furnished, in his popular Apology, a masterly refutation of Paine's calumnies against the Bible; exhibiting, the finest contraft throughout, to the ignorance, effrontery, witticism and ribaldry of that "Mohawk warrior" in religion and go

vernment.

The mischievous influence however of Paine's works has been widely diffeminated, by the affiliated Societies of Great Britain; who fubfcribed, we are told, (probably with the aid of the French Directory,) no less a fum than £10,000, to indoctrinate the British people, previously to their rifing en masse against their Conftitution and Government :-and the fame righteous pains have been bestowed in Ireland, and with more fatal fuccefs, by large editions of the Rights of Man poured forth from the presses of Dublin, Cork and Belfast, and circulated at the lowest rate, and even gratis, among the ignorant and femi-barbarous" peafantry. An immenfe edition of it in French, has alfo been publifhed in France, but little read,

as

as we learn from the intercepted correfpondence of Doctor Priestley, with his

66

expatriated" friends in that country; who would (Priestley and all) be found guilty alike, by any impartial jury (not compofed of free citizens) upon the old legal maxim of Nofcitur a focio;—from the treasonable correfpondence of J. H. (John Hurford) Stone, who out of his own mouth is condemned of confpiring to fubjugate and ruin that native country "in which he had been born and educated, and had enjoyed the high advantages of her protecting Government.”

"This prefumptive evidence against Doctor Priestley, may be refifted"—(we are told by his apologiits the M. R.)" by teftimony of a contrary defcription."-However they have adduced none; and the following evidence of an American neighbour, honeft Peter Porcupine, cannot well be refifted.

"Since Doctor Priestley," fays he, "wrote his Letter to the People of England, ftating that here (in America) the Prefs

Prefs is free, here Truth is not a libel,'

experience it seems has changed his opinion."-" He has fuffered the juft punishment of his malignancy against his country; he has been cheated, neglected, fcorned. He is now in an obfcurity hardly penetrable; he is reduced to poverty, and is bursting with vexation. All this has had an effect. And I will ftate as a fact, which I call on him to deny if he can, that he has lately declared that REPUBI ICAN

GOVERNMENTS ARE THE MOST ARBITRARY IN THE WORLD." (c)

This

(c) In the Summer of 1787, I also had a converfation with Doctor Prieflley, at his commodious and elegant villa near Birmingham ;—in the course of which American politics were introduced. He warmly recommended the American latitudinarian plan, of no Church Eftablishment, but a general and impartial toleration of all religious fects.-I pleaded the recency of the American Conftitution; and that no valid argument could be drawn from the state of that new country, for fifty years at least, until their Conftitution fhould be thoroughly settled.—And I then suddenly retorted-" Prithee, Doctor Priestley, have you felt no inconvenience in being fubject to the beck of every old

Coomant

This most eventful year, A. D. 1798, of the Vulgar Æra, has at length fprung in its fullest extent, the deep and wide mine, hollowed under and throughout Christendom, by GALLIC INFIDELITY, planned and executed with truly diabolical fubtilty, by thofe prime miffionaries Volfaire and his gang. And the Coafts of Europe, Afia and Africa, have heard with terror and affright, the tremendous explofion of Buonaparte's impious and hypocritical MANIFESTO, on the Banks of the NILE, July 1, 1798.

"In the name of GOD, gracious and merciful: THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD: HE HAS NO SON, or AssoCIATE IN HIS KINGDOM!!!"

Impulfu, quo maximus infonat ATHER; Diffultant RIPE ; refluitque exterritus AMNIS.

woman in

-

your congregation ? "No man, Sir," anfwered he with warmth, "bas felt it more feverely than myself." -" If fo," replied I, "Give me an ecclefiaftical establishment."-This I will aver to be truth; and I will not affront Doctor Priestley, by hefitating whether he would vouch it, if he were appealed to by THE AUTHOR.

Thus

Thus has "the great Nation" of FRANCE, openly taken the lead in the GRAND APOSTACY from CHRIST, foreboded to be the disgrace and the punishment of the "latter days," or age of the fuffering Church, by the Emissary of an unprincipled DIRECTORY ;-this worse, than the robber Cacus.

Such avowed apoftacy, combined with fuch gigantic ambition and violence, feems alas! to be "the beginning of forrows," by the righteous judgments of offended Heaven;-the dreadful forerunner perhaps of "the third and laft woe," foretold to "come quickly" after the apparent extinction of CHRISTIAN FAITH upon Earth, for a short period, of three prophetic days and an half," by the destruction of the "faithful witnees" of the Patriarchal and Evangelical Churches" after they shall have finished" their unavailing teftimony, to an inconfiderate, a negligent and a perfecuting world, in the last days of trouble and of rebuke and of blafphemy !!!" Are not thefe, "the days of vengeance

now