people to divide himself into three parts, and they believe that one of those parts went into the womb of a girl, to be born in the common way, to lead an obscure existence employed at a mechanical trade, and, at last, to be put to the death of a malefactor! and all this to satisfy his wrath against poor silly mortals, who acted according to the passions he had given them, and who, according to their own dogmas, must go wrong the moment they are left without his immediate superintendance. The Christians would persuade us that by the efficacy of this third part son, who is his own father, and who died for the purpose of saving mankind from his own vengeance, a very few of the human race, in every generation, are brought to salvation, and those happy few are only such as have been elected by the father from all eternity; so that the death of this son, this only son, has been of no avail, because the elected number must be saved, and all the rest of mankind were condemned to eternal misery long before they were called into existence. On the other hand, the elect are conducted to a place they call heaven, not for their good works nor as a reward for moral rectitude, but because they were made expressly for that happy but undescribed situation. The Christians, like the Jews, have their public worship every seventh day, consisting in ceremonies, adulations, and prayers, enacted by priests enrobed in black gowns. A modern system of revelation, believed in by a greater number of mankind than either of the former, is the system of worship practised by the followers of Mahomet, the best and only true prophet. Their Koran is a book written by the finger of God, and handed down from heaven leaf by leaf-it is a tissue of absurdities founded on the ancient fables of the Pagans, Jews, and Christians. They consider that by observing their rules of faith and practice and attending public worship, which consists of ablutions, prayers, thanksgivings, and adorations once in the week, they will be conducted over the infernal gulph by a bridge as narrow as a hair and as sharp as a razor, to the mansion of eternal felicity, where there will be rivers of milk and honey, and groves and gardens of the finest fruit trees and aromatic spices; where they will live in uninterrupted intercourse with the most beautiful females, whose virginity will be perpetually renewed, and where the vigour of the men will be renovated at their pleasure. These three distinguished systems pretend each to have the only true revelation. Each is believed in from the effects of education, and not from reason: the plans of worship practised by each sect are different, but equally absurd. Whenever the fact of the eternity of the universe has been disregarded, and whenever an attempt has been made by igno、 rance to imagine an object of worship, has not such been always represented as a changeable, capricious, and revengeful being? In public worship, each party entreat him to direct and protect them, as being his own peculiar people; they flatter him with the most fulsome adulation; they speak to him and of him just as a being of their own species; they call him infinitely powerful, wise, just, merciful, and good: and they effect to worship him as the meanest slaves would approach the most terrific tyrant. Let us shake from our minds the prejudices of our early education; let us wipe from our eyes the mist of superstition, and investigate the phenomena of nature with an anxious desire to arrive at the knowledge of truth. When we survey the world and the animated races that inhabit it; when we contemplate the solar system and acquaint ourselves with the order of planetary motion; when we branch forth our ideas into the immensity of space, beyond the observation of our own limited faculties; when we explore the interminable universe of similar modes of existence-when thinking man contemplates these things, he can perceive the impossibility of a comprehender existing for that which is without comprehension, or of creating a beginning for that which has the power of perpetuating itself. Existing things have been created by past things, and future things will be formed by things present. From our experience of nature, we know that every event is produced in regular order; every kind of being exists by natural causes, and on the dissolution of individuals depends the maintenance of their races. Nature is production and destruction, and every being is necessarily subjected to this common condition. From the incomprehensibility of the universe, we may judge it folly to join in any kind of worship of its fancied comprehender. Let us, then, as rational men, inquire into the actual realities of existence; let us study science, and instruct one another in useful knowledge. Let us divest our minds of superstition, and particularly avoid the folly of worshipping an ignorantly imagined deity; let us boldly throw off a credulous respect for ancient errors, and assemble ourselves together for the benefit of mutual instruction; and let us apply our minds to things that we can comprehend, rather than lose ourselves in the fanciful idea of comprehending that which we know is not limited nor comprehensible. THE END. Watson, Printer, 15, City Road. LAWYERS-CLERGY-PHYSICIANS-MEN AND WOMEN. BY ROBERT DALE OWEN. He is immorally situated, whose apparent interest tells him one thing, and his duty another. London: J. WATSON, 15, CITY ROAD, FINSBURY SITUATIONS. OF LAWYERS. THE situation in which the members of the most influential classes in society find themselves placed, appears to me conducive neither to their own probity and happiness, nor to the welfare of the community. I am convinced that very many of the errors that prevail throughout our country, and very much of the difficulty which exists in removing these errors, may be traced to this source. I should conceive it much more easy to cure men of their credulities, and to establish rational virtue among them, if it were no one's apparent interest to make them credulous or quarrelsome. In like manner, I should expect much less disease among mankind, if physicians were remunerated according to the measure of health, and not according to the measure of disease, that exists around them. Not that I attribute to lawyers, as a body, the deliberate intention to sow dissentions; nor to the clergy, as a body, an organized plan of attack on our credulity; nor to physicians, as a body, the desire to see disease prevail. But there are degrees of dishonesty; and a strong temptation placed before a whole class of men is seldom without its effects. In illustration of these general observations, let us examine the situation and the temptations of one of these professions, that of the lawyers. To the professed object of the law and lawyers no one will object. Men act unjustly towards each other; and it is desirable that such injustice should be remedied: men quarrel; and it is desirable that they should be reconciled. The law professes to remedy injustice and to reconcile quarrels, and if its practice corresponded to its professions, law would be one of the greatest blessings in social life. to any other country? harmony, and kindness? reverse? Is it so ? Is law a blessing to this, or |