breaking," say they," this was the source of our crimes, and which has brought us to an ignominious end." The priests say the same, and far be it from me to deny it; yet it is strange, that in countries, where all are Sabbath-breakers, there is not one tenth part of the crimes committed, that are committed in this religious, hymn-singing country.

But the point we are coming to, is this:-our late religious king issued proclamations enjoining, on pain of his high displeasure, a solemn observance, here, of the "lords? day"-and yet at the same time, the Elector of Hanover permitted the open violation of that day with impunity. I have seen peasants in Hanover, working in the fields on Sunday, and I have also seen these parties publicly and merrily dancing on the same day. How is it, thought I, that the King of England has so little influence on the Elector of Hanover, as not to prevent the commission of these damning sins; for such the former seemed to consider them. Is it, thought I, because they are of different religions; the king a Church of England man, and the Elector a Lutheran. Weary of conjectures, may I beg your lordship to explain, why the poor Hanoverians are suffered ro run headlong to hell. You who know the German language so well, ought surely to have solemnly warned them, and all Germans, to abstain from that deadly sin; for they are notoriously a nation of Sabbath-breakers. Alas, alas! you, minister of the gospel of peace, preferred exciting the people to bloodshed, to publishing lectures on the "Lord's day." OMICRON.

PETER ANNETT'S DEISTICAL LECTURES.

I HAVE not reprinted these Lectures; but I have bought a small edition that has been neatly reprinted by another bookseller. His price was seven shillings and sixpence; I strike off five shillings and sell them at two shlllings and sixpence.

These Lectures are in demy octavo, and will bind well with my publications of that size. I have also a few copies of Gilbert Wakefield's Essay on Inspiration at 1s. 6d.

R. C.

NATURE, capricious Goddess of all life!
How mighty, but how tyrannous thy reign!
Oft with the brave and virtuous at strife,

Too soon thou bidst them swell thy heaps of slain.

Early thou quenchest the ethereal flame
Of minds that cherish and illume our earth;
While slaves and tyrants live their age of shame,
To goad the heart of genius and of worth.

Blooms there in the eternal fields of thought
A flower of promise? ere the world hath seen
Its beauty, or its balmy fragrance caught,
"Tis number'd with fair visions that have been.

Breathes there an ardent spirit that doth dare
To live for lovely Truth's immortal good?
O churlish Nature! thou too oft art there
To blast with flame, or quench in whelming flood.

Our Shelley perish'd in thy fatal deeps—

Our Byron by thy pestilential ire—

And virtue, though of humbler name, now sleeps
For ever, murther'd by thy baleful fire!

What though the silver clarion of Renown

Tell not of HASSELL to the cold world's ear?

Warm hearts he lacketh not, whose pulse shall crown
With Friendship's honest obsequies his bier.

True pilgrim he at Freedom's holy fane-
True worshipper of Truth's effulgent beams!
Nor quail'd his spirit at the despot's chain,
The hypocrite's vile lore, the bigot's dreams.

Rich was the vernal promise of his heart,

Whose loss fond kindred mourn with fruitless tears;
But froward Fate hath play'd her reckless part,
And stol'n the bright summer of his years.

Farewell, ingenuous one-no tuneful Gray
For thee awakens his melodious lyre!
No laureate pours for thee the lofty lay,
As when the proudly diadem'd expire.

Yet dost thou not resign the "cheerful day"
Unwept, unhonoured-Memory builds thy shrine
In bosoms true to love and friendship's sway!
And O! accept a lowly lay like mine.

W. RANCE.

He's gone! And vitality's spark is for ever
Departed from him whom we mark'd for our own;

His pulse has ceas'd beating; his bright mind will never
Instruct nor delight us again. He is gone.

"They have toll'd his death-bell, they have laid the earth

o'er him,"

His bright eye was glazed, no aid could restore him,
His breath is departed; the good will deplore him,

And the friends who have lov'd him, his loss will bemoan.

His eye, with the bright light of genius was beaming,
But the pale hue of sickness had spread o'er bis cheek;
His mind with the mild fire of science was gleaming,
His intellect strong, though his body was weak:
To the cause of mankind, all his time was devoted,
His hatred to falsehood his works have denoted,
Truth, Justice, and Reason, he always promoted,
His thoughts and his feelings, he ever would speak.

But now he's departed, and we who remaining
Do mourn his removal, and weep his decease;
We will dry up our tears, and his mem'ry retaining,
Will walk in his footsteps, nor give ourselves ease,
Till we become tenants of death's gloomy dwelling,
From the crafts that oppress us, their false lights dispelling;
And justice from man to his fellows compelling,

That reason may triumph, with freedom and peace.

Vol. XIV. No. 19.

Then, shade of dear Hassell, thy mates left behind thee,
Thy words will observe, thy example retain ;

Thy objects pursuing, for well do we mind thee,
'Twas freedom for man thou didst strive to obtain:
The fool'ries of priestcraft already are dying,
The mists of delusion are rapidly flying,.

And we thy companions most fervently trying,
Our tyrants to crush, and our rights to obtain.

W. V. H.

Nov. 13, 1826.

INFERNAL CRUELTY OF CHRISTIANS TOWARDS WOMEN,

Nunquam aliud Natura aliud sapientia dixit.

IT has long been a matter of surprise to me, that no popular writers in this reforming age have noticed and duly exposed the disgraceful manner in which women are treated in most Christian countries. In England, they are hardly treated like rational beings; and though in Germany, Holland, and the north of Europe, they are somewhat more respected; yet their condition even in those countries is far from what humanity demands of the more powerful sex in the behalf of the weaker. I shall confine my observations however principally to the state of the female sex in this country, where the grossest inconsistencies prevail in regard to women, and where the most extravagant and cruel notions, about the virtue of female chastity, are coupled with the grossest assaults on common decency and on the moral character and even However novel this ason the personal comfort of our women.

sertion may be, I pledge myself in the sequel of this paper to make it out clearly to be true. And I assert, moreover, that women are better treated in Turkey than they are in England, at 'least, by a large class of society; not that I say the assertion applies universally, for this country can boast, at least, of very numerous, good, and enlightened men.

As one of the most prominent examples of my doctrine, I shall instance the notions and practices of Christian Europe with regard to what is commonly called female chastity. A female is distinguished by the epithet of modest who has not violated her

marriage-vows; who has not committed fornication in the unmarried state; and who has not been detected in any of those indecencies, nor manifested any of that indelicacy of conduct which would lead either directly or indirectly to fornication. And she is distinguished by the epithet modest in contrariety to one who has committed all or any of these acts, and who is therefore called an immodest woman, and is, in consequence, worse treated than many species of swindlers and thieves are! She is hunted down and scouted by her own sex, and by men; and is driven from one act of immodesty to another, till at last she ends her life in a gaol, a gin-shop, or a hospital, despised, vilified, insulted, and in almost every way ill-used by those who have contributed to render her what she is unhappily become, both by previously being instrumental to her seduction, and by afterwards shutting her out from the society of women called modest, because their oppressors still contrive to keep and appropriate them to themselves. The state of London streets, the foul-wards of our hospitals, and the daily newspapers, all confirm not only the truth of what I assert, but the magnitude and extent of the evil over nearly the whole country. Such a state of female degradation does not exist in Turkey.

Now I ask, what right has a man, in the first place, so to distinguish modest from immodest wowen, as to appropriate the former to himself, and to abuse and vilify the latter; while he himself commits the same actions as the most immodest women do, without incurring the same disgrace and misery, and without suffering from the same distinction from some few men who do not commit such actions? The vulgar proverb, that what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander, is strictly and justly applicable to men and women in the case of what is called fornication, And it is only because Christianity is more hypocritical than Mohammedanism, that Christians in England and Germany do those acts of promiscuous sexual intercourse clandestinely, which Mohammedans do openly; and that in the west of Europe, secret brothels are substituted for the public seraglios of the East. I am ́not in the least degree advocating the cause of female incontinence on the contrary, I assert, that the moral laws of society ought to encourage virtue in both sexes; but I distinctly assert, that the same actions which are reprobated in a woman, cannot consistently be overlooked in a man, who must of necessity be a particeps criminis in all actions of a sexual nature which can be called crimes. A man who enters his neighbour's house and surreptitiously seduces his wife, is a character more odious and dangerous to society than a girl who innocently indulges, without deceit or fraud, those passions which Nature has given her for the special purpose of being gratified. But when it is considered, that men are usually the prompters and the causes of such female indiscretions, and that the men who commit the most offensive