"The old Puritans used to cry, 'liberty of conscience and a straight head of hair,' and so say I. As to toleration, a boasted hoon in some countries, it stinks in my nostrils: their toleration is intoleration most intolerant :' it is merely this; that they are mercifully to be permitted to mix up or separate the species of any religious genus, provided always that they impugn not the divine characteristics of that genus, however repugnant to daily and common vision, reason, experience and practicability. They are to be led blind-fold into the maze of artifice, have some unintelligible jargon whispered, just loud enough to put them on the fret as to their probable destination, and be then left in the lurch by their sapient conductors. Thank Heaven! our religious freedom is not as theirs: talking of artificial conscience, puts me in mind of an odd story:

"Not one hundred years ago, a certain great man in our courts of law, took his seat on the bench, and, for the edification of his hearers, said, That during the recess he had read our Milton's Paradise Lost; 'that the more he reflected the more he was convinced, that work was written with a religious intention in the author: and hinted, that such his belief had some weight in influencing him to give the judgment on the question of law before

him, which he was about to, and soon after did give!!!' The doctrine was so novel, that the reporters of the daily press, gentlemen used to hear strange things, stared with amazement. Observe; first, this great potentate had actually read through the whole, yes, the whole of 'Paradise Lost!' what voluminous perusal! Think of that, Master Brook :' and, secondly, we are told, that presuming the author wrote with the intent aforesaid, &c. &c. that therefore, &c. &c. which amounts to a decision 'that it is considered by the court here,' that I am to measure my conscience by the rule of John Milton, or any other John, however preposterous and absurd!! Well said, Honesty, this is doing it with a vengeance; 'for what's the fish without the sauce, cries Master Gill?' Among the dramatic incidents of this sublime poem, (I have read it a dozen times through, and never thought of mentioning it before, until authority set me an example,) the devils are made to resort to that infernal composition, gunpowder, to give a pithy ultimatum to their hellish manœuvres!!! This is certainty far-fetched; but whether far or near, I suppose we must stretch the drum-head of conscience to credence implicit, or be pointed at as revilers of the ideas of Mr. Milton's heavenly wars: but enough of this insult to

common sense, let us return to subjects of vital importance.

"This inculcated conscience becomes in a great measure, in all, in weak subjects totally, a second nature: it is known of them in riper years by the names of superstition and prejudice; which 'shut up in measureless content,' refuse to listen to a single breath of argument, pausing at the system in which cunning has instructed them; which denounce as damnable and impious, opinions generated by the evidence of the senses, and therefore irresistible, which may tend to invalidate in the least their senseles dogmas, though disproved and belied by every evidence which can assail faculty. It is this same prejudice shelled and slimed, which casing itself in that shell, says, 'I positively refuse once for all, to hear any argument, however dispassionate and moderate, which professes the slightest doubt or variance with what I have been drilled to hold in veneration.'

"I once said to a disciple of the Koran, 'have you read our gospel'—'No,' said he, with ineffable contempt 'nor do I intend; I have made the pilgrimage to Mecca as enjoined by our holy prophet; I follow the precepts of our holy religion, and am satisfied. No man shall persuade me that I am not well

governed when I feel that I am so.' This disciple had been taught to believe, that part of his well-doing consisted in observing a certain number of ablutions daily; the performance of those rites with a due reverence, made a part of his conscience under our second division: had he omitted such on any day, he would have laid any unlucky casualty which might have befallen him, to the score of such impious inadvertence. And so, many a luckless wight has verily believed, that misfortune or bodily accident has been solely the result of his profanation of the Sabbath; that, had it been Monday instead of Sunday, he would not have contrived to pitch, dead-drunk, out of his vehicle, because he could not keep his centre of gravity.

"Oh Man, Man! How thou art hoaxed, and gulled! Thou art, when bereft of the reason and common sense which goodness gave, an ass most veritable: thine ears do elongate, and flap in the gust of folly, most similar to the listeners of that same quadruped; though of late they are become less pendulous, more pricked forward to the cry of Nature, thy grandam.

"Thou wilt do well to keep them in elevation above the side-winds and trade-winds of artifice.

LETTER XXVI.

"been much con

"IT has," continued L troverted, whether or not man has a sufficient source of light, of rectitude, given to him by the revelation of Nature; by the springs of internal movement which excite him to action. The agitation, the abusive spirit of party generated by this query, have been and continue to be immense to this day, the population of the civilized, the reflecting part of mankind, is convulsed by the debate. As to the uncivilized, it enters not into their calculations; they do not dream of troubling themselves about the matter. The special revelationists, so far from settling this contest of opinion, by what they received as a declaration from on high, which should decide the point in issue, are occupied in soundly abusing each other, because of their differences as to the mode in which the gift operates on the mind, its primitive causes, its effects patent and latent. In this delightful work, the officiating ministers abstain from whetting the sword, which is a dangerous office, and therefore to