Blocking up their ports, spoiling their tender vines and slaying their Gospel children between the smooth stones of the brook!! A further proof, that infidel and slanderous assassination produced the murder of one of the best and wisest of men. Cresens, the philosopher, who declined the challenge of Justin to debate the cause of Christianity with him before the Roman senate, burning with envious rage, that the son of the carpenter should eclipse his glow-wormship in fame, argument, and testimony, raised a persecuting storm against the learned Justin, whose learning and success sharpened the cowardly daggers of persecuting infamy; incapable to contend in arms against the gigantic Christian, Cresens attacked him with all the virulence of unsupportable unbelief, (as infidel deists, and imbecile buffoons do to this day,) accusing him to the emperor slyly and revengefully. Justin himself had publicly told the emperor what he expected should be his end; that he looked that Cresens, or some of their titular philosophers, should lay snares to undermine, torment, or crucify him. Nor was he at all mistaken; the envious man procuring him to be cast into prison, where he was exercised with many preparatory tortures before his martyrdom. He was brought before Rusticus, prefect of the city. The governor pronounced the following sentence: "They who refuse to sacrifice to the Gods, and obey the imperial edict, let them be first scourged, and be beheaded, according to the laws." He and six other holy men rejoiced and blessed God; were led to prison, scourged, and beheaded by the effects of slander.

Another slandering tale, productive of murder, was carried by an enemy of Christ to the Roman

emperor, to deprive a Christian philosopher of reputation and life.

Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, of very notable parentage, great learning, piety and general usefulness, was accused by an arch Egyptian magician and slanderer, to the emperor Valerian, of execrable charms, associated with other Christians, inasmuch as they and he thereby hindered the emperor's prosperity, and this Egyptian so artfully colored his malicious invectives, as to make the emperor believe that the miracles the Christians wrought were the power of abstracting the mischievous dæmons, whose malevolent influences they banished with the speaking of a word; whereupon edicts were every where published against them, and they, without the least protection, were exposed to the common rage, persecution, and extermination. Emilian, the governor, cried to Dionysius, the learned, in a horific rage," begone to the place allotted;" when sentence was speedily executed upon this great Christian, Platonic philosopher, and divine, who was banished to Cephro, the most rude and barbarous tract of the Lybian desert. Here was banishment by slandering "tales to shed blood ;" and O, tell it not in Gath, even in this land of equal blood, and unalienable rights; of toleration and religious protection, there are many places where a preacher of the Gospel is suspected and accused of insurrectious principles, and if an insurrection break out in a county, it is ten to one but some of the creatures of persecuting unbelicvers implicates a minister. The attempts against night meetings in some parts, invasive of toleration; and the struggle of a minute minority in an extra session, in Virginia, to make preachers bear arms, is recorded.

From the preceding narrations, we have the fullest evidence that one slanderer can produce more killing than ten thousand men with knives, ropes, pistols, and all the instruments of death, especially as they have so many millions of accessories; it is upon this account that slander is called a world of iniquity, for it was the means of the destruction of millions of Jews and Christians by the calumnies of Heathen philosophers. No doubt they all plead the truth, nothing but the truth; they had it from persons who told the truth at all times, if you be lieve them that is to say, whipping truths, stealing truths, robbing truths, murdering truths, truths to prevent a backslider to get work, to get a wife or husband, when they, by being slanderers are the greatest of all backsliders; murdering truths, carrying tales called truth, yet mixed with malice, to shed blood. But if these are truths, then the inspired Moses and the prophets, Jesus Christ and the apostles, are all arrant liars. Liars, for what do you say? Why for teaching that truths, which militate against our neighbour's character, happiness and life, are disagreeable to the law of love and truth, or "mercy and truth met together," and that they are double distilled lies under the garb of religious truth-that is to say, maliciously religious. We say, we contend that a man might as well attempt to impose the worst New-England taffy upon us for the best Antigua, because he ran it through a cold copper West-India still, full of verdigris, put it into Yankee casks, and wrote in fine letters," West India" upon the head of them, as for a slanderer to pass, without detection, malicious truths, (which are nothing but the devil's lies double rectified,) in his or her talebearing casks, because they bore the lying brands of moral

ity, public and private good, and gospel upon their slandering heads, painted by the devil's patent limners.

Slandering truths are nothing else but war in disguise against the peace of society, population, conjugal unity, moral principle, and religion, which we prove by producing, a second time, the language and nature of revealed truth.

Let God be true, and every one who contradicts him will be found a liar. Rom. iii. 4. The word of God is the word of truth. Thy law (saith David) is the truth. Psalm cxix. 142. What is the truth of God, the slandering opposition to which brands every man and woman with the justly merited epithet of a liar? Answ. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer. Lev. xix. 16. Whosoever, under the pretext of religious zeal, violates this negative command, thou shalt not, is a liar against revelation, although the person was drunk whom he named, or angry, or fought, or swore, or lied, or played the harlot; it being evident that as in the Psalm quoted, Thy law is truth, an indication of an universal scriptural truth is offered upon the principle of the analogy of faith, of the nature of all, therefore, whatsoever ye would, to the eternal exclusion of what we would not have spoken, were we to love our neighbour as ourselves.Again, That which is opposite to falsehood and error is the truth: In this sense the law and the Gospel of Christ are the truth. O Lord, all thy commandments are the truth. Psalm cxix. 151. One of which is, If thy brother sin, tell him between thee and him alone. Matt. xviii. 15. Note, he did not, like slandering liars, pretending truth, and blubbering out slander, tell you to tell a preacher or elder; therefore, they are liars against

revealed truth, who act the contrary. I have walked in thy truth. Psalm xxvi. 3; that is, in covering a multitude of sins. 1 Peter iv. 8; not telling upon wicked s-i-n-n-e-r-s. Love covereth all sins. Prov. x. 12. Is this the truth? Well then, the uncovering of all sins is a lie against the truth. I will praise even thy truth, O my God. Psalm lxxi. 22. What truth, Mr. Backbiter, do you think? What do you think, Mr. Hope-the-best? Why, please your bespattering majesty, it is―O, say you, I have you-yes, like the fool in Maskerello, you have caught yourselves. No, no, let us have it out of the wallet-the cat out of the wallet, we suppose you mean as the slanderer's mew and jump has it-let it come then: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Psalm lxxxv. 10. Now, Mr. Slandering tell-truth, telltale, tell malice, tell murder, until you can prove that your malignant truths have mercy, righteousness, public and private peace in intention and action united, we shall take the liberty to christen your truth of the devil a lie against mercy and truth met together, against righteousness and peace as kissing each other; for it takes mercy, truth, righteousness, and peace to make truth; therefore, a slandering truth is a double rectified lie against truth. The slanderer holds the truth in unrighteousness. Rom. i. 18, by slandering instead of forgiving; for, in order to do our duty, we must either sue or forgive-sue like a lawyer, forgive like a God, or slander like a devil. That is to say, by the defamation of the bar, the slander of a bigoted pulpit, cackling of china cups, quilting frames, drawing rooms, bed chambers, carriages, and other gossipping assemblies; like the religious whiner to a roguish receiver in the