of ten thousand prejudices, but I hope that as you have stood forward as the enemy of religious prejudices, you will oppose those prejudices which are hostile to a knowledge of this subject.

Your constant reader,

LICAN

A REPUBLICAN,

TO THE FREETHINKING CHRISTIANS.

GENTLEMEN, Spitalfields, London, August 11, 1822. It appears to me that superstition and delusion is the principle support to Priestcraft, and State-tyranny; but while the people, through indolence or cowardice, love the former, they ought in justice to have the latter!

I went to your meeting the other Sunday, and was much gratified in hearing you and your brethren speak on the negative side of that important subject, "The immortality of the human soul." The subject was so well arranged, and so well spoken too, as to put it beyond a doubt, that the writers of the Jewish Scriptures did not believe "the immortality of the human soul," but that man was altogether a material being, and of course you must entertain the same opinion.

I have but little doubt if you honestly pursue an inquiry into the " System of Nature," that you will soon get rid of all religious superstition and delusion; but until then you will not be cousistent materialists. It is the opinion of the Trinitarians" that matter cannot think," because say they: "It is mind that thinks, and mind is not matter; therefore, matter cannot think." However, one of your society did ably show "that matter can and does think, that mind is the result of a peculiar organization of matter; and that, therefore, matter can and does think."

This is also maintained by Locke, Helvetius, Mirabaud, and others who by a just chain of reasoning conclude, that sensibility, perception, and memory (faculties of necessity only dependent on a peculiar organic structure) are the productive sources of all ideas; that without a peculiar organization of matter there can be no sensibility, perception, memory, nor intelligence whatever. I consider therefore, that every man of letters, if he be truly honest to himself and to society, must make the following conclusions, viz.: That as all the faculties of mind are of necessity dependent on a pe

culiar organization of matter, and reasoning from analogy, all intelligent beings must be material, local, and changeable beings; that intelligence must of necessity be an acquired property, and therefore could not have been originally a first cause, but the effect of some material cause or causes; and that nothing exists exterior to, or above matter in motion, which is infinite in extension, and in which originally and eternally existed all the causes necessary and sufficient to produce all the phenomena we behold, or have existed.

I now take upon me to say that as a religious society of Freethinking Christians and Materialists, you ought to identify in the material universe a material being, as the only object of religious worship; and not worship an imaginary being that is incomprehensible, that can have no existence but in the brain of a fanatical enthusiast; a being of which you can know nothing, either of its nature, or its mode of existence; or, whether it be sensible and intelligent or not: such worship I conceive to be inconsistent even with a Christian materialist. We find that most of the Theologians have identified in matter a being whom they have made the object of their religious worship, by acknowledging Jesus Christ to be their God, but with much less propriety and consistency in them who are immaterialists, than it would in you who consider the human soul to be material. However, if those theologians could, or did, possess unequivocal evidence that Jesus Christ really did these things, which they say he did, they would have a reasonable ground for acknowledging him to be God in the true sense and meaning of that term. For say they, "he spake as never man spake: that he did those wonderful works, which no man ever did before, or since; that he made whole the maim, the halt, and they who were born blind; that without the ordinary means, made the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, and cleansed the lepers, that he raised the dead also; that he had power to lay down his own life and to take it up again; that he submitted to lay down his life by the hands of his enemies, and actually took it up again, of which he gave proof, by his resurrection from the dead; that be gave proof of such resurrection by associating with his disciples afterwards, and shewing to them the prints of the nails in his hands and feet, and the hole in his side made by the soldier's spear while hanging on the cross; that after several days in the presence of his disciples he ascended from this earth, and was received by a cloud out of their sight; that he now exists somewhere in a

state of glorious dignity; that in part such a dignified state of Jesus Christ has been seen by Paul, Stephen, and John." If mankind had such unequivocal evidence, such ocular demonstration, as is said the Disciples of Jesus Christ had of his power, wisdom, goodness, and of his dignified character, they could not doubt that he was endued either by a supernatural Being, or by nature with extraordinary powers and abilities such as to capacitate or qualify him, in a peculiar manner to be not only a ruler, or a governor, which is the primary signification of the term God or Gods but a chief ruler. And every individual possessing such demonstration or evidence, would be justified in acknowledging him to be God! a sense of duty and privilege would lead them to offer him religious or sacred worship, by submitting to his doctrines, commands, laws, and institutions; which would be calculated to unite mankind, and instruct them successfully in the social principles of moral virtue, and effectually produce general happiness to society! therefore, to acknowledge Jesus Christ to be God, in consequence of possessing unequivocal evidence arising from ocular demonstration of such facts ascribed to him, would be but a just acknowledgement of God who could be identified in eternal matter, because Jesus Christ was, and if he still exists, is, a material being; and is capable now of giving evidence of the same, for if after his ascension, he gave such evidence to Paul, to Stephen, and to John: must he not be capable now of giving such evidence to all men who are capable of receiving such evidence which is acknowledged by the theologians and writers of the New Testament? therefore, as a religious community of free-thinking Christian materialists, and believing Jesus Christ as a man altogether a material being, you would be truly consistent with yourselves in acknowledging "Jesus Christ to be God: begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father" (the material universe) which has produced all the beings therein contained by its eternal, self-existent, independent, omnipresent, all-sufficient, physical powers, until you acknowledge a God which can be identified in eternal matter; or deny the existence of any God, you must remain inconsistent materialists, and superstitious, deluded theologians.

J. B. LEVANT.

P. S. Can any of you "Free-thinking Christians" auswer the following questions?

Is intelligence any thing more than the result of organic structure?

Is it possible for an intelligent being to exist independent of a material organic structure?

DEATH OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THE celebrated author of "Queen Mab" is no more! We sincerely regret the premature death of so great a genius so well applied. The following account of his death is taken from the "Examiner" of Sunday the 4th inst. We thall seek another oportunity to do our duty by doing justice to his memory.

Those who know a great mind when they meet with it, and who have been delighted with the noble things in the works of Mr. SHELLEY, will be shocked to hear that he has been cut off in the prime of his life and genius. He perished at sea, in a storm, with his friend Captain WILLIAMS, of the Fusileers, on the evening of the 8th ult., somewhere off Via Reggia, on the coast of Italy, between Leghorn and the Gulf of Spezia. He had been to Pisa, to do a kind action, and he was returning, to his country abode at Lerica to do another. Such was the whole course of his life. Let those who have known such hearts, and have lost them, judge of the grief of his friends. Both he and Captain WILLIAMS have left wives and children. Captain WILLIAMS was also in the prime of life, and a most amiable man, beloved like his friend. The greatest thing we can say in honour of his memory (and we are sure he would think so), is, that he was worthy to live with his friend, and to die with him.-Vale, dilectissime hominum! Vale, dilectissime; et nos ama, ut dixisti, in sepulchro.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM PISA, DATED JULY 25, 1822. "I trust that the first news of the dreadful calamity that has befallen us here, will have been broken to you by report, otherwise I shall come upon you with a most painful abruptness. But SHELLEY, my divine-minded friend-your friendthe friend of the Universe-he has perished at Sea! He was in a boat with his friend Captain WILLIAMS, going from Leghorn to Lerica, when a storm arose, and it is supposed

the boat must bave foundered.-It was on the 8th instant, about four or five in the evening, they guess. A fisherman says he saw the boat a few minutes before it went downbe looked again, and it was gone. He saw the boy they had with them aloft, furling one of the sails. We hope this story is true, as their passage from life to death will then have been short; and what adds to the hope is, that in S.'s pocket (for their bodies were both thrown on shore some days afterwards. Conceive our horrible certainty after trying all we could hope.) A copy of Keates's last volume which he had borrowed of me to read on his passage, was found open and doubled back, as if it had been thrust in, in the hurry of a surprise. God bless him! I cannot help thinking of him as if he were alive as much as ever, so unearthly he always appeared to me, and so seraphical a thing of the elements. It has been often feared that SHELLEY and Captain WILLIAMS would meet with some accident, they were so hazardous; but when they set out on the 8th in the morning it was fine. Our dear friend was passionately fond of the sea, and has been heard to say that he should like it to be his death-bed."

The following Letter bore the Chester Post-mark.

TO MR. R. CARLILE, DORCHESTER GAOL.

1

DEAR SIR, August, 1822. EVER since you began to publish the immortal works of Thomas Paine, I have felt an intense interest in your welfare, and as a proof of my sincerity I beg your acceptance of the enclosed Ten Pounds, being my fourth subscription, you must consider it merely as a debt of gratitude that I owe you, as an individual Englishmau, for the noble, intrepid and persevering exertions in a cause on which depends not only the happiness of the present race of men but of millious of millions of human beings yet unborn. I mean the liberty of the press and a perfectly free discussion upon all subjects. In such a cause, surely Britons never will suffer you to be crushed by the strong arm of oppression! Do we live in a land of freedom? Do we love truth? Can these questions