closes a moral pregnant with wisdom, the substance of which we have before given-which is, that however difficult it may be to unriddle riddles, when once this is effected in the manner described, they are placed upon the back of dull experience-or, as the fable hath it—mounted on a slow-paced ass,—an illustration of which is furnished by the workings of the human mind in this our time, when men may be seen the most obstinately dull—to compare whom with the inoffensive ass, would certainly be libelling the latter-are nevertheless made by the triumphs of experience, masters of more actual knowledge than fell to the lot of many who were reputed wise among their ancestors.

The remarks in our last, touching the allegorical character of the ancient Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian writings-the parallel drawn between the character of Mithra or Persian Deity, known to be the personification of the Sun, and that of Jesus Christ, will fill pious bigots and gloomy fanatics with dismay-nay it has so filled them; and terrible are the denunciations-and awful the threatenings of the morally diseased!-but, if what we have already written has unfortunately plunged them into choler-that which we have to write will but plunge them into more choler!- -as our moral physic will, we fear, only increase their distemper! We are not among those who think it wise "to do evil that good may come of it;" and surely to desert the post of truth, and cease to publish that which all should know, from fear of the tintamara of interested bigots and their stupid dupes-however good as regards ourselves-would give a mortal stab to the progress of truth and liberty. It can be no matter of astonishment to the reflecting mind that the ill-instructed among the people should be ever ready to support public persecutors in their attacks on the consciences of all who dissent from them, or that they should remain in profound ignorance as to the origin of their religion, when in matters of faith, unlike the deaf adder, they have heeded the voice of the charmer, charmed he never so sillily-nay, we know that the charmers themselves—(we of course mean the priests)—know not that the Christian religion is but a branch-and a fast withering branch-of the great Upas tree of mythologic fiction; but it is with religions as with streams at which many slake their thirst-but few care to examine their source. Serapis, Isis, Anubis, Osiris, and Typhon were adored in Egyptbut all these gods were ridiculed and despised by the Romans, who

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themselves adored Jupiter, Mercury, Diana, Ceres, and Plutothat is to say, precisely the same Deities under other names. Such, it has been truly remarked, is the empire of names over the unthinking multitude, whose dogmatism upon these subjects is ever (to speak like mathematicians) as the squares of their ignorance; and what can be more evident than if those who, born on the banks of the Tyber, thus laughed to scorn the gods of the Egyptians, had been born on the banks of the Nile, they would have held that Serepis, Isis, and the rest, were the true Deities.

In Plato we read, that at periods very remote the Greeks worshipped the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars; but he did not seem to be aware, or have the slightest conception of what all now know, that Hercules, Apollo, Bacchus, Esculapius, &c., were but imaginary characters-like Christ—having no real existence-mere idols of the mind. We know that expressing ideas by symbols was universal throughout the ancient world. Thus-a harlot being despised by the Egyptians, was symbolized, by a creature like the Sphinx, with huge claws, the face of a woman, and the body of a beast. The famous Hercules and his twelve works will be shewn to be fictional, as Hercules was a mere personification of the power, force, and grandeur of the Sun and his supposed twelve works-the seeming motion of that luminary through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, or as they have been figuratively called, houses of the Sun. We have already called your attention to the fact that the Persian Divinity, Mithra, was but the Sun, as is shewn by ancient records. The philosopher Julian observes-"We celebrate some days before the first day of the year with magnificent sports, in honour of the invincible God, Mithra or the Sun. May we long have the happiness to celebrate thy appearance, O Sun, king of the universe!" This expression is after the manner of Plato, who calls the Sun, the "Son of God;" and we are informed that all the monuments raised by the Persians to their great Divinity, have these words inscribed on them "To the God Sun, the invincible Mithra." It is supposed even by many who have reputation for intelligence, that Hercules was a robust Greek prince, who conquered the Nemean lion, and did other wonderful things, in the same manner that many intelligent people as erroneously imagine that Christ and a cortêge of twelve apostles performed certain extraordinary things eighteen hundred years ago.

Hercules was reputed among the Greeks to be the son of Aleemene, by Jupiter the father of the Gods; this story is wonderful enough, but by no means so extraordinary as that of the Christians who maintain that the Holy Ghost was the father, whilst a virgin was the mother of Jesus Christ who, born in Judea, early in life worked at his reputed father Joseph's business, namely, carpentering and joinering.-Hercules, according to the fable, was born in Thebes, had many wives and children, and many princes of Greece put in a claim to be considered as his kinsmen-hence the Heraclides, who boasted that they were descendents from Hercules. The tomb of Hercules is also shewn in Cadiz, as that of Christ at Jerusalem, and temples, altars, solemn fetes, hymns, and sacred traditions, nourished and kept alive the delusion in the minds of the common people, whatever opinion the few who thought thereupon might have held respecting it, so that all contributed to swell a chorus in praise of the wonderful Hercules, who came upon earth to benefit the world in general, and the Greeks in particular, in the same manner that all orthodox persons in our own time lift up their voices in praise of Jesus Christ, who came to save souls in general, and those of the Jews in particular, each people believing that God has a special interest in their exclusive welfare. That the Egyptians and the Phenœcians have had the most influence upon the religions of other nations, is universally admitted, and that astronomy was the very soul of the Egyptian and Phencecien system, is well known to those who have studied these subjects-together with the fact which my readers should carefully remember, that the Sun was their grand divinity, and called Hercules, the worship of whom extended itself from Meroe in Ethiopia (the Ethiopians were the fathers of the Egyptians) and Thebes in Upper Egypt, to the frozen regions of Scythia-from the remotest parts of India to the shores of the Atlantic-from the forests of Germany to the burning sands of Lybia. Let not the honest reader be scared by the above facts, but have faith in truth as the best anchor of safety-of which it has been poetically said "No tint of words can spot its snowy mantle, nor turn its sceptre into iron." Let none fear that a Divine Religion will be unable to withstand the shock of the most eloquent sophistry-but Superstition is DEVILISH, and must be destroyed! London: H. Hetherington, Strand; A. Heywood, Manchester; and all Booksellers, J. Taylor, Printer, 29, Smallbrook Street, Birmingham.

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

FROM A GERMAN JEW,^~^

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.

LETTER 4.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

"They provoked him to jealousy with strange Gods; with abominations provoked they him to anger."-DEUT. XXXII. 16.

CHRISTIANS,

*

An acute modern author has observed, that "the ordinary stages through which any discovery in phosiology, involving views that go greatly beyond those commonly entertained, has to pass, are first, to be positively denied as false, contrary to experience, absurd, and unworthy the attention of sensible men; secondly, to be shewn to have been known and admitted before, to a degree depriving the observer who was just now ridiculed for having believed it of any credit for having seen with more justness and originality than others, the disputed novelty; thirdly, to be denounced as a perilous innovation-endangering religion and the moral bonds of society; fourthly and finally, to be received by every body as a matter of common knowledge-the only wonder being that it was ever doubted, and its supposed anomolies and contradictions to nature's laws shewn to be, and represented by the writers of the day as, the most striking illustrations of the harmony of the physical world."

The above remarks apply with equal force to opinions in general, and need not be confined in their application to those affecting

See accounts of some recent effects of Mesmarisim, by Herbert Mayo, F.R.S. -MEDICAL GAZ. Nos. 31, 32, 33,

physiology in particular, as all opinions have been thus treated which tended to disturb received notions in moral as well as physical science. Who has ever attempted to pluck up the ancient tree of superstition, under the shade of which the entire human race has hitherto reposed—but has deeply felt the withering effects of the ridicule of the unscrupulous and the denunciations of those whose craft is in danger ?—while, alas! but few have seen their opinions, however sound and healthful, take root in the human mind, and put forth fruit beyond the reach of cant and cavil! If this has been the caseif such the fate of opinions but moderately heterodoxwhat are we justified in expecting, who would plough up the very foundations of superstition's temple in this the most civilized portion of the globe, by proving that Jesus Christ-now worshipped as a once incarnate God, said to have been born in Judea, and crucified on Mount Calvary-never had more than an ideal existence-and that the religion which rests thereon is a desolating superstitioninvented by those who "make lies their refuge." Already have we been told that our Letters are "false and contrary to experience-totally absurd, and unworthy the attention of sensible men;" so that these opinions, in common with all others, have passed through their first stage. With regard to the second, we lay no claim to originality as respects the grand conception-but we do lay claim to originality in all that affects execution; but even this we would willingly give up, if by so doing we can give satisfaction to our opponents-not being over anxious to be thought originals—but rather desirous to be the propounders of correct opinions, caring little by whom they were first broached; and as to the matter of credit, we are not very solicitous thereupon, except inasmuch as the reputation our writings may obtain will be a kind of passport, and find them more ready acceptance with those who only read works of great repute, about which all the world talk.

Were it worth the pains we might insist with Solomon, that there is nothing new under the sun, or as a witty profane author has remarked -that "originality is but judicious imitation." We shall, however, no farther notice this matter of originality than to say, that we agree with a writer in the "Edinburgh Review," who observed, that "he is not so much the inventor of an opinion who first conceives and proclaims it, as he who proclaims it so loudly, so perseveringly, and so clearly, that all are compelled to hear and understand him." We shall presently-nay we have arrived at the third stage—that is, we