unto you, That whoscever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

If this were the case, and such adultery of the heart a crime, a handsome woman may be considered a very devil as to the creation of such crime: for who can look on a beautiful woman and not desire her company? Why do the female sex take so much pains to exhibit charms, but to create those desires which are here denounced as a crime? What is love, but that species of lust which is here denounced? Love has no other foundation, is no other passion. Some of the early Christians asserted, that Jesus was either an hermaphrodite or devoid of all sexual character. When they said so, they had forgotten his circumcision! If there were such a character, it might be expected, that such a one, and such a skeleton of a man evidently impotent, as is Dr. Stoddart, should decry such an opponent as Lord Byron because he had a manly passion for the female sex. It may be expected that such men, or things as these, and such beasts as the Bishop Jocelyn, Dr. Jephson, Lord Courtenay, and the Lord this and that person, should denounce the natural sexual copulation; but a true moralist sees no crime in what is natural, and will never denounce an intercourse between the sexes, where no violence nor any kind of injury is inflicted. Where violence or undue controul and injury are studiously avoided, and the healths of individuals consulted, there cannot be too much of that lust or love which is here denounced as a Christian crime; nor even too much of the gratification of that lust. It is the very source of human happiness, and essential alike to health, beauty, and sweetness of temper.

Pledges of mutual fidelity, where both tempers and constitutions agree, are well to be observed, so long as either party desires and deserves; but beyond these pledges which we call marriage, there can be no just restraint, except what prudence and mutual independency of character prescribe. Why are old maids generally ugly and of wretched tempers? Solely from the want of a natural and wholesome intercourse with the other sex.

The Christian code of morals proscribes the mention or thought of that intercourse between the sexes which is not only the stamina of human procreation, but of human happiness, of all well regulated association: and this, of itself, is a proof, that Christianity has nothing belonging to it of peculiar wisdom; but that its origin was the work of some

wretchedly ignorant and inhuman or unmanly characters. It began and has been continued an unnatural institution.

Strict morality requires, as an antecedent, a perfect freedom of character to both male and female; and, that established, as great a freedom of intercourse as they can agree upon. This once established, a superior education would immediately follow, produce the best possible self or individual regulation of the matter, and add alike to the improvement of both the physical and the moral character of the species.

Twenty-first head. "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

Here is an exhibition of the most gross ignorance; an inference, that each member of the body has a distinct will, and is, where it is more particularly used, the offending member. It was upon the force of this stupid precept, that the celebrated Origen unmanned himself; and lately, we have read in the newspapers, that a Welchman was fool and fanatic enough to chop off his left hand as a surer means of entering the kingdom of heaven!

It was among slaves and eunuchs, that Christianity made its first progress, which accounts for such abominable precepts as that which is the subject of this note. And, by Venus! Bailey! if you submit to circumcision only, and the Roman Catholics to both circumcision and emasculation, my judgment, after what I have read and recollected of the Christian History, will be as dubious as that of Lord Eldon's, as to which of you will be entitled to the priority of primitiveness! Lucky thought in time! You of the present established church had better submit to both circumcision and emasculation, and leave the Roman Catholics no loop hole to triumph over you. But mind, again, if I am to be High Priest and the sacred surgical operator, I make the further exception as to myself! I had rather be any sort of animal, that both Jew and eunuch!

(Reader! pardon me-1 have no object in this language, beyond that of exhibiting the ridiculous character of the Christian religion in every possible way: to the doing of which, I feel my five years imprisonment to be no slight sti

mulus; and, I hope, I may even modestly add, that this letter will convince Judge Bailey, that, in regard to the ability to do it, I have not made a bad use of those years of imprisonment, under his sentence. He and his fellow Christiaus in power have made me the schooled and irreconcileable enemy of Christianity; so e'en let them take and feel the Consequence.

Nor need I feel a fear of the imputation of being a debauched character. It is my peculiar situation which makes me free to write what I think upon this subject. My Christian keepers, though some of them are of the Jackass stamp, bave resolved to forbid to me the enjoyment of the unchristian passion! "I shall not allow a woman to come into your room," said my very modest and very moral Gaoler to me about four years ago, without any allusion to such a circumstance on my part: and now that the written order of Dec. 1822, neglected to make an exception to the admission of women, if I have a woman to clean my room, a turnkey stands by her all the time that she is doing it! The matron of the Gaol, whose modesty and whose virtue are alike unimpeachable, and who was allowed to come into my room when Mrs. Carlile and my sister were here, dares not now come on any pretence! So that if I were of the Stoddart stamp, I should have one more inducement than the Doctor, to decry the passion that I could not enjoy. I declare, that, on this head, I am almost as charitable as St. Francis, who when he saw or was told of a match between a couple that the Priest had not licensed, instead of putting the ecclesiastical law in force, thanked God, that there was still so much, charity left among mankind. I allow the amorous propensity of my opponent the Vicar of Cerne to be the best quality that he has about him: and the same to Old Pitt! To shew how totally devoid I am of any narrow minded prejudice towards these real enemies of mine, I will inform the reader, that there were lately two old maids in this county of the name of Seymour, cousins to the old Mr. Pitt. old gentleman was wont to joke one of them with an assurance, that he would by and bye find her a husband; and sure enough he did; for when he looked as if one foot was in the grave, and rather of the Stoddart stamp, (from age, mind reader) he married her himself and mirabile dictu! since I have been in this Gaol, there have been three children out of the match, and the first two twins! The Vicar of Cerne, acting upon that last resource of St. Paul, that it is better to marry than to burn, is about to unchristianize the

The

other Sister! But this cunning rogue, as well as a wife, bas an eye to family connections and more profitable benefices. However, the charity of rescuing two old maids from destitution will cover a multitude of sins in my eye. So Vicar and Magistrate, I wish you both wedded joys.)

Twenty-second head. "It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."

This sermon writer, for I do not suppose that it was ever an extempore speech, sets out with an assurance, that be will not destroy the law, which is understood to be the Jewish law; but he proceeds with such a series of commentary or improvement on that law, as wholly changes some of its enactments. The Jewish law very wisely sanctioned divorces, and made a written document to that effect by the husband to be a justification to the wife to marry again; but this Christian teacher would make marriages indissoluble on any other ground than adultery! That is, he would keep unhappily matched people miserable for life rather than allow divorcement and new combinations.

Much is said about the necessity of the indissolubility of marriage, other than for adultery; but where there are no children from the marriage, I can see no just reasons why a couple should not be so free to separate as to marry; and where there are children, and a competent means of making provision for them, why separation should not then be attainable. Grounds should be shewn for it. Mutual consent to be of itself sufficient without further reasons; and wherever the separation is claimed on one side, by showing proofs of misconduct on the other.

"Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder," says superstition's code: to which it may be answered, that the word God being an idle word, and the representative of no thing, there is no godly joining in the matter. Neither God, the Priest, nor human law, can assimilate the dispositions of those who marry; nor is there a means of trying the dispositions of individuals before marriage, as courtship and marriage are two distinct states of being, and do not operate upon the same passions; therefore. if not well married, or if marriage becomes injurious and unhappiness to both, or to either, common sense justifies free separation.

It is supposed, by shallow thinkers and observers, that a

freedom of divorce would lead to a common confusion; but I am of opinion, that there would not be so many real separations as exist under the present system; for, where there be continual disagreement, there is, in effect, a separation more painful than a distance of persons can occasion: and from the knowledge that a separation of persons cannot easily be accomplished, a tone of mutual defiance is engendered, and life embittered; upon which a more easy means of separation would operate as a check.

The right rule to accomplish and consolidate wedded happiness is, that each should study and work to that of the other. An easy means of separation would become a stimulus to this disposition, and a knowledge that a contrary conduct in either would lead to or justify separation, would operate as a check upon such conduct. If love now exists prior to marriage, the existing system is sufficient to destroy instead of preserving it; for, instead of uniting, the compulsory law, or, in other words, the physical law expels the moral law of union.

Though we boast that our species is alone among animals the social one, we may take many lessous of wisdom from the modes of association in other animals. The feathered tribe, in its natural state, and in a majority of cases, affords a model to mankind, for fidelity during marriage and separation in due time. Its system of union is perfect: the gallantry of the male towards the female admirable: and its separation when its young are provided for most wise. Though we certainly obtain an increased and progressing amount of knowledge by our mode of association, the instances are yet but few in which we have made an application of that knowledge to the increase of our social and domestic happiness. The mass of people, even in England, at this day, live in a state of the most filthy and most degraded barbarism and savageness. Knowledge is not worth the trouble of gathering, unless we apply it in practice.

Nine-tenths of Christian marriages under the existing law, instead of being states of union, are states of hostility. This state of hostility has become a proverb, and passes under the term of being only the ordinary quarrels between man and wife! Now a state, that should leave man and wife as free to separate as they were to marry, would abolish this quarrelsome disposition; because, they would feel that they had no right to quarrel, or no security of union if they did quarrel. And a knowledge, that separation would become a criterion of No. 20, Vol. X.