falling of a hair from our heads, and cannot be said to disturb the great whole.

Instead of viewing ourselves as the particular and partial objects of the care of a great Deity, or of receiving those dogmas of the priest which teach us that every thing has been made for the convenience and use of man, and that man has been made in the express image of the Deity, we should consider ourselves but as atoms of organized matter, whose pleasure or whose pain, whose existence in a state of organization, or whose non-existence in that state, is a matter of no importance in the laws and operations of Nature; we should view ourselves with the same feelings, as we view the leaf which rises in the spring, and falls in the autumn, and then serves no further purpose but to fertilize the earth for a fresh production; we should view ourselves but as the blossoms of May, which exhibit but a momentary splendour and beauty, and often within that moment are cut off prematurely by a blast. We are of no more importance in the scale of Nature than those myriads of animalcules whose natural life is but for the space of an hour, or but a moment. We come and pass like a cloud—like a shower—those of us who possess a brilliancy superior to others, are but as the rainbow, the objects of a momentary admiration, and a momentary recollection. Man has been most aptly compared to the seasons of the year, in our own climate, the spring, is his infancy; the summer, the time af his ardent manhood; the autumn, his decline of life; and the winter, his old age and death—he passes, and another series comes. He is produced by, and produces his like, and so passes away one generation after another, from, and to all eternity. How ridiculous then is the idea about divine revelations, about prophesies, and about miracles, to procure proselytes to such notions! To what generation do they apply, or if they apply to all future generations, why were not the same revelations, prophesies, and miracles, necessary to all the past generations? What avail the dogmas of the priest about an end to the world, about a resurrection, about a day of judgment, about a Heaven and Hell, or about rewards and punishments after this life, when we assert that matter is imperishable and indestructible—that it always was what it now is, and that it will always continue the same. Answer this, ye Priests. Come forward, ye Men of Science, and support these plain truths, which are as familiar to your mind, as the simplest demonstration in mathematics is to the experienced and accomplished mathematician.

Future rewards and punishments are cried up as a necessary doctrine wherewith to impress the minds of men, and to restrain them from vice: but how much more impressive and comprehensible would be the plain and simple truth, that, in this life, virtue produces happiness, and vice nothing but certain misery.

Away then with the ridiculous idea, and the priestly dogma of immortality. Away with the contemptible notion that our bones, our muscles, and our flesh shall be gathered together after they are rotted and evaporated for a resurrection to eternal life. Away with the idea that we have a sensible soul which lives distinct from and after the dissolution of the body. It is all a bugbear, all a priestly imposture. The Chemist can analyse the body of man, and send it into its primitive gaseous state in a few minutes. His crucible and fire, or his galvanic battery, will cause it to evaporate so as not to leave a particle of substance or solid matter, and this chemical process is but an anticipation, or a hastening, of the workings of Nature; for the whole universe might be aptly termed a great chemical apparatus, in which a chemical analysis, and a chemical composition is continually and constantly going on. The same might be said of every organized body, however large, or however minute; its motions produce a constant chemical analysis and composition, a continual change; so that the smallest particle of matter is guided by the same laws, and performs the same duties, as the great whole. Here is an harmony indeed! Man alone seems to form an exception by his vicious conduct and demoralizing character. By assuming to himself a character or a consequence to which he is not entitled, and by making a pretension to the possession of supernatural powers, he plays such fantastic tricks as to disturb every thing within his influence, and carries on a perpetual war with Nature and her laws.

After those few observations upon the properties of matter either organized or inert, (to which I know every Chemist in the country, whose science has conquered the bigotry of his education, will give his assent) I would call upon them all and every one to stand forward and teach mankind those important, those plain truths, which are so clear and so familiar to their own minds. It is the Man of Science who is alone capable of making war upon the Priest, so as to silence him effectually. It is the duty of the Man of Science to make war upon all error and imposture, or why does he study? Why does he analyse the habits, the customs, the manners, and the ideas of mankind, but to separate truth from falsehood, but to give force to the former, and to extinguish the latter? Why does he search into Nature and her laws, but to benefit himself and his fellow man by his discoveries, by the explosion of erroneous ideas, and by the establishment of correct principles? Science must be no longer studied altogether as an amusement or a pastime, which has been too much the case hitherto; it must be brought forward to combat the superstitions, the vices, and the too long established depravities among mankind, whence all their present and past miseries have emanated, and unless the former can be destroyed, the latter will still ensue, as a regular cause and effect.

It is evident that Men of Science have hitherto too much crouched to the established tyrannies of Kingcraft and Priestcraft. Speaking generally they have adopted some of the aristocratical distinctions of the day, and have supported the frauds upon mankind, which it was their peculiar duty to expose. This has given room to the advocates of superstitiop, to put forward as an authority-for their dogmas, the names of Bacon, of Newton, of Locke, and many others. They say that it is no disgrace even to err with such men, and thus, for the want of a more decided and determined character in the advocates of Science and Philosophy, the enemy has built a strong hold within our lines, and has taken an important advantage of our irresolution. I will not believe that Bacon, or Newton, or Locke, in the latter part of their life, had any other ideas of the Christian religion, or any other religion, than I have. In their days, the faggots had scarcely been extinguished, nor was the fuel which supplied them exhausted. They might therefore deem it prudent to equivocate as a matter of safety. Besides, the two former were in the employ of a court, and consequently under the trammels of Kingcraft, which ever has, and ever will find its interest in the support of Superstition and Priestcraft.

I would appeal to any man who calls himself a conscientious Christian, and ask him whether he thinks such a man as himself could write the following paragraph:

"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and createth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no farther, and we see the times inclined to Atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times: but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government." This is Lord Bacon's apology for Atheism, and, in my humble opinion, he wrote it feelingly, conscientiously, and upon principle, as an Atheist, which word has no other meaning than a seceder from all mythologies, although the