fered to be adulterated by those of other nations, for their religion withheld them from introducing foreign customs. For years after the destruction of Jerusalem they still kept aloof from the uncircumcised, and the seed of Abraham was unmixed with other tribes. Therefore it could be no great difficulty to attain a knowledge of their manners even at a later period than the third or fourth century.

The probable origin of the New Testament is that the traditional sayings of Christ and the events of his life, which designing men had promulgated, were collected by different persons, and embellished by them with what their fancy invented. This would at once account for the discrepancies so often found in the four gospels. Of epistles there were an immense number written, and ascribed to every person connected with the propagation of the Chris. tian religion; these, with many other writings, were at last placed before a council of priests, who voted that the books now composing our Testament should be considered as forming a volume for the perusal of Christians, excluding, however, the book of Revelations. But their judgment was but little regarded, for disputes ran high among the true believers, and many denied the whole of the scriptures, while others maintained that the greater part were false. A few examples will justify this. The Manichæns, a numerous sect, rejected the New Testament, and asserted that it was a mere forgery; the Marcionists and Corinthians refused credence to the Acts of the Apostles, and the former alleged that the Evangelists were filled with falsities; the Eucratics and Sevenians admitted neither the Acts nor the Epistles of Paul; the Nazarines rejected the latter; and the Valentinians asserted the New Testament was filled with errors, imperfections, and contradictions.

It is most likely, from the nature of the writings, that they were written by priests, and they, as we all know, were well versed in all the learned authors, and would consequently be enabled to describe with accuracy the manners and customs of different nations.

There can be but little doubt that the authors of the Gospels and the Acts designedly introduced many circumstances coincident with real facts. Of all these conformities I believe the minutest search has discovered about fifty, and all these were well known to, and are mentioned by, the authors of those days.

in conclusion, I cannot perceive any appearance of the boasted strength of the conformity argument; nor will any person, I think, after giving the circumstances an impartial and unprejudiced examination, disagree with me. Indeed Christianity appears so filled with absurdities and contradictions that I cannot bring it before my observation in any other form than that of an impious libel upon the Author of Nature. To attribute such a work as the Christian volume to him is stripping him of all those bright colours under which he is represented to the mind, and degrading him below the usual average of human kind. HUGH JOHN URQUHART.

WHO ARE THE SCOFFERS NOW?

SIR,-Defenders of theology, whether it be with the tongue or the pen, seldom fail, in speaking of freethinking, to lay particular stress upon the scoffing spirit of its professors. How often is the cry raised, that ridicule is the strongest weapon of the freethinker! How often do theologians exclaim that their most sacred beliefs are mocked at, and that those things, upon which depend their eternal salvation, are made the laughing-stocks of a discussion-room! But, I think, upon examination it will be found, that sneering is not confined exclusively to unbelievers; but that those, who are. very eloquent in decrying this method of argument, when levelled at their own opinions, are not the least prominent in its use against the opinions of others. Though it may be said of freethinkers, that they sometimes jest at that extraordinary system of arithmetic, which makes one three, and three one; it can never be said that they fall into the error of supposing that insults will pass for arguments. Theologians would do well to let their old 'points' lie dormant. Men will now begin to perceive, that it is not only freethinkers who can scoff, but priests who know how to revile; that it is not only the unbeliever who laughs at what he totally denies, but the Christian who does not scruple to insult the feelings of those whose belief is but a shade different from his own. If it be shocking for Paine, as a deist, to joke upon Christianity, it is not less shocking for Dr. Cumming, as a Christian, to insult those whose Christianity is not, after all, so very wide of his own. From the Premier, down to the smallest orator, in the smallest vestry-meeting, it is astonishing to perceive with what little consideration the conscientious belief of a large portion has been treated. Lord John calls their ceremonies mummeries.' Dr. Cumming says the Pope is an 'old idiot.' Caricatures are displayed in shop windows, which, had they been the production of freethinkers, would be denounced as vile, beastly, &c. I am not fond of the Pope. I have no great liking for Cardinals. I have a particular dislike for the Eucharist, yet, had I employed the same terms in speaking of Catholics, as believers in the Queen's supremacy, the sanctity of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Consubstantiation, have employed, I should feel that in future my wisdom would be best displayed by my silence. In the course of the week we shall have carol singers shouting:

'Rejoice! our Saviour he was born

On Christmas-day in the morning.'

Rejoice! with Protestantism and Catholicism ready to fly at each other's throats; and some dozens of other sects, all hoping that the present agitation will increase their little flock. How often do we find men who are kind friends, charitable and tolerant in general, yet, speak a word against their particular creed, and straightway their tolerance, their kindness, their charity, 'take unto themselves wings and flies away,' leaving behind bigoted, intolerent, denouncing theologians.

Now, Sir, can we not set a better example, and show those who think they are members of the 'heavenly choir' how to treat the views of an opponent, how to endeavour to convince, rather than silence. We shall not, I hope, make our chief argument the intolerance of our opponents, and perorate by threatening them with the police. We shall not, I hope, ever be found throwing a mover of an amendment from the platform, nor, on the appearance of an adversary, indulging in the discordant sounds which Protestants of late have brought into fashion. They call us 'cold,' 'hard' freethinkers, and dead to all' spiritual feelings' of our nature; but though my views were the north pole of the mind, I would prefer them to the torrid zone of theology, which produce fruits of such an exciting nature. I am content to freeze in the cold of Rationalism, rather than burn with the fire of Religion. I will leave those who believe in the Trinity to damn those who believe in Purgatory, and vice versa, and endeavour to argue whilst they denounce, to reason whilst they storm. It is somewhat amusing to hear the Cardinal, hoping 'God will enlighten' the Bishop; and the Bishop, that 'the Lord may turn the Cardinal from the error of his ways;' to hear a meeting denounce intolerance, and finish by singing :

'O Lord, God, arise!

Confound our enemies!'

The ultimate fruit of the present struggle will be, I believe, a great gain to free-thought. Men will begin to discover that what is tyranny in a Pope, is no less so in Episcopacy. When men begin really to judge for themselves, we shall soon discover, that wherever thought and progress are leading man in these days, it is not to Rome.' SILESCAM.

THE TELESCOPE AND THE MICROSCOPE.

THE one led me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the burden of its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches me, that every grain of sand may harbour within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from all its insignificance-for it tells me that, in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to man there may lie fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me, that within and beyond all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles-and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as Astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidence of his glory.-Dr. Chalmers, quoted by Dr. Pye Smith.

EVIL EFFECTS OF SUPERSTITIOUS INTOLERANCE.

WITH the utmost stretch of attention we are scarcely able to seize these subtle distinctions, which aim at setting in opposition unknown causes whose effects are always the same. The examination of them fatigues the reason, and appears a sort of blasphemy against that inscrutable Being, who is thus submitted to a kind of moral dissection. With more difficulty still should we pursue the different shades of these opinions, and all the various sects to which they gave rise. But the influence of these subtle questions was fatal to the empire: every sect persecuted in its turn, and the orthodox-that is to say, the victorious-abused, `more cruelly than the others, the power which they were no longer able to retain. The first dignitaries of the church were expelled from their seats; many perished in exile, many in prison, many were even sentenced to death. Those who held the forbidden opinions were denied the liberty of worship; while the property of the condemned churches was seized, and thousands of monks, fighting with staves and stones, excited tumults in which rivers of blood were shed. Large towns were given up to pillage, and to all the outrages of a brutal soldiery; and all this as a punishment for an attachment to words rather than ideas. At the end of the sixth century, the greater part of the empire, especially the eastern, longed for a foreign deliverer-even for the yoke of a heathen or a magian, so that they might escape from the intolerance of the orthodox party and of the emperors.-Sismondi's Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I., p. 271.

To Correspondents.

All communications for this periodical are to be addressed to the Editor of the Freethinker's Magazine, care of J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster row, London. We have received a number of communica tions from good and true friends of the cause on the subject of subscrip tions towards this attempt at propagandism. We thank them most sincerely; and while declining their kind offers as regards this work, beg to suggest the formation in every town of a committee to collect subscriptions, &c., the proceeds to be devoted to supplying the local priesthood with copies of works of progress as fast as they come out. To such communi. ties we promise, on our part (and fancy can guarantee on the part of several other publications), such a reduction on the cost, as shall enable the various committees to distribute a larger quantity than under ordinary circumstances they would be enabled to do. The Editor begs to intimate, it would forward the cause of progress were he furnished with the names and addresses of the clergy of all denominations in their several localities.

Printed by Holyoake Brothers, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row; and published by James Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row, London.

A REPRINT OF THOSE PORTIONS OF THE FAMOUS HISTORIAN THAT CHRISTIANS CONSIDER IT TO BE THEIR DUTY TO SUPPRESS, IN ORDER THAT DOUBTS MAY NOT BE RAISED AS TO THE INFALLIBILITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.

[Chapter XV. Concluded from p. 270.]

THEY expose, with superfluous wit and eloquence, the extravagance of Polytheism. They interest our compassion by displaying the innocence and sufferings of their injured brethren. But when they would demonstrate the divine origin of Christianity, they insist much more strongly on the predictions which announced, than on the miracles which accompanied, the appearance of the Messiah. Their favourite argument might serve to edify a Christian or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the other acknowledge the authority of those prophecies, and both are obliged, with devout reverence, to search for their sense and their accomplishment. But this mode of persuasion loses much of its weight and influence, when it is addressed to those who neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation and the prophetic style. In the unskilful hands of Justin and of the succeeding apologists, the sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles evaporates in distant types, affected conceits, and cold allegories; and even their authenticity was rendered suspicious to an unenlightened Gentile, by the mixture of pious forgeries, which, under the names of Orpheus, Hermes,

If the famous prophecy of the Seventy weeks had been alleged to a Roman philosopher, would he not have replied in the words of Cicero, 'Quæ tandem ista auguratio est, annorum potius quam aut mensium aut dicrum P' De Divinatione, ii. 30. Observe with what irreverence Lucian (in Alex. andro, c. 13.) and his friend Celsus ap. Origen (1. vii. p. 327.,) express themselves concerning the Hebrew prophets.