the first of which you will find I imagine quite original. The author has perhaps made out a God that will agree with your ideas. Four Numbers of the "New York Observer," containing as finished pieces of superstitious nonsense as you probably have ever seen, with an antidote in a pamphlet, entitled, "Remarks on Dr. Griffin's Requisition for 700,000 Ministers."

You cannot however draw any very just opinion of the religion of this country from these papers. The great body of the people pay no attention to the societies mentioned, or to the papers giving an account of their proceedings. I am highly pleased with "Critical Remarks on the Truth and Harmony of the Four Gospels," received by your last packet. I think the author has managed the subject better than any other I have read. You have some powerful contributors to "The Republican." The Rev. Mr. Taylor's speeches are excellent. Shebago is a strong writer, but sometimes a little too harsh.

I beg leave to recommend the publication of the small pieces I send, as they contain very fine sentiments, and well expressed; and will tend to aid the cause you advocate, perhaps in a greater degree than pieces of equal merit written in England.*

Adieu, with great esteem,

Your obedient servant,

JOHN FELLOWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE REPUBLICAN."

DEAR SIR, New York, Aug. 30, 1826. I AM well aware of the difficulties of obtaining correctly printed copies of manuscript, even when the author is present to inspect the proof sheets, and that this difficulty is very much increased in case of his absence. Besides, the situation in which you have been placed for some years past is an ample apology on your part for any inaccuracies that might appear in "The Republican." But as I find in the communicatiou I have made, and which you have done me the honour to publish, some errors committed by your printer, as well as mistakes of my own that require to be corrected, I have thought it would not be amiss to note them together.

In the suit of Mr. Paine against the Inspectors of the Election for Governors (see Mr. Riker's certificate in "The Republican,' vol. xiii., p. 229) it is said, that the trial took place in May 1807. and afterwards, that Mr. Paine died soon after the trial, which prevented a formal decision by the Court. Whereas Mr. Paine did not die till June 1809, and the trial alluded to, was had in

Those pieces did not arrive in the packet.-R. C..

the previous May, as stated in Mr. Riker's original draft of his certificate in my possession.

The dates of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and that of my letter, will detect the error of six years in the computation of time since elapsed, as stated in page 231 of the same volume.

:

In speaking of the means made use of by European Governments to create national préjudices, I mentioned that many expedients had been resorted to, and among the rest, the cause of religion in the printed copy, page 233, the words in italics are changed into experiments and curse. The sense, however, is not materially altered, and perhaps the latter part of the sentence is improved; for I consider all religions other than plain morality as the greatest curses that have been visited upon mankind.

There are some other less important typographical errors which the reader would not perhaps readily correct, viz. vol. xii., page 576, line 21 from the bottom, regard for reward. In Palmer's posthumous works, page 37, of the pamphlet, line 8, revenue for reserve; and others which the context will more clearly in

dicate.

In rebutting a false statement that had been made, that Mr. Paine had not the means to procure the necessary comforts of life for sometime before his dissolution, I have been led into an error in regard to the amount of his weekly expenditure for board (see Republican, vol. xii. p. 576), which, although it makes no difference in the principle contended for, might hereafter be made a subject for cavil, Mr. Morton, one of Mr. Paine's executors, informs me that Mr. P. was not at board at the time of his death. He had taken a house sometime previously, which was superintended by Mrs. Bonneville. And here the expenses, including house rent, might have amounted to what I stated, as I had the information from Mrs. B. Before he went to house-keeping, his board had been raised by degrees from six to fourteen dollars a week on the plea of extra trouble as he grew more and more helpless. This being thought exhorbitant caused the above arrangement to be adopted.

Owing to the negligence of the person who printed the late New York edition of Paine's Theological Works, a circumstance respecting a clause in Barlow's letter to Cheetham contained in the introduction to that volume, remains unexplained. I notified you of this omission in my letter accompanying the volume; but I am not surprised that the multiplicity of objects which must oc-` cupy your attention should have prevented your recurring to it. As Barlow's character and information gives great weight to any declarations or opinions he might advance, independently of the appearance of fraud which the passage as it now stands bears upon the face of it, renders an explanation important. I must, therefore, beg your indulgence for being somewhat particular

1

upon this point. I allude to the last paragraph of the letter (Rep. vol. xii. page 572) which you have printed in italics in conformity to the copy in the introduction. It was there put in italics for the purpose of referring to an explanatory note that was written upon a small slip of paper, which the printer misplaced, and which was not discovered till too late to correct the omission.

Cheetham made no use of this letter, but returned it to the writer, and it meeting the eye of Mr. Robert Fulton, the particular friend of Barlow, he insisted on its publication, which was assented to with the exception of the clause in question. It was accordingly handed to me for insertion in the "Theophilanthropist," under the above restriction. Although the truth of the remarks in the passage is well known to men of information, this is not the case with the bulk of common readers. I therefore thought it might be of some use to insert them in a note as editorial, and so it appears in a republication of the letter in an appendix to Sherwin's Life of Paine. As the clause is now restored to the body of the letter, it is proper to shew the cause of its original separation.

The caution made use of by Mr. Barlow in prohibiting the publication of the above paragraph, as well as in the style of some other parts of his letter to Cheetham, are strong proofs of the degrading and pernicious effects of religious intolerance.

Great use has been made in this country of religions prejudices by the enemies of democratic principles, with a view of destroying the influence of their most able advocates. Thomas Jefferson has been the object of more obloquy in this respect than any man in the United States, Thomas Paine excepted. But not deigning to take notice of these vituperations of folly, he marched straight forward in the line of his duty, and after having arrived at the highest honours in the gift of his country, has died more popular than any of his cotemporaries.

Joel Barlow was not neglected by these political pietists; and he seems to have thought it expedient to temporize on the subject; for on being censured by a French Bishop for representing in a print of the Columbiad the degrading badges of the Church and State as trodden under foot, he shifted the blame upon his friend Fulton, no doubt by the consent of the latter, who, as he alleged, was the designer and painter of it.

But had a fair prospect appeared of putting down superstition in this country, no man would have co-operated in that cause with more hearty good will, nor with greater effect than Joel Barlow.

The following extract of one of his letters to his friend, Royal Flint, exhibits a short but comprehensive and candid view of his opinion of the effects of the Christian religion. The letter bears date May 1795, Mr. Barlow being then in Europe, and

the extract was handed to me by Mr. Flint in the strictest confidence, but I consider the injunction removed by the death of both the writer and receiver of it.

"It always dilates my heart to hear of the prosperity of our country, and I am particularly glad to find that that terrible Scourge to human nature called Christianity is losing its influence. When you and I used to converse on these subjects, we used to doubt whether some such system was not necessary for the good order of society, and whether the consolation derived to individuals did not furnish a reason for keeping up the imposture. But more mature reflection has so convinced me of its destructive effects on morals, public and private, good order, consolation, and everything that goes into the composition of the happiness of man, that I can hardly find any thing worth naming to put into the opposite scale as an apology for the mischief it produces." With great esteem,

Your obedient servant.

JNO. FELLOWES.

ORIGIN OF COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.

To Mr. Carlile, for "The Republican."

It has been a subject of enquiry among many philosophers and politicians "what among all Cobbett's political changes could. put it into his head to defend the Romish Church?" Now the origin of this said defence of the Roman Catholic religion is simply this. About half a year before, Cobbett announced his intention of proving the Protestant Reformation to be an evil, a work was written by a physician formerly of the University of Cambridge, entitled "Somatopsychonoologist: or Body, Life, and Mind;" &c., being the upshot of an absurd medical controversy respecting the human soul. The author in this work developes. the absolute absurdity of defending the doctrines of the Christian religion on physical principles, and shews that the only consistent Christians are the Catholics, and in the course of the observations goes on the same ground as Mr. Cobbett in defence of the Catholic Church. Now this pamphlet* contains the hints and many of the arguments which Cobbett availed himself of in his

* On sale at 62, Fleet-street.

"History of the Protestant Reformation." Even the very respectful manner of writing the names of JESUS CHRIST-of the VIRGIN MARY and other holy personages in capital letters has been copied. So little of originality is there in Cobbett's work. I do not mean by this to detract from the merit of Cobbett's Reformation: it is a glorious exposure of the detestable practices of the Lutheran and Calvinistic plunderers and thieves of the reigns of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth, who by protesting against the general faith of Christendom obtained the name of Protestants. It establishes, however, nothing in favour of the Catholic Church, except its antiquity, and its being the original Christianity. Cobbett ought to remember that tythes and other Church nuisauces were generated in the bosom of Mother Catholic Church long before the Protestants made use of them as a means of private emolument and that at the time of the Reformation the greatest abuses existed in the Catholic Church that almost ever existed in any church or community whatever. Cobbett writes powerfully against the various Protestant sects and heresies from the Church of Rome, but he forgets to mention that the devil is the original and best Protestant of all, for he protests against every one of the existing religions on earth.

I shall not enter with you on the general question about the superiority of the Catholic over other Christian religions, but having myself witnessed the effects of both on a large scale in various parts of Europe, I have always observed that the change to Protestantism has been marked by one feature-a substitution of sincerity, however superstitious, for hypocrisy, however well concealed: and that fasting, praying, festivals, and thanksgivings, have been exchanged for by the collecting extortion, and that mongrel and beggarly absurdity of mixing up faith and reason together to the detriment of both. Another thing may be urged in preference of Catholicism over heresy-namely, that its imagery, however delusive, is inspiring, while the Protestants love to deal in the detail of hell torments, and the best Protestant preacher has been said to be one who gives us no hope at all, as I actually heard a methodist say. Now, on the assumption that all religious pretensions are false, I assert that a religion of false hopes is preferable to a religion of delusive fears. Just as a horse that runs away with his rider on turning towards home in the hope of sooner attaining to the corn-stall, exposes him in his animated gallop to less danger than a terrified horse does who starts and runs away out of fear of some mistaken object; the latter is an appalling runaway, and the horse is in great danger of falling, so that his rider is exposed to the most imminent danger. My maxim is, out of two evils, choose the least, 0. 0.