we him next on another tack. He does not, he says, deny atheism. Well then, he does not deny its absurdities: viz., that the wheels of nature roll themselves; that all possible appearances of intelligence are produced by non-intelligence; that men, and animals, and vegetables, make themselves; and that the world is eternal, contrary to demonstration. In fine, he has to father all the difficulties of theism, all the absurdities of atheism, and all the nonsense of nothingarianism. If he is satisfied with this position, let him keep his station; but let him not think to escape the deist's dilemma, in objecting to the God of the Bible and not to the God of nature.

Now, sir, it is not to be taken for granted, that the wars of the Israelites were wrong. It must first be proved, that the God who destroys cities by the convulsions of nature, did not command those wars. Leaving therefore these wars out of the account till this is proved, I ask seriously if the condition of Palestine was not incalculably improved by its change of masters. Was it not an improvement to stop human sacrifices? to abolish idolatry? to check sodomy? to overthrow all manner of cruelties and impurities? Suppose the Jews themselves occasionally fell into some of those very sins. Still, when they did so, God punished them, and they repented and reformed. Surely this was far, far preferable to keeping on in those abominable courses, as the Canaanites did.

I have not yet admitted that the Bible is obscene. When the Old Testament was written, many things which appear obscene to us, were by no means so considered in those days of primitive simplicity. But really, that an individual who in this refined age scouts marriage, recommends the keeping of mistresses, (for what else is placement?) and publishes the means of avoiding the natural consequence of sexual intercourse, should affect to have his modesty put to the blush by the artless and primitive style of the Bible, is distressing in the extreme. I had not indeed read "Moral Physiology" in course when I wrote my last letter; but I had seen it, and had noticed therein what I consider demoralizing and obscene. Since then, I have examined it more, and I pronounce it without hesitation to be one of the most abominable works of the day. It is not necessary to read it through, to see whether it is so or not. A few passages would be sufficient to show this, and to put the community, but especially females who have any regard for their reputation, on their guard against it. And yet, the individual who sends such trash into the world, can make up a terrible face at the ancient simplicity of the Bible!

It is conceded, I perceive, that we are, in some respects, considerably in advance of the nations of antiquity in point of wisdom and improvement. Cold admissson indeed, and yet an important one. Now, sir, please to explain the cause of the continuance of those nations that have not the Bible, in a state of heathen barbarism down to this day. They have not made

these improvements. They are not in advance of ancient heathen nations in these respects. Look at the most enlightened of them-the Hindoos and the Chinese. In Hindostan, they have three hundred and thirty millions of Gods. There, they burn or bury their widows alive, destroy their infants, (particularly their illegitimate ones, of which ten thousand a month are said to be thus murdered in Bengal alone,) immerse the sick and the dying in the Ganges, suspend themselves on hooks pierced through their flesh, and sacrifice themselves to Juggernaut. Their general characteristics are, falsehood, pride, tyranny, theft, deceit, conjugal infidelity, disobedience to parents, ingratitude, (they having no word expressive of thanks,) a litigious spirit, perjury, treachery, covetousness, gaming, servility, hatred, revenge, cruelty, private murder, and want of compassion to the poor, the aged, the sick, and the dying. In China, all ranks, the emperor not excepted, worship a host of imaginary spirits, that are supposed to preside over the seasons, mountains, rivers, &c. They believe in the transmigration of souls. They are offended with their gods, when events are unfavourable. Their general character is that of fraud, falsehood, and hypocrisy. Here, too, infants are exposed to perish, nine thousand of which are computed to be annually destroyed at Pekin. So much for the light of nature, and the progress of moral improvement without revelation. And shall we be gravely told in the face of all these facts, that revelation is unnecessary? Sir, some infidels have more candour than this. Some infidels acknowledge the necessity of revelation, and acknowledge too, that Christianity has been of incalculable benefit to mankind. We find a Rousseau admitting, as I have heretofore shown, that "philosophy can do nothing good which religion does not do still better; and that religion does many good things which philosophy cannot do at all:"—likewise, that modern philosophers are indebted to Christianity for their best ideas." We find a Herbert admitting, that Christianity is the best religion; a Hobbes, that the Scriptures are the voice of God; a Shaftesbury, that Christianity ought to be more highly prized, and that he who denies a God sets up an opinion against the well-being of society; a Collins, that Christianity ought to be respected; a Woolston, that Jesus is worthy of glory for ever; a Tindal, that pure Christianity is a most holy religion, and that all the doctrines of Christianity plainly speak themselves to be the will of an infinitely wise and holy God; a Chubb, that Christ's mission was probably divine, that he was sent into the world to communicate to mankind the will of God, and that the New Testament contains excellent cautions and instructions for our right conduct, and yields much clearer light than any other traditionary revelation; and a Bolingbroke, that such moral perfections are in God as Christians ascribe to him, that he will not presume to deny that there have been particular providences, that Christianity is a republication of the religion of nature, and that its morals are pure. We likewise

find the wisest of the heathen philosophers deploring their ignorance and darkness, and acknowledging their necessity of divine illumination.

Respecting the case of Socrates, for the truth of which my opponent has called, I extract the following from Halyburton's Inquiry, pp. 131, 146, “Aristotle practised unnatural lust, and Socrates is foully belied if he loved not the same vice. Whence else could Socratici Cinadi come to be a proverb in Juvenal's days?" "He is frequently introduced by Plato as swearing. He is known to have basely complied with the way of worship followed by his own country, which was the more impious, that it is to be supposed to be against the persuasion of his own conscience. Yea, we find him with his last breath, ordering his friend to sacrifice the cock he had vowed to Esculapius. M. Dacier's apology for him is perfectly impertinent. He is accused of impure amours with Alcibiades, and of prostituting his wife's chastity for gain." Again, p. 314, "Plato tells us how devout Socrates was in the worship of the sun, and that several times he fell into an ecstacy while thus employed,"

As to the case of Lycurgus and Plutarch, I see not how my opponent has bettered it, by the allusion to the article to which he refers us. It shows that they approved of the most shameful and open adultery, and of the most cruel destruction of weak and sickly infants.

In the case of Cicero, he finds it very convenient to pass over his approbation of revenge and suicide. Will he tell us whether he "sympathizes and agrees with him in" these, as well as in scepticism; and whether that philosopher was wiser in these respects" than modern theologians ?"

His comparison of the opinion of Calicratides with modern public opinion, touching the privileged irregularities of husbands, is an evasion of the subject. We are not discussing the merits of public opinion, but of the Bible. He must not expect, in this discussion, to make the Bible accountable for the opinion of an ungodly world, who do not make it their directory, as he sometimes undertakes to do, though most absurdly, in relation to their practice.

In the case of the philosophers just noticed, as well as in that of all heathen philosophers, ancient and modern, we see what the wisest of men are without the Bible, and what those very infidels who decry it would be without it-if, indeed, they would be in so good a condition, which but few, if any of them, would be, inasmuch as they are in general no Socrateses. And are they not discriminating geniuses indeed, to pronounce a book unnecessary, and even pernicious, were it not for which, they themselves would this very hour be adoring the sun, and sacrificing cocks, ard casting their sickly infants down some deep, dark Apotheta? h high conceit of themselves must they have indeed, to imagine that they are naturally so much wiser than the sages of all generations, that they need no other light than those men have had,

to enable them to do so much better than they. Let them bear in mind the words of Rousseau, that modern philosophers derive their best ideas from Christianity. And, bearing this in mind, let them no longer say that revelation is unnecessary. And will it still be pretended that revelation is unnecessary? Were I an infidel, I would not attempt to maintain a position so manifestly untenable. I would admit its necessity at once, but argue that this did not prove that one had been given.

ORIGEN BACHELER.

TO ORIGEN BACHELER

LETTER IV.

July 30, 1831. To our readers, without further argument, I leave the decision, whether you have proved the horrible precedent recorded in Numbers, chap. xxxi., and the express command in Deuteronomy, chap. xii., to be merciful and moral or not; whether that precedent and that command would, or would not, amply justify the most odious intolerance and cruelties to-day; whether the conqueror finds not in the one his permit, and the inquisitor in the other his credentials; whether the belief in witchcraft is, or is not, supported; and whether the Salem murders were, or were not, immediately caused, by the law given Exodus, chap. xxii., ver. 18; whether the example of the chosen of God, when acting in accordance with the command of a divine law-giver, be, or be not, justification sufficient for the slavery of the south; whether you have adduced from the Koran or from the annals of the Canaanites, one atrocity to match the Midianite massacre; whether the 4th and 16th chapters of Ezekiel, and the 1st and 3rd of Hosea, are, or are not, decent samples of "primitive simplícity;" whether the morals of a nation that sanctions placements are, or are not, better than those described by Mr. Tappan and his fellow members in the late Report of the Magdalen Society of this city; whether "Moral Physiology" be, or be not, a moral, useful work, written with the most scrupulous regard to propriety, and conducive to genuine chastity and to national cultivation; whether there is one "abominable" sentiment or expression in its seventy-two pages, and, if there were, whether that were the faintest shadow of an apology for the sullying imaginations that stain the scriptural columns, or whether it has any thing whatever to do with this discussion; whether the spirit of progressive improvement, based on accu

mulating experience, be, or be not, adequate explanation of the world's progress since the days of old; and, finally, whether such a revelation as that now under consideration be, or be not, likely to aid in bringing about peace, decency, and common sense upon earth, or goodwill and enlightened charity among mankind.

If we are to be continually reverting to our former subject of debate, this discussion will be interminable. It seemed to me, even from the first, almost superfluous to adduce a single reason in support of my undoubted right, when I am uninformed, to say I am; or very learnedly to argue, that when I have not a single fact on which to predicate an assertion, I may be permitted to make no assertions. To reiterate the reasons I have given, would be worse than superfluous. It is all well enough that you should tell us whatever you please regarding the doings above the stars and the intentions of omnipotence; it is well enough that you should assume to have been admitted, as it were, behind the scenes of the sacred drama, to see its secret springs touched and its millions of actors prompted: but, methinks, it carrying the jest somewhat too far, to insist upon my being equally presumptuous; and, when I decline to assert, what I have no data for asserting, to run on about fences and pivots and non-committal.

In a former letter, you alluded to the excesses committed during the French revolution, in proof how sanguinary and licentious a world would be without revelation.

No great political event has ever been so grossly-so willfully misrepresented, as that to which you have referred. Never was a more noble or a more unfortunate struggle to put down tyranny and intolerance and injustice, and to replace them by a republic founded on the rights and liberties of its citizens. Never was there a period when the power of truth and of justice shone more conspicuously than in the first months of that revolution. Never, perhaps, was there a public body at once more daring, more honest, and more moderate, than the National Assembly of 1789; nor ever, probably, did a political party exhibit more sincere devotion to a good cause, than did the brave and ill-fated Girondists.

But times of great excitement are unfavourable to sober judgment; and, in default of experience, men are apt from one extreme to run into the opposite. Thus did excesses originate among the French republican party, by which their subtle adversaries were but too ready to profit.

At first, the extravagancies committed by those who had escaped from the thraldom of legitimate oppression, were carefully exaggerated into atrocities. Throughout all the other nations of Europe, men's fears were excited, and men's heads were turned.

But a surer expedient yet remained. Emissaries were sent from Great Britain, and from other European courts, to fan the