for others the same freedom from ghostly dreams and disquieting imaginations which I have thus gained for myself?

I feel that I am. In probing the foundations of the orthodox faith, and in unsettling (as in the case of some I may perchance have done) the belief of years, I fear not the consequences to our readers' peace of mind. If the history of my own feelings is to be admitted in proof, they will be, not wiser only, but happier also, without their superstitions.

ROBERT DALE OWEN.

TO ROBERT DALE OWEN.

LETTER X.

New-York, May 28, 1831.

SIR,

I PERCEIVE it is admitted, that moral courage is one of the first of virtues. One would hardly expect, after hearing such an admission, to find the individual making 't excusing his adherents from the exercise of this virtue. But why should the man who excuses its deficiency in others, value it so highly in himself? A thing so easily cast aside cannot be of much value; and it would therefore be well worth the consideration of Sceptics, whether, to avoid prejudice, and to run no risk of injuring society and ruining souls, it would not be better for them all to desist from its promulgation. But if it is indeed so honourable, and so worthy of being cherished, a lack thereof must be less honourable, and a moral delinquency. Besides, if men are to be excused from its exercise till things be favourable, and the world approve, most assuredly they will exercise it never; for, what moral courage can there be, in acting in accordance with the opinion of mankind? So then, Sceptics are to be excused from exercising that honourable, first-rate virtue, moral courage, till the world shall have become so favourable, that there will be no opportunity to exercise it! Well, then, my opponent is performing a very gratuitous task, altogether uncalled for, by the exer

cise of his. He may as well wait, and be excused. Who owes him any consideration for the exercise of a quality so innocently and harmlessly dispensed with?

"If Sceptics persecuted Christians." Sir, they do persecute Christians. They are continually slandering, reviling and abusing them, uttering against them all manner of hard speeches. Still, the consciences of Christians do not sit so loosely upon them, as to permit them to keep silence in relation to Christianity. No, Sir; the tone of Christian sentiment is higher than this. It fixes the price of Truth higher than a little temporary business. It makes it of too much importance to be dispensed with for any consideration whatever. It permits not its votaries to hide their heads for fear of danger. It makes them heroes; it makes them martyrs; it calls them to die, rather than abandon it. How contemptible, how mean, is the compromising, temporising sentiment advanced above, compared with this. But it seems, after all, that there is not so much to be risked as Sceptics have supposed, by an avowal of their sentiments. O no. Christians then are not such persecutors as they have been wont to imagine them to be; and so these moral heroes have been deterred from honesty by a bugaboo of their own fancy. No doubt the world will soon be disenthralled from the manacles of priestcraft by such moral giants-which by the way cannot be so very bad, if it is not sufficiently so to have men" urged" to exertion against it. But what wonderful ideas of the nature of moral obligation must my opponent have, to suppose a man released from the discharge of duty on account of opposition. Were there no other Reformers than these Sceptics, it would be some time ere the abominations and cruelties practised in the heathen world, would be brought to a termination.

I do not believe, Sir, " that any man who has once tho

roughly examined the evidences of theology," ever has adopted the opinion, that "it is an imaginary science." The most noted infidels have been noted likewise for their superficiality on this subject. Hume owned he never read the New Testament with attention. Gibbon appears never to have perused any able defence of Christianity. Voltaire had but a superficial knowledge of religious subjects. Paine quoted the Bible from recollection, and made many egregious blunders. So much for these thorough examiners. But many who have embraced infidelity for want of thorough examination, have, on making such examination, renounced it—not however "under the influence of disease," but under that of conviction. And, with regard to the converts made to infidelity by the ribaldry of Paine, and the wit of Voltaire, superficial indeed must the minds of such individuals be, to be caught by the trash which served even their authors but so poorly in the dying hour. No doubt if the truth were known, many of those converts who pass under the name of Sceptics, would, like the printer of "Priestcraft Exposed," be found to have "no fixed opinions of any kind." And this was the substance of my original proposition respecting Sceptics, viz. that many of them, on renouncing Scepticism, confess that they never were Sceptics in reality. But why this forced, this half-suppressed admission, that the conversion of Sceptics is possible, when it is so common a case, and when Christianity rose from so small a beginning, and now embraces so large a portion of mankind? A few words now relative to the Divine glory.

I said, Sir, that God could have been under no obligation to non-entities with regard to their creation or noncreation. I said, that a liability to fall into sin prevents insurance against it, and that such a liability in man is necessary; for, that God's glory is promoted by

the exercise of his mercy in the remission of sin, and of his justice in its punishment; and consequently, that the Divine glory in perfection could never have been realised, had sin never existed. I said, that, as God is the principal Being in the universe, his glory is, of right and obligation, first and chiefly to be consulted, always barring injustice to his creatures, which would itself be derogatory thereto. I admitted, that it would be for the glory of God to make his creatures as happy as he could, consistently with the interests of the great whole, but no further. But I did not represent him, miser-like, as calculating how small an amount of happiness he was under obligation to confer upon them. This could never have been a calculation with him for its own sake-nor even at all, save when higher and more important interests required. And the very fact, that God regards chiefly the chief interests of the universe, making minor interests subservient thereto, within the limits of justice, thereby promoting the greatest possible amount of good, is the strongest evidence conceivable of his infinite goodness; whereas, his consulting the abstract, minor interests under consideration, would prove him a Being infinitely less benevolent. I likewise demonstrated, as I conceive, that, in a universe composed in part of rational, responsible, free agents, there would be clashing interests, it being impossible in the nature of things, that God could consistently regulate such a universe just as he could one merely physical. I showed, that the homage which he requires of his creatures is not required from selfishness, but because it ought to be rendered; just as a parent requires a child to observe towards him a certain degree of deference. And that an inferiour can honour a superiour, and consequently, a man a God, is too evident to need argument, the "caterpillar" comparison to the contrary notwith