it was unworthy me, a hundred thousand snarling insolents would withhold it, on implication that I was unworthy of it. 19. What though it be nothing,-though I indeed value it as nothing, and in familiar parlance never wished nor liked it,-yet he who would go about to get the wind of me to my dishonour, must be visited with a resentment apportioned not to the affront itself, but to his intention to affront us. The question on the point of honour isn't "Do you bite your thumb, Sir?" but "Do you bite your thumb at us?" Among our friends we stand unbuckled of all distinctions; but in countenance of those who hate us, it becomes us to stand up to the utmost hair of our proper altitude; and till we know our friend from our enemy, we demand the recognition of our bearings. Caius Marcius, plain citizen of Rome, in Rome, must be "Coriolanus in Corioli !" 20. Give me but a security, nay, give me but a plausible seeming, or but show me how I could in any way surcease from standing on this challenge, so that I should not incur the frightful infamy of being represented as a degraded clergyman, as stript of my gown, an sinking to the class of those who for immorality of conduct are turned out, not merely from the church, but from all decent society. 21. And would my carking foes pay me due credit for an act of such romantic self-denial? Would their equally romantic generosity spare my character from the insinuation that I had but given up my challenge in good time, and played the part of the the judicious dog? 22. I gave up my sufficient and independent income in the Church, because I held it dishonourable to receive the wages of iniquity, or to hold the emoluments of a work I had lost all heart to do; but honour never called on me to do an act that could bear the reading of concealment, or to write myself a line lower in the scale of the world's estimation, than that which on every other score was my proper grade and standing. 23. And on this express covenant and stipulation with my Bishop did I resign my preferment into his hands, and received his acceptance of it, that it should be no disparagement to my place and rights, as a priest and clergyman of the Established Church, in which I am at this moment, and have never ceased to be, eligible to any preferment, dignity or station to which I may be appointed, upon my only once again subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles, and publicly declaring that I had renounced my sceptical and physi-theistical opinions. Should any nobleman, opulent commoner, or lay impropriator, choose to present to me the richest benefice in the kingdom, and I chose to play the part of accepting it, there is no power in Church or State that could lift a finger in my impediment. 24. I am still responsible to the ecclesiastical authorities, still convenable at their summons; degraded I. never have been. Were there a stain on my moral character, the clergy in convocation would be competent to impeach me; and on proof had, might demand the surrender of my orders, and pronounce my degradation. This, I stand before them in subjectness and defiance of their power to do; this would indeed assign me over to the ranks of the Jocelyns and the Woodcocks, and destroy, and justly destroy, all possible moral effect of my writings, all respectability of my person, all influence of my exertions and labour in any way. 25. And am I to give my enemies their wish, by castrating myself into impotence, and shedding the powers I hold in their annoyance? Am I to run the hazard of what construction may be put on an unusual and unprecedented act, that will at any rate bear the worst as plausibly as the better construction? These reasons for retaining the distinction, seem to me to be stronger than any I have ever heard of to the contrary; and while I retain ambition enough to think it due to me, on as high a ground as it was ever given to those who most widely differ from me, I shall continue to wish it from my friends, to expect it from strangers, and to challenge it from adversaries. Most heartily wishing you increase of numbers, unanimity of counsels, and vigour of operations, Oakham Castle, Nov. 29, 1828. I am, Gentlemen, Your obliged humble servant, To the Zetetics of Ashton-under-Line and Staley Bridge. ANSWER TO THE FREE-THINKER, A. P.'S INJECTION INTO THE LION'S MOUTH. SIR,-The air of pontifical assumption and sacred insolence which characterizes your claim for insertion of your observations in “ the paper or pamphlet," which you would have it thought an infinite condescension for such a Deity as you to name, bespeaks the wellknown genius of the Gin-and-Gospel school of Free-thinkers,a sect, happily for the hopes of moral virtue among men, as contemptible in point of numbers,as they are pre-eminent above all sects that ever were on earth, for their measureless arrogance, consummate ignorance, and infinite hypocrisy. I know your craft, Sir: your airs become it; your tone and attitude befit the geography of your position on the outer line that disconnects ourang-outang stupidity from the climate of human courtesy, and where the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ breathes its pure native element oxymurialized with the oxygen of civilization. Sir, if 'tis from the setting forth of that Egyptian romance, the New Testament, that we are to judge of the characters of the Apostles, I only challenge you to show what Pope on earth ever more audaciously called on us to put out our own eyes and see with his, than the insolent intolerant, who would force such a violence upon evidence, as the making us find that the Apostles were in an inch of honesty, of patriotism, or of virtue of any complexion, the betters of the Scribes and Pharisees of ancient times, or the Hypocrites, Quakers, and Free-thinkers of our days; than whom, I hold it impossible that there should be among men, any less honest, less patriotic, or less virtuous. Who murdered Ananias and Sapphira, that gave them a portion of their property, because they gave not all? Who betrayed, forsook, forswore, and sold their master? Who inculcated the most slavish, abject, and rascal submission " to the powers that be," for the vile purpose of ingratiating themselves into favour with those powers, and worming themselves into a share of the tyranny they supported? Who sacrificed the Corinthian to the Devil? Who circumcised, while he preached against circumcision? Who maintained that their lies abounded to the glory of God, and professedly became all things to all men, till they had coaxed, lied, cheated, and wheedled themselves into such a degree of influence over their deluded followers, that they were ready to pluck out their own eyes, and yield them to their rapacity? Who left no hypocrisy unpractised, no crime unperpetrated, in their way to an ascendancy over the minds, the properties, lives, and liberties of men, than which, before, the like had never been more fraudulently obtained, never more mercilessly exercised? Who are the great exemplars and paragons of spiritual presumption, the record of whose arrogance stands as the everlasting rule and text-book to lesser villains? whose transcendant grimness of crime, laid on beyond the truth of nature, gives a lightness of cast to the ebony of our Borgias, Ximenes, Torquemadas, Bonnors, and Ferdinands? Tell us that crime is innocent, that ice is hot, that fire is cold; do violence to our reason-let not our eyes see, let not cur thoughts. think, let us not read ourselves, but read the shallow, insolent, o'er-weening, would-be-God-a'mighty free-thinking High Priestfor us! and then, and not till then, shall we forget that the Apostles are as different from such philanthropic and virtuous characters as you would represent them to be,-as the style and structure of your communication is from that of one who felt that his statements would bear looking into. Your's, as herein, ROBERT TAYLOR. LORD BEXLEY TO THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR. SIR,-I desire to acknowledge your letter, and to assure you, that its not being received when first sent to me was no intentional affront, but the consequence of a general direction I have been obliged to give my servants, not to receive packages above weight, unless they are acquainted with the writing of the direction. With regard to the letter itself, I need not inform you, that any application for a mitigation of your sentence must be addressed to the Secretary of State, who is always ready to give full consideration to any application for the Royal mercy. This was not however, perhaps, your object; and I can only return the kind wishes you express for me, by a sincere wish on my part that you may yet return to the faith of which you were once a minister, and which I believe to be the true road to happiness. Without entering into discussions so often treated by abler hands than mine, allow me to recommend to you a little book, which I think you will find it interesting, if you have not read it: "Keith's Evidence of Prophecy." An acute and reflecting mind cannot but be sensible of the extreme improbability of future events being distinctly foretold, ages before their accomplishment, except by a divine power; and that when the circumstances are multiplied and various, it amounts to a moral impossibility. I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, Foot's Cray Place, 22 Nov. 1828. BEXLEY. Rev. R. Taylor. Journal of a Tour by Wm. Edmeads, in company with J. Alexander, is the year 1801-1802, through France, Italy, Switzerland, a part of Germany and the Netherlands. Dedicated to William Elgar. (Continued from p. 704.) FROM Rovoredo, the road to Turin, even, spacious, and decked with rows of trees on each side, crosses a rich level, in a direct line, so that you view the citadel and lofty buildings of the city, immediately on leaving the town. The approach and entrance into Turin is really magnificent, equalled by nothing we had seen of that kind, (except Versailles.) The road is broad, many elegant houses are near it, and the hills on each side, at some little distance, are crowded with beautiful villas. The buildings of the city, the Boulevards, the fortifications, the streets, were uniformly grand; and we were so much pleased with the exterior appearance of Turio, that we determined, contrary to our original design of galloping to the extremity of our tour, to make a stay of some days here. The city itself is regularly formed, having a magnificent square, from which streets branch in right lines to the extremity, not of exact length or width, but all of them well built, as well as two or three lesser squares.— |