where in the east, but the Lord only now knows where! that an apple was gathered by our common mother Eve, tempted so to do by a cunning serpent, "more subtle than any beast of the field," which fatal act caused the Lord to inflict miseries that the tongue of man cannot describe, upon countless generations, who were unborn when this deed was done!-a crime which our priests inform us, could only be expiated by another infinitely greater the nailing of a god upon a cross!-to suppose all this, is to dishonor Deity, and degrade human reason!-further, the stain transmitted to us from our first parents, was only to be washed away by the blood of Christ—an incarnate god!! But, nevertheless, though this has been done-though we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, we are not pure-not a stain has come out! In addition to all this, we are told, that since that terrible event, as a punishment for the curiosity of the woman Eve, all women are condemned to bring forth in sorrow and in pain-as though the pains of child-birth were not a necessary result of her organization, and suffered more or less by all animals who have not partaken of the fatal apple. This is of a piece with what is said of the serpent, who was "cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; doomed to crawl upon its belly, and eat dust all the days of its life,—as though a serpent could ever do any thing else but crawl! With regard to eating dust, serpents are by no means contented with that fare, but gorge good things most desperately; but, in a figurative sense, or rather a philosophic one, all things are dust,-"from dust they come, and to dust they all return." Well might the Christian saints and doctors, the Augustines, Origins, and the rest, desire to throw the book of Genesis overboard, as an allegory; but in doing so, they not only disprove the real history of Adam, Eve, and their companion, the wily eloquent serpent, but make an allegory of Abraham, an allegory of Christ, and an allegory altogether; which view of the subject is precisely that we are endeavouring to support,and to call us blasphemers for so doing, is to affix the brand of blasphemy upon the respectable and most honored saints and doctors of the Christian churches!

To return. Abraham is said by Orientals, to have been a worshipper of the elements, the stars-the religion called Sabism, before mentioned. It is said that even now, upon the ruins of ancient Persepolis, may be seen a mosque called Mesched Eschams, or Mosque of the Sun.

In that town was erected the famous an

cient temple of Bel, or the Sun, the great divinity of the Babylonians. They also worshipped the sky, under the name of Jupiter, the moon, and the planet Venus, fire, earth, air, the winds, and the waters. Each Arab tribe was under the invocation of a star, that they honored as their protecting deity, or guardian angel: the tribe Asael was consecrated to the star Mercury; the tribes Idamus and Lachamus honored the planet Jupiter; the tribe Hanuar was consecrated to the Sun; the tribe Cennab to the Moon; the tribe Misa was under the protection of the star called Aldebaran ; the tribe Tai under that of Canopus; each tribe revered one of the celestial bodies as its tutelary genius.

The fire worshippers of Persia have been immortalised by the poets in their religious books: at every page may be seen invocations to Mithra, or the Sun, to the moon, to the stars, and to the elements, the mountains, and the trees. The rivers and the fountains were the subject of their delicious poetry, which chanted the wonders of nature. The fire Ether, which they supposed to circulate throughout the universe, was represented in their pyrees, or fire temples, by the sacred fire kept continually alive by the Magi, or priests; we find also the same worship among the Greeks, who had the sacred fire in their temples, tended by Vestals, so called from Vesta, or Earth, models of purity and excellence; as fire was held to be the most subtle and pure of bodies. None but virgins could be Vestals, who were greatly honoured by the Greeks, and other nations; but any departure from the strictest chastity was punished by burying the unfortunate culprit alive.

By the Persians, each planet was supposed to contain a portion of the subtle fluid, so that each planet had consecrated to it a pyree, or temple, in which incense was offered up to its honor,Mars, Jupiter, and all the planets were thus worshipped. We read that Darius, before giving battle to Alexander, invoked the god Mars, and the sacred eternal fire, and on the top of his tent might be seen an image of the brilliant star of day, enclosed in crystal, reflecting its scorching rays to an immense distance.

The disciples of Zoroastre, the celebrated Persian sage, addressed their prayers to the Sun, the moon, the stars, but principally to fire, as being the most subtle and most pure.

How man first applied fire, or even discovered its qualities, is not known; but as fire always produces the sensations of warmth and heat, and as the Sun's rays produce analagous effects, that luminary

was considered as the focus of heat, and the generator of life. Py thagoras placed the substance of the divinity in the fire or fluid called Ether, of which the Sun seemed to be the source or focus. Parmenides supposed that the world was enveloped by a crown of fire or of light-contending that fire was the substance of deity. Zeno called Ether the great, god., Cleanthe, another celebrated ancient philosopher, admitted the dogma of the divine nature of the Universe, but considered Ether as universally active, enveloping the spheres and penetrating all substances. Aniximander held the like notion-calling gods Ether, and the Air.

That the ancients were aware that heat is life, and the absence of it death, is certain. They also knew that the luminous body called the Sun, if not hot itself, was at least the generator of heatthat is, of life. They called heat the soul of man; and as all heat came from the Sun, the souls of animals were supposed to have no other source. They contended that one sort of soul, or life, had been distributed to all animals without reason; but intelligent beings had something superadded, to mere life; but as all bodies are formed from one kind of earth, and all living and breathing things see but one light, and receive the same air, so, in like manner, there is but one soul-which is heat, variously distributed in an infinity of organized bodies; there being but one intelligence, though unequally distributed and mysteriously divided and subdivided: as the light of the Sun is one, however dispersed upon the walls, upon the mountains, and the millions of divine objects.

Among the ruins of Persepolis may be distinguished the figure of a king on his knees before an image of the Sun, and an emblem of the sacred fire, that the Magi tell the people, formerly descended upon the earth. In ancient fable it is related that man was formed of clay by Prometheus, or providence, only the artificer mixed up with the mass, particles taken from different animals-seeming to intimate that other creatures lived and breathed before man; and the fable runs that he, Prometheus, being desirous to endow the clay he had modelled with vitality, stole up into heaven with a bundle of birch rods, and kindling them at the fiery chariot of the Sun, did bring down fire from heaven, and endowed dead clay with heat, the principal of life.-This was the origin of man according to the fable!

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 8.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

of Israel. Before me there was no I, even I, am the Lord, and besides

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One God formed, neither shall there be after me. me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

"Every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods." DEUT. XII. 31.

CHRISTIANS,

The story related of Jupiter is fabulous-the story of Christ is no less so; the basis of the Pagan religion was allegory—and the foundation of the Christian faith is allegory; Jupiter, we read, was cut to pieces by the giant Typhon, who carried away his sinews, which were afterwards stolen by Mercury and restored to their owner. Jupiter took Metis to wife, when, finding her pregnant, he did eat her up, when he himself did conceive, and from his head 'sprang forth Pallas-armed. No sane reader will take this story in a literal sense; but, however it may appear when thus taken,as an allegory it is pleasant and admirable; for as Typhon signified swelling, and sometimes evil, to the Egyptians, the sea, which they detested, was called Typhon, as Pan signified universality, and Nemesis revenge, so Metis signified counsel, which at once gives us a key to the fable; for after Jupiter devoured Metis, that is, good counsel, he became pregnant with wisdom, and from his brain burst forth Pallas, sometimes called Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.

Nor is this love of allegory so heathenish as some may be dispo

sed to believe, nor by any means confined to historians called profane; for the most valuable philosophies contained in the Scriptures, are concealed under the veil of allegory. Whatever sceptics may say against the Bible, it is at least an old book-a most useful record of ancient times and usages-full of comparisons, allusions, similies, tropes, metaphors, fables, and parables,-as said by God himself: "I have also spoke by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets." How absurd, then, must those writers be, who would pass off fables and parables as facts and literal truths; this course it is which has thrown such disgrace upon teachers of religion, that is, multipliers of visions and venders of similitudes-visions so perfectly ridiculous, and similitudes so unsimilar to anything bearing the impress of right reason, that human nature was disgraced thereby; and truly is it said, "Their throats are as an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips."

In ancient times, it was common to speak in parable; for, as Lord Bacon observes, "Hieroglyphics were in use before writing; so were Parables in use before arguments;" the use of parable, or, indeed, any form of teaching, is to illustrate and instruct; the abuse of it, is in wrapping up and concealing the sense of our speech or writing, "darkening counsel, by words without knowledge." From the Scripture, then, we learn that the Scripture abounds with allegory, fiction, and fable; and from that same Scripture we also learn, that Christ was not a descendant of Abraham, but an ideal embodiment of good,-as Satan was an ideal embodiment of evil; nay, it can be shewn, and shall be shewn, by Scriptural texts, that Abraham never had a real tangible existence-but is an allegorical character. Let the Christian reader remember that we are told in the first chapter of the new Testament, that Christ was the son of Abraham; we read, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham;" but, as shall be hereafter seen, there never was such a person as Abraham; so that, to talk about Christ being the son of a man that never existed, is to talk wildly. Well may it be said, "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God."

In due season we shall come to a full consideration of Biblical history; the arguments it contains against the existence of a bodily Jesus Christ, are crushing, and amount to moral demonstration;