ciety for the Suppression of Vice, to intimate to you, that he had the pain to witness one of you wilfully and unnecessarily profaning the Holy Sabbath, at the hour of three yesterday, by working at her needle, in the window of your apartment, thereby breaking the Commandments of God Almighty, and setting an evil example to others to do so likewise; it is one commandment to keep holy the Sabbath; it is another not to steal-you think it sinful to steal, and why is it not sinful to break the Sabbath? the first commandment is from God, as well as the last. Then "Go thy way and sin no more, and thy sin shall be forgiven thee." This much from the Governor. I would now say a few words to you from myself" God made man upright, but he hath found out many inventions;"-and "God made man after his own image," but not to be squeezed into the figure of a spider or a wasp, as if the head and tail had no connection with each other; put away your corselets, and your whalebones, and your iron busks, and your double laces; they are an abomination to the Lord; they are the ruin of his handy-work. If you would be beautiful, be what you are; shaped by the hand of the Creator of the Universe, who hath made the Angels as he made you, perfect in symmetry after the express image of his own personAngels do not wear corselets, neither do they gird their loinsthey do not wear their stomachs in their mouths, nor their bowels in their sandals-but "grace is in all their steps, Heaven in their eyes, in all their gestures dignity and love." This was said of the Parent Mother--but then she wore no corselets-Whatever is natural is beautiful, and whatever is beautiful is lovely. Do not spurn this advice, which would teach you to be good and to be beautiful." Angels are happier than men, because they are better."

Praying to God that this admonition may prove salutary,
I am, Ladies, faithfully,

Your fellow-labourer in the Vineyard,

SAMUEL THACKERY, Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

To Young Ladies, names unknown.

TO THE GOVERNORS.

In answer to yours, I inform you we are Jewesses, and keep our Sabbath the day (God) appointed holy-by working, when you choose to rest; we commit no sin, therefore, in that respect, have none to be forgiven. Should you be unacquainted with the Jewish Law, I beg leave to refer you to the Bible; if then unable to satisfy yourself, my father is a Hebrew teacher, and capable of giving you any information relative to our religion, or your own. I am sincerely sorry you should be uneasy respecting the preser

vation of our souls; as, I assure you, we are well acquainted with the Commandment, and not only observe the one, included in the Ten commanded to all nations, but six hundred and thirteen; be therefore perfectly happy on our account; we sacredly perform the tenets of our religion, consequently our conscience must be perfectly at rest.

TO THE SECRETARY.

Had you confined yourself to religion, ignorance of the Jewish law might have been considered a sufficient excuse for your unnecessary letter; still I cannot help thinking, that the Governor and Secretary of a religious order might better have employed themselves than gazing in the apartments of ladies; as Gentlemen, politeness should have taught them better. Respecting the dress now worn by ladies, it is certainly a curious subject for a divine; still it requires an answer. Permit me to say, you cannot be perfectly correct in your observations, as corselets form no part of a female's attire; however, examine your dictionary, and you will not only perceive your error in that part of your letter, but in several others, as you doubtless retain a copy. Iron busks we have never seen, therefore never worn; as for double laces, be assured we have a very large family, and find it sufficiently expensive to purchase single ones. Your next observation we just pass over in silence, it not being a subject sufficiently delicate for a lady to reply to: your compliment we shall most assuredly accept, not allowing ourselves for one moment to suppose a divine would flatter. The passage you quoted from Milton we think extremely beautiful, but not at all applicable to the subject in question. Nobody, I assure you, admires Eve more than we do; still you must agree with us, that the fashion has so much altered since she graced this terrestrial sphere, that it would be utterly impossible to accept her as a pattern for dress. Permit me to give you a little advice, in return for yours. Make yourself better acquainted with that lady's costume; then reflect, ere you advise females to attire only as she did, whether or no, in the present enlightened age, your doctrine would not be considered as erroneous. One observation more-Supposing it had been a family, who had so acted through necessity, as we are not to judge by the external appearance, does your Society, in the suppression of vice, relieve the cause from whence it proceeds? With all due veneration, we beg leave to subscribe ourselves,

Yours, with the greatest respect,

FAIR PLAY AT LAST AMONG THE CHRISTIANS.

MR. J. G. WARD, of Yarmouth, has published in a separate pamphlet, those letters of his with my notes, which have appeared in "The Republican" on the subject of the age of Christianity, and on that of Josephus, the alleged Jewish historian, having been a Christian. I notice it as fair play; because, unlike Mr. Beard, he has printed the controversy as a whole. Mr. Beard suppressed my notes, and that was the more unpardonable, because they were not calculated to be printed separately from his letters. I award more candour and fair dealing to Mr. Ward, and, in return, shall do all I can for the sale of his pamphlet.

Mr. Ward, I am iaformed by a Yarmouth correspondent, shouted victory; and the printing of the correspondence at his own expence, seems like a confidence in the superiority of his arguments and data. The Reverend Robert Taylor was the first to read Mr. Ward's first letter to me, in London, and his observation on it was, that the letter was not worth answering nor printing: that the notion of Josephus having been a Christian was so novel and groundless, as not to merit notice. I had promised to print on getting the cost of carriage covered, so I printed; but as to answering the letter, I really did not think it serious and important enough to require it.

I congratulate Mr. Ward on his victory, and hope that he will follow it up with new efforts in the same line. We want discussion; we want stimulants to thought; and these local stimulants always produce more extensive local good: for instance, I suppose that Mr. Ward's pamphlet will excite more thought in Yarmouth, upon its subject matter, than any thing that I could have written or printed in London could have excited. If truth be our mutual aim, I claim a share in his triumph.

But the question of Josephus having been a Christian of Mr. Ward's definition, if worth an answer, can be easily answered. I admit, that he, in some degree, with Philo, made my Christianity his study. If Philo and Josephus were Christians, it was upon my definition of Christianity, and not on that of Dr. Jones and Mr. Ward.

From the earliest authenticated records that we have of mankind, we have a history of philosophy. Indeed, philosophy is implied in the fact of recording the actions of mankind. The recorded history of man is the philosophy of man: and the historians have always claimed superiority among men as philosophers. Philosophy has its degrees: it is vastly superior now to what it ever was among the Grecians, and still the philosophers are but few.

Philosophy was much talked of among the Grecians and from

the Grecians, it appears, that Philo and Josephus studied what was then known. The Grecian philosophers are well known to have allegorized the principle of reason and to have deified it. They might not have been original in this matter, but we have no immediate records which carry the matter distinctly beyond them, inasmuch as we have no authentic records beyond those of the Grecians. The morals of Confucius represent reason as a divine emanation: the allegory of the forbidden fruit, in the book of Genesis, runs upon the same strain. Josephus exhibits many parts of the Jewish scriptures as allegories, and more particularly the Temple of Solomon, which, as in modern masonry, he so allegorizes, as to make it emblematical of all the perfections of reason and human happiness: and masonic examination has convinced me that the much boasted temple of Solomon, at Jerusalem, is a fiction, an allegory, and never had real existence as a piece of architecture.

The philosophers of Greece formed themselves into sects upon different systems, without the capacity critically to examine the systems of each other; and for two centuries before the Christian era, that of Plato, who exhibited all the human passions and qualifications allegorically, predominated. In this system, the nucleus of Christianity is visible, and Philo and Josephus were certainly Christians as far as they followed the philosophy of Plato or of any other Grecian; but not Christians with relation to the Christianity now established by law in this country. We have a Christianity established by law, and none but that deserves to be called Christian. That is the standard for reference, though illfounded, and all others are heresies, ephemeral systems, that do not merit the critical acumen of the irreligious philosopher.

Was Josephus a Christian according with any of the established Christian churches that have existed? This is the fair question between Mr. Ward and myself. Mr. Ward's Christianity might be like mine, and, if so, we have no dispute about the Christianity of Josephus.

Josephus studied and loved philosophy, such as he found it in his day. He appears to have embraced what in his day was considered its highest state, and that was a slight variation of the philosophy of Plato. The same may be truly said of Philo; but to say that they were Christians of the modern stamp, to say that they literally adopted the later tale of Christ crucified, is to outrage all comparison, inference, and just conclusion.

R. C.

ULTIMATE DANGER OF INVESTING PROPERTY IN THE PUBLIC FUNDS, BRITISH OR FOREIGN.

THERE are many who feel so secure in funded property, as to prefer it to all other security. The facility with which this sort of property can be commanded for immediate use makes it pleasing, and the variation of price is not considered more hazardous than the variation of price or hazard of any other sort of property.. Thus far there seems to be reason and fair argument. But there is a contingent question always approaching what is called funded property, which is, that of the existence of a real property in that which is called funded property. Is it any thing more than the property of credit, depending upon the success of speculation in trade? If it be a property of no greater substance than this, a failure to pay dividends would become an extinction of the principal invested. This seems now to be the case with the bonds of the loans made to the Spanish Cortes, and to the new republics of South America. The most solid of those republics, Columbia, has ceased to pay the dividends or interest due on the loans made: and there is not the least security but that the same event may befall all other funds, and even the British funds, before another year be gone by. This sort of property has so baseless a foundation, that there must ultimately be an extinction of the whole, and a crack in one part is likely to be the speedy certainty of the fall of the whole fabric. The present too is a period of difficulties such as are not likely to be surmounted but in a reduction of taxation, a reduction that cannot be effectually made without a reduction of the nominal value of that funded property, and that a reduction which is likely to shake the foundation of the whole funding system, British and Foreign. Funded property is not the thing that will linger through a slow extinction; its fall" will be sudden and of course to the holders of its papers disastrously unexpected.

Funded property is a debt wherein the honour and credit of no individual is concerned as to payment. A well disposed individual, who speculates on credit, will pay to his last shilling; but a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the members of the legislature as a whole, may extinguish a funded property for the benefit of the nation, or from the necessities of the state, and retire as honourable men with ample and untouched private fortunes. This will be the end of the thing; but we connot say in what year that end will come. The national debt is like the debt of a parent that is not to be levied on the freehold property which falls to the son. The land is a national freehold and cannot be mortgaged in limine. Every young man in England can say I am no party to the accumulation of this debt, and, in that condition, I do not feel in ho