must, for I do not believe it;" and should the Bishop of Lin, coln walk into my study with the Pope standing on one leg on the top of his perriwig, and say "we have power to pronounce unto you absolution and remission," I would, sans ceremonie, give them the lie! Your's, &c.

Russel Court, Sept. 1812.

JOHN MOOR.

P. S. I intend in your next (with your permission) to offer some remarks on the extensive usefulness of a Tract Society on Freethinking Principles.

EXTRACTS FROM A PORT-FOLIO.

THE SOLDIER'S PARADE.

H! what a beautiful shew of fine well formed men! How arrayed! How

dawna heto lines and squares! What sensations and thoughts do they not produce in me, a humble thinking spectator how many moments, hours nay years of anxious concern, have they not cost their parents, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to bring them up to manhood! And for what? to be thus arrayed to destroy their fellow creatures; nay even their own fellow citizens! Is this perfect model, made after the image of God, created for no other purpose than to desolate the globe, and make it a prey for wild beasts? Is this the fruit of a boasted religion? Does it in any point follow the precepts laid down by Christ? Can any system of morals defend such principles-thus to array the beautifullest part of God's creation in all manner of dresses, and to foster prejudices to destroy each other, plunder villages, destroy cities, make widows and orphans? Is there any example for this in nature? Is this the pride and boast of reason? Was this image of God created for no other purpose, than to invent means and methods to destroy himself, and render himself and his fellow creatures miserable and unhappy in this world? Do we see, throughout all the system of nature, any animal abuse his power and superior wisdom equal to mortal man?--Alpha.

ON WAR.

We are told that war is the just judgment of God for our sins. Oh, Heavens! what blasphemy! What idea can we have of God's justice and mercy by this assertion? Who makes war? Not the peaceful labourer, the industrious mechanic, the innocent ploughboy, or thoughtless youth under twenty years of age. But are not these folks plunged into its evil consequences, and lasting miseries, and their blood spilt in the cause, be it ever so just or wrong. Pray can the sins of the young artless ploughboy, of eighteen years, be any ways equal to the crafty, artful statesman of fifty years, the ambitious sycophants of a vile monarch? If God had any thing to do with warss-if be interfered with man's business, would not his justness be poured forth on the guilty. Alas! thoughtless mortal, consider well first whom you blanie; "perceive the moat in thine own eye;" and remember there is a day of retribution for wars, when the secrets of all causes and hearts will be open to the view of this beneficent Being, who endowed man with free will; but at the same time gave him reason and conscience to discover good from evil. Pray, who employs the deceitful recruiting serjeants? the merciless press warrants? who opens every avenue to distress, poverty, plunder, wretchedness, rapine, woes, and curses? Do the poor curse God for wars? No; but they always curse the pride of their evil, vicious, governors, who roll in luxuries on their children's blood.-Alpha,

ORIGINAL POETRY.

SHOULD you be induced to insert the following lines in your Magazine, it may perhaps be proper to inform your readers, that they were originally suggested by a perusal of M. Pavillon's "Advice to a young Female on her Entrance into the World;" the latter part of them (after the line "Never with undue warmth," &c.) being little more than a free translation of certain of the stanzas of that poem.

Yours, &c.

J. D.

ADMONITION;

Addressed to a youthful Friend.

BEFORE your youthful eyes, my friend, appears
A lengthen'd line of bliss-bestowing years;
Behold! the beams of Pleasure light your days,
And Fortune strews with flowers your peaceful ways.
But ah! beware!--list to a warning voice,
And pause before you make the awful choice.
Not in the madness of uncurb'd desires,
In Pleasure's whirlpools, or in Passion's fires,
Will bliss be found. Who would be happy long,
Must seek for joy 'mid Nature's peaceful throng :
Must learn from her their wild desires to rule,
And study virtue in Religion's school.
Then when the arduous race of life is run.
You'll find that innocence and peace are one.

Be just !--in every action, thought, or deed,
Let every sentence from your heart proceed.
Be faithful! from no secret duty swerve;
In serving others you yourself shall serve,
For friendly deeds to kind returns give birth,
Like dews that renovate their native earth.

Nor yet, my youthful friend, the calls despise
Of life's more humble, lesser charities.
Virtue's broad pencil sketches out the scene,
These are the pleasing tints that glow between-
The sun beams these that light the mental world,
Without them man were in a chaos hurl'd,
And he that scorns them, impotently great,
But sinks, not soars above the human state.
Let smiles then speak your uncorrupted truth,
For chearfulness becomes the brow of youth;
Tis Nature's garb--and all who own her fires,
Should prize the attributes her frame inspires;
Her's too the garb, whose blisses never cease,
Whose ways are pleasantness, and paths are peace.

Yet let not rude, unlicens'd, senseless mirth,
To endless scenes of trifling joy give birth,
And more beware, that no malicious sneer,
Nor biting scoff, contemptuously appear.
In speech, respect yourself! remember well,
Your mind is judg'd by what your maxims tell;
And, mocking others, ever seek the while,
That they themselves, as well as you, may smile.
In discourse be
your
mild, and clear,
In manners simple, and in mind sincere ;

open,

Your language chaste--let no pedantic pride
Your knowledge 'tempt to shew, or ignorance hide;
Candor, at least displays a noble mind,

While Ostentation is but Folly's blind.

Never with undue warmth disputes pursue,
Nor e'er conclude till either side you view
And if (the fate of mortals!) you should err,
Let no false shame, let no mean pride, appear;
But boldly dare, e'en from your earliest youth,
To own your fault, and turn again to truth;
Nor fear to have the venial error known,
But follow virtue by whoever shewn,

Seek not with busy eyes each plot to see :
Who would know all things indiscreet must be,
Or rashly if the guilty tale's reveal'd,

In guarded silence let it lay conceal'd;

E'en that the man, whose tongue the words unfold,
Himself at times may doubt himself has told.

The man who idly flatters all his days,
And blindly spreads the incense of his praise:
Who bends obsequiously to all the croud,
Is humbly arrogant, and meanly proud,
To no true useful end of living lives,
Nor honor takes himself, nor honor gives,
Yet let not chilling pride inform your eye,
Nor mean contempt restrain the kind reply:
For others faults let no rude scorn be shewn,
And learn them, only to correct your own.

Those who by undeserv'd applause are bless'd,
Who own to virtues which they ne'er possess'd;
Who smile at flatt'ries, unwrought honors prize,
And stoop so low as by vile means to rise,
Are bubbles merely--by a breath who live--
Idols--whose only powers their votaries give.
Praise when deserv'd may true delight afford :
Who has not glow'd beneath th' approving word?
Tho' still the well-form'd mind, in virtue's cause,
Would merit, rather than receive applause;
True to itself would scorn the tribute given,
And claim its honors in its native heaven!

ERRATUM.

In our last, page 373, for "were polytheists," read "were NOT polytheists.”

No. 23.]

MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER, 1812. [VOL. 2.

REMARKS ON THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH.

To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine.

SIR,

TYCHO BRAHE, the Danish philosopher, by a train of well conducted observations, discovered the true system of the world. The sun he placed in the centre; and the planets, accompanied by their moons, he sent round this common cen tre, all in rapid motion. This arrangement we know to be just. Our philosopher knew it too: and, but for an amiable weakness, would not have rejected a conclusion, founded on principles so clear and satisfactory. He perceived however, or thought he perceived, that his inquiries conducted him to results, incompatible with the decisions of Scripture; and with the best intentions imaginable, though in direct opposition to the evidence of his senses, he again brought back the earth to the centre, and bid the luminary of day, amidst a croud of planets, moons, and comets, wheel round, with desperate ve locity, once in every twenty-four hours.

Father Scheiner, one of Galileo's contemporaries, had discovered the spots in the sun he imagined that he was the only person who had remarked this curious phenomenon ; and lost no time in making the communication to the provin cial of his order. "Do not expose yourself (answered the provincial), by propagating such absurdities; I have looked Aristotle several times, and he says nothing about spots

over my

in the sun.

Mr. Malthus, a writer of deserved celebrity, expresses infinite concern, in his work on population, lest any of his conclusions should be thought, in any measure, to detract from the moral goodness of the Deity. He proves, in a manner which admits of no reply, that the mu tiplication of our species is such, that, checks and controls being removed, no cultivation of the ground can yield an adequate supply of food; and that millions of the human race are, on this account, constantly perishing either directly or circuitously. The conclusion appears to shock even the writer himself; and he takes the trouble to suggest a variety of expedients, which, if attended to, would, he thinks, correct or diminish the evil.

The two Belshamis, gentlemen well known in the republic of

VOL. II.

3 s

of letters, have written much, and for the most part written with great force and penetration, on the doctrine of necessity. They are both, however, abundantly alarmed, Mr. Thomas Belsham in particular, lest their opponents should succeed in making out a tolerable case against them; and in persuading the world, that the doctrine which they teach has the remotest tendency to weaken the foundations of moral order, or to shake our belief in a day of future responsibility.

Now, from the preceding facts and observations, the conclusion which I wish the reader to make, is this :-That the discovery of Truth, is one thing; and that the consideration of its seeming tendency and bearings, is another and that the philosopher, who suffers either his own prejudices or those of others, to distract and embarrass the train of his speculations, is not in the way to add materially to the intellectual riches of mankind. At the same time, I wish it to be clearly understood that I by no means condemn the judicious application of art, in the propagation of truth. Some degree of tenderness and delicacy towards established opinions, is indispensable. The ground must be broken up, before we scatter the seed. The patient must be prepared, if we would inoculate successfully. All I wish to do, is, to draw the line of demarcation, and carefully to separate the rules of enlightened inquiry, from those methods and expedients which a man, conversant with the world, will frequently resort to, in order, to procure for his opinions a friendly reception from the multitude.

When, indeed, by a chain of reasonings, we are led to a conclusion manifestly untrue, we may pronounce, with the ut most certainty, that the premises are unsound, or the reasoning illogical. A philosopher, for example, gravely assures me, that matter has no real existence; that the bread which I eat, and the water which I drink, as well as the ground on which I tread, are in reality mere illusions of fancy, or creations of the mind-and talks of positions and demonstrations; I smile at his eagerness, and only beg that he will re-consider the affair. The case is materially altered, when we oppose actual and well-observed phenomena, not to facts grounded on the testimony of our senses, and the constitution of our nature, but to certain opinions and prepossessions, resting on the authority of some ancient author, or on some hasty conclusion of our own. To illustrate this observation, picture to yourself a man who entertains, as he imagines, the most exalted, and at the same time, the most just, views of the Deity. The Supreme Being (he says to himself) is infinitely benevolent; but it is inconsistent with infinite benevolence to ordain, that the destruction of one animal should be essential to the preservation of another."-He walks into his garden;