of dress and equipage, wallow in bloated sen suality, who were to take no thought for raiment, nor for the morrow, nor what they should eat or drink; to whom a scrip, and water from the spring, should suffice.

"But to fill up this cup of deviation from first precepts and intentions, this man is a Bishop of the 'reformed church:' perhaps you don't know the meaning of the term 'reformed," I will explain it in two minutes. You are to understand then, after God had made a revelation, a special manifestation of his will and real attributes to man, having first suffered him to remain in ignorance of them from the beginning of time, somehow or other, things were not clearly settled for fifteen hundred years more. Man was groping in spi ritual darkness denser than before, during this latter period, fighting with and destroying his fellows, on points of faith and doctrine in the religion he had had fresh from the Godhead. At last, after fifteen hundred years, or thereabouts, during which controversial blood was shed like water on every side, and an excess of religious violence, cruelty, and injustice, committed, eclipsing even the amiable'propensities of the heathen world in these particularities, (a great portion of this interval was emphatically termed 'the dark ages,') all on a sudden

jumped up one Martin Luther, and all was right.

"This famous man, like most other reformers in politics, religion, or morals; like me, if you chuse to call me one, began by roundly asserting all was wrong; he hinted that the Pope, that is, the Bishop of Rome, who had assumed the keys of St. Peter, to whom they were first committed, and let into heaven just whom he pleased, without judge or jury; who was denominated the 'Supreme Pontiff,' the 'Vicar General,' the chancellor, or keeper, or commissioner, of the consciences of all the true believers in Christendom, was no other than the lady who obtains such honourable mention in those profound reveries, the 'Revelations.' And moreover, that she, the said lady in red petticoats, had hoaxed men for the said space of fifteen hundred years, rather more or less, but should hoax them no longer; for that he would put them right in good earnest; for which profane declaration and well meaning announcement, he, the said Martin, has by all orthodox Catholics, that is, the staunch adherents of her in scarlet before mentioned, been piously and sincerely pronounced and believed to be particularly well damned ever since, and to all eternity. And further, that his adherents, that is, the Protestant or reformed

church, whereof as a national edifice, this Bishop is one of the pillars, will of course share the fate of their leader in brimstone and feathers at all which tirade, they, the Reformed, very unceremoniously snap their fingers, and slap their breech, not regarding it three straws.

"And here I will take an opportunity of shewing you, how completely the word 'blasphemy,' which in the present day it is the fashion to abuse, is most strictly a relative term. I have before explained the terms ‘abstract,' and 'relative.' If a man, whether Jew, Christian, or Mahometan, were fool enough to bestride a minaret, by way of playing at weathercocks; to clap his bottom on a pinnacle of a Turkish Mosque, and bellow in the ears of the disciples of the Koran, ‘I assert that Mahomet was an impostor, the divinity of Islamism is a farce;' he would infallibly be dislodged from his post in quick time, and experience the pressure of a very tight uncomfortable neckcloth, called the 'bowstring,' for his pains and yet in this metropolis, where instead of mosques we see churches, any drunken reprobate might make the exclamation with impunity from the windows of Temple Bar: in one case he would be deemed a ‘blasphemer,' in the other, the crowd would only

grin and cry, 'Is'nt it funny?' The real difference would be the 'locus in quo.'

"But to go a little further; suppose, just as the mutes were going to throttle him, with all the graceful ease long habit gives, he was to gain time enough to say, 'Heark'e, you blackguards, my compliments to your master, and its all very well; but, nevertheless, depend on it the time will come, when all the inhabitants of this land, of all the earth, will have their eyes opened to their true interests; when all that is false and bad in society and religion, will by the common consent of knowledge, be gradually done away; and all that is true to Nature, and therefore practicable and good, retained, beloved, and honoured, as part of existence. And that this, the unjust fate of me, and the like of thousands more, who have and who will dare to stand forth boldly in the cause of truth, will not retard, but accelerate this change and consummation.' Think you, the sable ministers of vengeance would heed one word, or if their hearts did wince at his dying words, they would allow such secret misgiving to pass the 'barrier of their teeth,' as old Homer, so aptly styles it? Surely not. They would be well aware, that in that case their own precious necks would be in the high road for silk.

"I could draw inferences closer home, but wise as a 'child of this generation,' shall refrain from doing so; because, although we are not yet come to the bowstring, I should stand a reasonable chance of whetting my grinders against cold iron for a few years more or less, in default of prompt payment of a good swinging sum, as a mulct for contumacy.

"With all this, however, I am happy in being able to report, that with all good men, the word 'blasphemy' is fast falling into disrepute, becoming obsolete. Men of even common reflection know it to be strictly a 'relative,' that man from difference of constitution and shades of intellectual conception, will never be brought to one mode of religious faith that truth can hardly be elicited from hearing only one side of any question: that she must in the end prevail, and come forth from her ordeal in the furnace of scientific enquiry; brighter from proof, which will skim from her the dross of superstition.

:

"Now we'll go and hear some good music."