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According to your religion, we must believe in a Father and a Son, or we shall not be happy hereafter. We have always believed in a Father, and we worship him as we were taught by our fathers.-Your book says, that the Son was sent on earth by the Father. Did all the people who saw the Son believe in him? No! they did not, and the consequence must be known to you, if you have read the book.

"Brother, you wish us to change our religion for yours. We like our religion, and do not want another. Our friends (pointing to a Mr. Granger, Mr. Parish, and Mr. Taylor) do us great good. They counsel us in our troubles, and instruct us how to make ourselves comfortable.-Our friends, the Quakers, do more than this, they give us ploughs, and show us how to use them. They tell us we are accountable beings, but do not say we must change our religion. We are satisfied with what they do.

"Brother, for these resons we cannot receive your offers. We have other things to do; and beg you to make your mind easy, and not to trouble us, lest our heads should be too much loaded, and by and bye burst."

The author of the work from which we quote, observes: "In spite of all these arguments, the Missionaries still continue to intrude upon the tribe of Red Jacket. So much has he been vexed at this, that a short time before I saw him, he made a journey to Washington in order to complain of their conduct, and to request that they might be hindered from going among his people."

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Again: "The Indians are an uncommonly intelligent and shrewd people; but although they will readily give their assent to all good arguments upon morality, yet I regret to say, that they are very sceptical with regard to accounts of miracles, wonders, mysteries, &c. The generality of the Missionaries plunge at once in medias res,' without attempting to explain the historical evidences of our holy religion, of which evidences indeed I very much doubt whether they themselves know any thing. Hence the Indians naturally refuse their belief to the very strange stories, which are related to them out of the Bible.

"Dr. Franklin* tells us of the remark of an Indian Chief, when a Missionary had been explaining to him, how Adam and Eve, by eating the apple in Paradise, occasioned the eternal damnation of all their posterity.-The Chief got up, and replied with the utmost gravity, that it was certainly * Vide Franklin's Essays.

No. 8, Vol. X.

a very bad thing to eat apples, as, it was much better to make them into cider.'

"A gentlemen, who had been much among the Indians, told me an anecdote which is somewhat similar. A Missionary had been relating to an assembly of Indians many of the miracles contained in the Old Testament, and amoug others that of Jonah and the whale. With a great deal of difficulty he prevailed on the Indians to say they believed it; but going on from wonder to wonder, he read to them the account of Noah's going into the Ark with a pair of all the animals on the face of the earth, savage as well as tame. Here one of the chiefs interrupted him, saying, No, no, brother, we now do not believe the story of the big fish, we now know that you tell us lies.'

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The work from which the foregoing passages are extracted is well worth the notice of every person interested in the prosperity of the United States of North America.

ON PERSECUTION.

O PERSECUTION! what has thou done? In all ages thy malignant and mistaken authors have disseminated that which they intended to destroy. They, by their cruelty, have turned the current and tide of public opinion against themselves, and, by exciting examination and criticism, have made the thing popular which before was obscure, and that estimable which before was spurned and hated.

I picture to myself thy victims, for thy sacrifices are innumerable. The objects of thy vengeance are levelled before thy malignant sight. Indiscriminately the blow is struck without regard to age or sex. Thou art inexorable in thy cruelties: no time, no age, makes relaxation in thy brutal decree. Like the feigned mandates of the imaginary God which thy advocates pretend to imitate and worship, the punishments that are wreaked upon thy unfortunate victims are painful and long in their durations. Thy jaundiced eye views reason as a formidable foe; and the approach of truth is as terrible to thy blank designs, as an army with banners." The cries of thy martyrs are to thy ears like concerts of music; and the groans of the sufferers, instead of melting thy soul to mercy, make it callous as metal, and pe

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trified like rocks of granite. Torture and the, rack are alike thy delight, and thy exultation increases in proportion to the misery of thy victims. Dungeons, and cells, and prisons, are delightful resorts to their inventors, provided they are tenanted with rational men and philosophers, votaries to truth and humanity. Like beasts of prey, they hunt for blood, and gore is to them as bowls of nectar.

The helpless infant deprived of the protection and support of its father, the unfortunate victim of the fangs of that thing called law, emanating from the votaries of vengeance, is not sufficient to melt their souls of adamant to the pliant consistency of humanity and mercy.

They coldly calculate upon sacrifices, victims, and martyrs, as making a necessary link in the chain that binds the good things of the world within their exclusive grasp. Such anomalous conduct banish from my thoughts, for the heart of humanity bleeds at the bare recital. Can actions like these be the production of men born in the British Islands? Can the English soil in the nineteenth century produce beings who delight in cruelty? Can men be found who persecute for conscience sake, or for the liberty of thought? Are not the thoughts and sentiments of the British inhabitants as free, and the promulgation of them as uncontrouled, as the winds? Let the incarcerated martyrs of the philosophy of the mind, in the various prisons of this land, answer the question. Their dark and gloomy abodes speak ominously upon the conduct of the existing power of the times; and the Dracos, Neros, and Caligulas are not totally banished from the remembrance of the unfortunate individuals, whose situations compel them to bring to their recollection the ferocity of the tyrant in all ages, and lamentingly to say, that the monster PERSECUTION has not at present breathed bis last gasp. It writhes under the lash of reason; but is still powerful for mischief. It's exit would be complete, if left to a jury of philanthropists; but the intrusion of the tyrant keeps it in existence. The more exposed, the more loathsome it becomes, and universal disgust must accompany the holding it up before the growing reason of mankind. JOHN LEE.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE AND A UNITARIAN PREACHER, BOTH OF DUNDEE, IN CONSEQUENCE OF A LOAN, FROM THE FORMER TO THE LATTER, OF A COPY OF NUMBER 1, VOL. IX. OF THE REPUBLICAN."

(Continued from page 224.)

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WELL SIR,

PRIEST TO THE DOCTOR.

Monday, February 2, 1824. I HAVE read your reply to my animadversions on Carlile's tract, and now snatch a spare hour or two to answer it.

You own that the task undertaken by Carlile, is an arduous one? Yes it is. Nay it is a romantic task-a Quixotic task; and the gentleman who can be so sceptical as to dispute the existence of Jesus Christ, is on a fair way to dispute the existence of every body in the world but himself.

You will pardon me this freedom. It is not dictated by ill

nature.

But let me return to the strange proposition of Carlile, that no such person as Jesus ever existed. The Christian comes forward with evidence of the existence of Christ. He comes forwith historical records founded on the existence of such a person. What does Carlile say to this? Why, he says, we cannot trace the origin of these records higher than the second century. Well, let this be granted for a moment, for the sake of argument. Would it follow, that because we cannot find any Roman history contemporary with Romulus, we are not to believe that the founder of the Roman empire ever existed? Are we to believe no hisrorian who has written a hundred years after the events recorded in his history? What, if this be the case, will become of the credit of almost all the historians that have written'.

I, to my shame be it said, never read Lardner, and unfortunately have not access at present to a copy of his work; but I would need stronger reasoning than that of Carlile, to convince me, that the chain of reasoning by which he establishes the existence of the history of Christ in the first century, is not indisputable. Every Christian who reads not Lardner overlooks an impor

Yes, but it is expected that such historians produce authorities that were cotemporary with the facts stated.

R. C.

tant resource, and every Deist who reads not Lardner overlooks his own responsibility 2.

When a history is quoted by authors existing either at the same time with or not long after the author or authors of that history, it is a proof that it existed before the writings of those who quote from it. Now Polycarp and Clement of Rome were writers who flourished in the first century and they quote the Christian history. It has been quoted too by a host of writers who flourished in the succeeding century. Neither its date, nor its genuineness were disputed by the unbelievers of the primitive ages, by Celsus, by Porphyry, by Julian. Can as much be said of any other history?

Let it be farther observed that Christianity was a religion obnoxious to established errors which it supplanted. How then, if no such person as Jesus ever existed, could Christianity ever have an inch of ground to stand upon? How did not its opposers-how especially did not the Jews, the most inveterate enemies of Christianity-How did not they give it a death blow, by demonstrating that no such person as Jesus existed in the capital of Judæa-and thus do against Christianity at the very first, what Carlile has attempted to do in the nineteenth century.

From the question relative to the existence of Jesus, you proceed to consider that which concerns his divine mission; and you object, that, if the Deity really had it in view to reform the human race by the mission of Jesus, his mission should have been so arranged as to have been more generally known. Now on this, I observe: 1st. that if there be positive evidence in proof of the divine mission of Jesus-in proof of the fact that God commissioned Jesus, it will not disprove that fact-the consideration that Christianity is not universal. This is a consideration which affects only the goodness of God, and claims an answer only in a dissertation on the divine goodness, and not in one on the subject of the divine mission of Jesus. It does not disprove the fact of the reformation from popery (which all will allow to be a blessing) the consideration that it has not extended to all the popish

* How do you know, since you say you have not read Lardner? 3 No proof of this.

R. C.

R. C.

By the Tragedy of Eschylus, founded on the tale of Prometheus, it is seen, that it was a mere version or variation of previously established error. And this supports my inference, that the new scene was laid at Jerusalem, after and because it was destroyed.

age

R. C.

of

R. C.

5 Because it was not first promulgated in Judæa, nor within the a Jew who inhabited Judæa at the period assigned to the fable.

6 All do not allow it. I do not allow it. It was mere change of error. R. C.

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