is enslaving his fellow man, the poor wretched African; that those means which are employed to induce him to undertake this shameful and disgraceful traffic, so destructive of his own happiness, may be ultimately turned against himself? Does he not see, that without his assistance, the vile machinations of courts would be useless? That it is he that must execute their bloody mandates? And what security has he, that he shall not himself become the victim of that dreadful system of slaughter and robbery, to which he so readily gives his aid and support? Oh, man! poor deluded being how long wilt thou neglect thy reason, and thy experience? How long wilt thou persevere in imbruing thy hands in the blood of thy fellow man? How long wilt thou forget thyself, and that every human being is thy brother? Happiness, the only end of thy existence, does not consist in murder, in sacking of cities and towns, in starving of nations, in collecting from thy fellow-creatures, whose poverty should claim thy commiseration, the means that ought to be applied to satisfy the wants of nature; to pamper the overgrown luxury, and shameful debaucheries of a few worthless individuals, equally careless of thy well-being as of their own; in cutting the throats of innocent women and children; in dragging thy fellow-creatures, whom nature has made of a different complexion, from his wife--from his children-from his parents--from his country-and selling him for yellow earth, to a cruel and avaricious master ;in becoming a spy and informer to a vicious government; or in wars!! But in cultivating thy reason, in consulting thy experience, in cherishing thy fellow-creatures, in administering relief to the needy, in instructing the ignorant, in healing the sick, in thy industry in making the earth bring forth her fruits in due season, and in cultivating the social arts of peace and fraternity amongst thy fellow-creatures: do these things, Oh! man, and thou shalt find that serenity and felicity will crown thy daysthat tyrants, finding no one to second their diabolical projects, will relipquish them, and become of necessity virtuous and useful citizens-that tortures and punishments will vanish from the earth--that truth will become the order of the day--that honesty will be in a state of requisition --that knavery and falsehood will be obliged to emigrate-that the convention of justice will pass a decree prohibiting their return--and that liberty, smiling liberty, will sound the tocsin of general and universal happiness!! Oh! nations, ye who call yourselves Christians, and men who profess Christianity, and call yourselves Christians, read this mournful picture of power, and blush.--W. Hodson. ORIGINAL POETRY. THE WANDERER-A FRAGMENT. "DARKNESS now wraps the world in sleep, Or only wretches wake to weep "Dreary and cold the north wind blows, "Fit emblem of that dreary night, No sound the ear, no form the sight, "So ends the strife that mortals wage, He said and on the green turf sank, Nor found, when slumber's draught he drank, In regions of eternal night Terrific forms arose: With clang of more than mortal fight, Sudden he starts--a single note The glorious sun in eastern sky, FOR MY FATHER. DEIGN, fost'ring guardian of my infant days, My earliest friend--at once so good and kind— His power and goodness gave you fresh delight; His bounteous hand, when Autumn ope'd her horn, friend - J. D. Taught me to think him such, and bade me prove Warn'd my young heart to shun base Falsehood's wiles, ; Were ever comely and admir'd in youth; You'd all its faults and all its merits scan- And learn t' escape the storms of life's poor day. I know thy answer--know the wish'd return-- M. A. T. MAGAZINE. No. 19.] JULY, 1812. [VOL. 2. ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, EVERY body has either himself observed, or heard from others, that the historians of the New Testament do not in all points agree in their accounts. Either the events themselves are not always related with the same circumstances, or the period of time to which they refer them is different. These discrepances between the several statements have had the harsh term of contradictions bestowed upon them. Now, in order to see how the matter stands in general, let us represent to ourselves four men, who have lived at a court, undertaking, after the death of the prince, to write the history of his life. Suppose them all honest and impartial persons, determined to relate the truth. Suppose farther, that all four were either eye-witnesses of what they did relate, or have heard it from those that were. Suppose finally, that no one of them has concerted with the rest, but that each for himself sets down the acts and sayings of the prince, just as he recollects to have seen and heard them. What think ye? Will these four historians, though they have all equal capacities, equal strength of memory, a like taste, like dispositions towards the prince, verbally agree? You say, no; that is altogether impossible : and you are in the right. For these four men, with all their pre-supposed equality, remain still as different as all men are from one another-different at the time of seeing and hearing -different at the time of writing down. Each saw and heard at the same time otherwise than the other. One stood, for example, close by, the other at some distance. One was at that moment more attentive than the other for our mental faculties are not always in equal tension, nor can be so. On the one an act or a speech of the prince makes a quite different impression than upon the other. The one found in the transaction this, the other another circumstance important or remarkable. To the one this expression of the prince was striking and surprising, to the other another. VOL. II. In like manner will it be in committing to paper. The same difference of proximity, of attention, of impression, &c. will in writing the history produce a vast difference in the mode of relating. This will retain a circumstance in his memory entirely, another imperfectly; the third not any traces at all of it. The one will relate an affair very briefly, the other with prolixity. The one will behold it in this, the other in a different point of view. In short, all four will write, as honest people, but no one will, in all respects, tally with another. And of this we may convince ourselves any day of our lives. We need only attend to the first report we hear of some transaction either in town or country, as brought to us by ten persons who were present. Each will believe he is communicating to us a true statement of facts, and all ten will relate it differently. In all the ten accounts we shall find several circumstances altered, and observe a want of coincidence. Some indeed will object, that with the sacred historians this dissonance and contradiction ought not to appear; seeing the spirit of God inspired them verbally, all that they wrote; and it would be absurd to admit that a good God has inspired four gospels, and yet purposely indited the contents variously, both as to circumstances and to time. And this objection, which is a very old one, has in all times moved those of the learned, who believe in a verbal inspiration, with unspeakable toil to compose harmonies of the gospels, in order to reconcile these discrepances and contradictions. It must be owned however, that sagacious and worthy men, not inferior to them in numbers, do not believe that verbal inspiration, and hold those harmonies (the authors of which differ extremely from one another) a vain and fruitless labour; consequently, that the whole affair is among the number of those facts that are open to inquiry. That is, those who chuse, may leave the matter there. I for my part think it not necessary for saving the honour of the evangelists. The four gospels, inspired or not inspired, continue in my mind the most credible of all histories, notwithstanding their variations. Nay, I hold the authors of them for that very reason, people of honour and veracity, because they do not verbally coincide. For, if they accurately agreed throughout, I must of necessity suspect them of confederacy, since it would be an unheard of, and therefore incredible, instance, that four men had related the same story exactly alike. And we may be the more easy about the subject; since as I observed above, the detail, the particular detached circumstances of the history of Jesus, are likewise in the class of examinable truths. It is sufficient for our comfort, for our faith, that the history of Jesus on the whole is true, granting even that parti |