of our own handy work, while to us a crust of bread is enough, it is thought, and a warm dinner a sort of eleemosynary charity, at their condescending hands! When we see the highest and the most commanding part of the human intellect, a fine and glowing imagination, unshackled by the gyves of a religious education, united to sound learning and true philosophy, exerting all and every fascinating charm to elevate the character of man, and confer on him the power of extending the sphere of his enjoyments, it becomes an unspeakable pleasure to watch the labours of its possessors, and feast on the bounties he bestows.

Mechanics and artizans, as we are, we know little of scholastic learning, being contented, like Volney's "simple and untaught men," with plain and natural truth. Education has done little or nothing for us; but nature has given us a "quick uncheated sight," which the clergyman cannot hood-wink with all the mastery of his heartless art. Learning and science certainly refine our "worser part," and we sedulously strive to obtain in our leisure hours a "clearer ken" of the "dim discovered tracts of mind," by perambulating in

the porch, whose roof is seen,
Arch'd with enliv'ning olive's green,
Where science prank'd in tissued vest,
By reason, pride, and fancy drest;
Comes like a bride so trim array'd,

To wed with doubt in Plato's shade.

COLLINS.

How many hundreds of clergymen (we rejoice that you are not now numbered with them) have employed their talents in expounding and defending the Scriptures, in the pulpit and in their closet, "growing pale over the midnight lamp," in writing innumerable folios, quartos, and octavos, explanatory of their absurdities and obscurities, marked in the very birth for " the tomb of all the Capulets!" Was it in this way your clerical visitor got his " Christ-upon-Calvary forehead," and his "riseto-judgment jaws?" But they are not all so cadaverous in their physiognomical characteristics. Many of them have vermilion faces, Bardolphlike countenances, savouring of unlimed sack, with a disposition, no doubt, to set their "curs barking at the beggar," while they, forsooth, gormandise on a sweet buttered steak, and quaff it down with Port, Madeira, or Champaigne! These sort of clerical gentlemen, fellows of this carnal cast, will say, what a stultus Mr. Taylor is, to throw away the "loaves and fishes" of the Church, and attempt the task of mending the unmendable knaves and fools of the world!-and you will answer, why, let them say it; they cannot but allow that I have a conscience which they have not; a feeling heart which they have not; and an independent mind which I will maintain independent to my latest pulsation, while they are truckling to power and kneeling to outrageous falsehood, the basest of the base.

Is it not (most assuredly it is) an extremely gracious calling to preach clerically for the " Holy Ghost," and be paid for it, too, in compulsory fees and rewards, wrung from those who labour to support those who are idle, and therefore worse than useless. The "gentlemen in black," the consumers of more than eight millions per annum, and the non-producers of a single fraction to increase the wealth of the nation, withall would

hug themselves in their happy situation, though their congregations starved for want of the necessaries of life; nor would the most charitable amongst them hardly give, on any charitable occasion, one penny in the pound," although he would be previously aware that his name would be blazoned forth by some ultra broad sheet, and his charity, piety, et cetera, spoken of in the higher circles, among the fashionable vulgar. These, too, are the Christians you and we have to deal with; the followers of the fabled adulterine Jesus, whose religion has been blood-nurtured, and whose horrible emblematical characters, I. H. S., still outrage our vision in the church-yards, reminding us of the crusades, the massacres, and "the multitudinous sea incardine;"

with the blood of man, for the honour and glory of the Christian Church!

I request you, on the behalf of the friends to free discussion in Manchester, to accept a trifling tribute of our esteem for your learning and talents, exercised in the cause of liberal principles, and in vindication of our rights, as men born guiltless and free.

I am, worthy Sir,

Respectfully your's,

On the behalf of the Subcribers,

Manchester, April 2, 1828.

ELIJAH RIDINGS.

The following sums have been collected by John Bottomley. Other receivers have not made ready to hand over other sums that were intended to accompany this address :

They say,

Upon th' excess of luxury-" a sin

Which, if indulg'd," he told his congregation, "Would e'er prevent their getting in

To the blest mansions of salvation."
Possessing-so I've heard the pow'r of suasion,
His auditors believ'd his doctrine true-
And farmer Dan, on this occasion,

Bringing his peccadilloes back to view,
Determin'd to amend his life,

So he went home and told his wife,
That as he wish'd to save his soul
From that black hole,

That scorching region of perdition, Hell,
She must his Sunday coat go sell.

66

Up to this time," said he,

"I have had two,

Henceforth, I am resolv'd with one to do.
I've had a call,

And must leave all,

Of luxury that in the least does savour,
Ere I can gain God's special favour."
"Leave all," cried she" Why, yes, he said so,
And told us, too, th' Apostles did so ;

So take the coat to yonder Jew,

"Twill fetch a pound or two,

'Tis nearly new,

And give the money to the holy man,
To lay it out, as best he can,

On such poor objects in the street,

As in his walks he'll chance to meet."

"But can't we soften down this holy preacher This Gospel teacher ?"

The woman, soon as she was able,

Sought out the Parson.-" He's at table,”

Replied a pamper'd saucy varlet,

With nose and cheeks as red as scarlet.

"I'll wait."—"To-day you cannot see him,

"For when his Rev'rence once sits down to dinner, He ne'er gets up till evening."-(What a sinner! Sigh'd the poor woman.)- Shall I come again ?" "Why, no-it will be all in vain, You will not see him if you call He goes this ev'ning to a ball."

To Bow,

And 's gone to change his coat before he starts."

"To change his coat," cried she," Oh! that will do,
Since he's got two,

I will not trouble you to call your master."
Returning home she jogg'd on faster,
Just told her good man what had pass'd,
That how at last

She'd found the Minister had got two coats,
And that he'd better think about his oats,
Than saving grace,
And that strange place,

'Bout which the Parson with his cant,
Did so much rant.

Th' example of this holy man,

Remov'd the scruples of poor Dan,

Who left the Parson in the lurch,

And thenceforth went no more to Church.

No. 4, St. Swithin's-lane, 19th April, 1828.

ANTI-PARSON.

FURTHER SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR THE REV. R. TAYLOR.

Advertised, with the Manchester Subscription, £85 17s. 1ld.

SINCE RECEIVED BY MR. CARLILE.

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post-paid, or free of expense, are requested to be left.

No. 18. VOL. 1.] LONDON, Friday, May 2, 1828.

[PRICE 6d.

THE church is really in danger. The "cry of wolf" has so long been kept up by the church, that, at last, the wolf has heard it, and is come! The long continued annunciation that the cause of God was in danger, has led to the suspicion, that the complaint must either have been a misnomer, or the God a helpless, contemptible idol, whose existence depended upon the success of the priesthood. The church, which, on one hand, is said to be founded on a rock, against which the gates of hell were not to prevail, has been consciously proclaimed, on the other hand, to be continually rocking and tottering toward its fall: and now, my Lord Eldon, and a few others say, that it is gone, and that the gates of hell have prevailed against it!

It is gone! Never more can it produce an act of the parliament, to shackle either dissenter or infidel. It is not now shaken by the dissenters; for, if they had been powerful enough, it would never have recovered the blow it received during the commonwealth; but it falls before the infidelity of the day, which so clearly shows the whole system of Christianity to be badly founded, and to be helpless before full and fair historical and physical research and moral criticism. We cannot find a christian who will endure the critical ordeal of our Fleet Street School. They come, they preach, they affirm, they slander; but they cannot submit their religion to a full and fair moral, historical and physical criticism upon its merits. They are so full of the conceit, that their Christianity is the best system of religion in the world, and this conceit they are taught as parrots are taught to speak, they get not the conviction by an examination of the merits of their system, that they impute bad motive to the man, who will more wisely and more honestly venture to explain

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62. Fleet Street. No. 18. Vol. I. 2 N