Such excellence the nature and excellence of God, not of man. may do for other gods to imitate, but not for man to follow; the nature of Deity cannot be a light to his paths. Man must look among the wise and the virtuous of his own species for examples of wisdom and virtue; not among the brutes, for their nature is beneath him; nor among the gods, for their attributes are beyond his reach. These are the reasons which induce me to believe that theological knowledge is unattainable even if it were useful, and useless though it could be attained. R. D. O. "SAFEST TO BELIEVE." fr has often been argued that credulity is safer than scepticism -that "it is safest to believe;" inasmuch as if a man believe in heaven and hell, and there be no such places, he is, if no gainer, at least no loser; whereas the infidel may lose, and cannot gain. Upon the same principle, it were safest to believe all the religions of the world at once- -Christian, Mahomedan, Jewish, Hindoo, Confucian, and all the rest; because it is but insuring the matter by halves to trust to one only. If Allah be not the only God, and Mahomet be an impostor, there is no harm done, nothing lost; and if there be not a paradise in another world, there has been a pleasant dream of anticipated joys in this. Let us ask, is the balance of profit and loss fairly struck? Are the chances all in favour of the religionist, and all against the sceptic? Is there nothing to be thrown into the opposite scale? Surely, much. If religion be a fallacy, it is a fallacy pregnant with mischief. It excites fears that are without foundation; it fosters feelings of separation between the believer and the unbeliever; it consumes valuable time, that can never be recalled, and valuable talents, that ought to be better employed; it draws money from our pockets to support a deception; it teaches the elect to look upon their less fortunate fellow-men as heathens and castaways, living in sin here, and doomed to perdition hereafter; it awakens harassing doubts, gloomy despondency, and fitful melancholy; it turns our thoughts from the things of the world, where alone true knowledge is to be found; it speaks of temporal misery and temporal pleasures as less than nothing and vanity, and thus fosters indifference to the causes of the weal and woe of mankind; worse than all, it chatus us down to antiquated orthodoxy, and forbids the free discussion of those very subjects which it most concerns us to discuss. If religion be a fallacy, its votaries are slaves. Whereupon, then, rests the assertion, that if the religionist do not gain, he cannot lose? Is it nothing to lose time and talents, to waste our labour upon that which is not bread, and our money upon that which profiteth not? Is it nothing to feel that the human beings that surround us are children of the devil, heirs of hell, and sons of perdition? Is it nothing to think that we may perhaps look across the great gulf and see some one we have loved on earth, tormented in a fiery lake; and hear him ask us to dip a finger in water that it may cool his parched tongue ? Is it no loss to live in disquiet by day, and in fear by night; to pass through dark seasons of doubt and temptation, and to be conscious that we are but as strangers and pilgrims here, toiling through a weary valley of cares and sorrows? Is it no loss to hold back when truth oversteps the line of orthodoxy, and, when there ought to be free discussion, to shrink before we know not what? Is all this no loss? Or, is it not rather the loss of all that a free and a rational being most values ? R. D. O. Just published, A SERMON ON LOYALTY: A REMONSTRANCE TO GOD: AND A SERMON ON FREE ENQUIRY. BY R. D. OWEN. Watson, Printer, 15, City Road. A Tale of Old England Foul superstition! howsoever disguised, Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss! Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross? BY R. D. OWEN. Byron London: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. WATSON, 15, CITY ROAD, FINSBURY DARBY AND SUSAN. THERE lived, in a pretty rural village, a homely, industrious, sensible, and contented couple, Darby and Susan. The tidy cottage that stood beside the village green, with the moss rose-bush and the sweetbriar before it, and the gravelled path edged with rows of box that led to its rustic porch, and the honeysuckle climbing over the walls, till it half hid the little arched windows, and stretched its fragrant tendrils up to the brown thatch-that was their cottage. It was their garden that looked so gay and neat behind that pretty cottage; and it was their cow that fed in the little pasture beside it. Darby and Susan were, in truth, a notable and a happy couple. Nobody brought such sweet-scented hay to market as honest Darby, for so his neighbours were wont to call him; and not undeservedly; for nobody gave juster weight or fuller measure than he, in all the country round. Susan's fame had gone far and wide. She was a very pattern of housewives: up with the day, at work like her own bees, and as merry as the lark when it rises in the summer sunbeams. No honey was so transparent as that from Susan's hives; no cheese or butter, in all the parish, so good, as that she made. Her 'kerchief was the whitest at the village festival, and her step the lightest at the village dance. You might hear, as you passed her door, the busy hum of her wheel; and no lass, within twenty miles of that village, spun a smoother thread, or a stronger. You might hear, too, at intervals, a song, whose merry tones cheered your very heart; and that was Susan's, the sweetest and the blithest singer in all the country side. Darby always found a well-swept hearth, and a blazing fire, and a pair of laughing eyes, when he returned from market, cold and weary. And a blazing fire and laughing eyes are excellent specifics against care and dulness. As he sat, in the long winter evenings, platting willow baskets, while his notable partner spread the spotless napkin and arranged his frugal supper, you might scarcely chance upon a happier man. And, after supper, when Susan always sung her merriest ditties, |