that of sexual intercourse; the middle of the body being euveloped in a cloud. Dr. Parkhurst has a representation of the Deity, I am informed, with four heads and a cloven foot as mentioned in the Book of Revelations. If my print of the Deity be taken into a Court of Law, I must take with me all the similar prints published by other persons, and a pretty collection it shall be.

When I first published this print, I had no idea of its producing such an effect, I calculated on its being a thing at which all would laugh and none would feel angry. Indeed, I had a notion of making friends of all the Jews and Christians by it. Instead of this, the poor ignorant creatures seek revenge in breaking our windows. Wherever we have fixed on the person, who has done this, we have found no difficulty in making him pay for it; but, in some instances, stones have been thrown from a distance, and the person has escaped. We have eyes abroad, and the next person taken shall not get off with paying for damage done, if the lawyers can find a statute that inflicts a penalty for a malicious destruction of property.

A few days will decide whether or not this print is to be prosecuted, perhaps the question will be at rest by the time this issues from the press, as a Grand Jury is now sitting at the Old Bailey. If prosecuted, I shall meet it as I have met all former cases of the kind. If not prosecuted, the print will be removed from the window, as we find a great interruption to business by its being there. It brings too much of a crowd for the convenience of customers. But if prosecuted, the public may look for some pretty biblical improvements upon it. Designs are already made: for we have found artists in all parts of the country offering their services. And all who are willing to assist in the event of a prosecution are hereby solicited to be giving us their aid.

R. C.

A Lithographic Portrait, not of a God, but of the enemy of the Gods, of Richard Carlile, has been made by an artist, and is on sale at 135, Fleet Street The size is 4to, and the price-Proofs on India Paper, Is. 6d. Prints ls. with a fac simile of hand-writing.

A RETROSPECT.

WHEN I began my infidel publications in 1819, a clamour was raised by the saints, as if the circumstance would call down the wrath of their furious and revengeful God. Seven years have elapsed, such publications have been weekly accumulating and, improving one upon the other, and what is the effect? Good and nothing but good. With respect to fanaticism on the one hand and free speaking on the other, the country has become fit for a wise man to live in, which was not the case before. We find less of religious savageness, less of every thing vicious, from the influence of those publications. I have been six years in a Gaol, others have had their years of imprisonment; but what has all this done in the way of checking the sale of such publications? Nothing; but it has increased the sale of them. They are become standard and regularly selling works and their effects are wholly good. Butterworth pursues his pious career, Wilberforce has worn himself out in putting white and black slaves into the right road to heaven, and in refusing to do the same favour for me, and what is the effect of their labours? what effect do they produce with their hundred thousands of pounds annually raised for religious purposes? None that can weigh against the expenditure of one hundred pounds. Where they produce an effect upon one mind, 1, single handed, or with a handfull of assistants, produce an effect on one hundred. What can they exhibit in a window to produce such an effect as my god produces? And what ridiculous appearances do they make at public meetings when opposed by a Roman Catholic? I shall meet them at public meetings if at liberty for a few months, and catechise these teachers of religious catechisms. I see that Mr. Butterworth has been all but laughed out of one of his own assemblies, by the catechism of Mr. Eneas Macdonnel, the Catholic agent for England. Butterworth is one of the party who are trying, in vain, to evangelize Ireland.

Evangelization seems to be something distinct from Christianity. The Evangelizers say that the Catholics and High Churchmen are not serious Christians, and they send forth missionaries to Christianize those who already call themselves Christians. It is a strange concern. We have a Church Missionary Society sending out missionaries to Christianize the heathens, as better men and women are called; and we have Evangelical Missionary Societies, or Home Missionary Societies, sending forth missionaries to Evangelize, that is, to Christianize the members of the Church Missionary Society. There seems to be a gradation of missionaries, or some for all parties. And who pays? That is the rub. If any abuse deserves a legislative interference, it is this taxation which is raised, in many instances absolutely exacted, for the purposes of religion, for missionaries to convert missionaries,

and for heathen people to Christianize heathen people. The taxation for this purpose alone in the last year was near half a million of money:-a sum that once maintained the whole Government of the country. And what good is done by all these efforts to Christianize or Evangelize? What the effects? Can you, Butterworth, shew us any change produced but that of increased hypocrisy and new systems of deceit? Have you added a little to the morality of mankind? Have you made one being more happy than before? I think not, I cannot see it? Can you? If the Ministers, or the Vice Society, pursue me to a prison again, I shall think them some of the greatest fools, as well as the greatest knaves in existence. They can effect nothing of their wishes by their utmost severities, and the more they stir, the farther they get from their desires. Their putting down my publications, and the payment of the debt with a sinking-fund, will be accomplished about one and the same time. Legislation can neither reach the one nor the other. Let them try all the Gaols in the kingdom, and they will not find so base a tool for their purposes as a Gaoler, as Andrews of Dorchester. Yet, what has he done? The vile fellow grew ashamed of the task imposed upon him, when he found it a matter not to be accomplished. He lied and tried all sorts of dirty schemes; but I stood before him always undaunted and morally unassailable. Let all such men come on and do their worst; I neither fear new prosecutions, new Gaols, nor new Gaolers.

In all questions of science, what cannot be done by argument, cannot be done by physical force. Destroy one or destroy a hundred individuals, the principle contended for remains unaffected. Yet nothing is more easy than to put down a false assumption; nothing so weak as a bad argument; nothing so powerful as the truth. Then why prosecute where nothing but instruction will produce a change? Prosecute my print of the God, and what will be the consequence? Its suppression? Never. It will be made a great political subject and death will be preferred to its suppression. You shall suppress nothing by prosecutions. Suppress what you please by arguments, and none will be more ready than myself to thank you for a change of opinions thereby founded; but it is villainous to attempt any other kind of suppression, and I will resist and expose the practice of that or any other kind of villainy!

This print of the God, I confess, is offensive to many irritable and ignorant minds; but it instructs many, and amuses more. Then who is a proper judge as to the propriety of its exhibition? Between clashing judgments, which shall I follow but my own? The AGE OF REASON was equally offensive in 1819; but that feeling is worn out, and no one now makes the least complaint about the book to reach my ears. Such will be the case with the print of the God after it has been exhibited a few years. Mankind

drop insensibly into a right view of those things, and, on looking back, wonder at what they have been frightened. In 1817, the Parodies published by Mr. Hone were considered something dreadful, and he has never divested himself of the honourable character of a blasphemer, which he scouts because he does not merit. Now the Parodies would pass in a Church Pulpit. No one thinks them morally wrong. Thus point is gained on point; and this is my reason for persevering to do that which offends many ignorant people, but which could not offend the man or woman capable of deep reasoning. My desire is to offend none, if I could be honest and useful by so doing; but my duty is to offend all who stand in the way of my right and useful doings.

R. C.

TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE, LONDON.

FELLOW CITIZEN, Nottingham, Dec. 26, 1825. For a long round of six tedious years have you been compelled to breathe the tainted atmosphere of an unwholesome dungeon, for questioning the divine origin of the Christian religion. At length your prison doors have been opened, and you are once more ushered into the world, to feel the genial warmth of the sun's most enlivening rays. I rejoice that you are at liberty, if free discussion is established; but I am afraid that those monsters of iniquity which have been your persecutors, are only meditating some more lasting, and if possible, more cruel punishment.

In Nottingham, this hot-bed of religious enthusiasm, the Christians have been doling forth prayers, and chaunting hallelujahs to the praise of their Jesus.

No sooner was Saturday enveloped in the impervious clouds of a gloomy night, than the votaries of Christ poured forth their children, into the streets and lanes of this populous town, and by an incessant din reminded us that it was the eve of a day which idolaters considered the anniversary of the birth of a man that never existed-or if he existed-in a remote region-in an obscure situation-excluded from mankind in the recesses of rocks and caves-and whose doctrines instead of being the harbingers of peace, have only spread desolation and carnage-have been the instruments for tyrants and despots to deluge the earth with blood-to oppress and enslave mankind.

On Sunday, long before the earth was burst into open day, these Christians, with voices loud and sonorous, began to disturb the more peaceful inhabitants with their mystical jargon. I listened till my ears were stunned with the dissonance of their riot-I gazed till my eyes sickened at beholding their folly.

My grandson, the chief solace and comfort of my declining years, enquired the cause of my sorrow. I ejaculated in broken accents-enquire not-the "chequered scene" of life you have yet only beheld in miniature—you have yet only witnessed a few of the follies and vices incident to mau; as you continue to burst on manhood you will be struck with wonder and amazement, at beholding the avidity with which the gaping crowd, the thoughtless multitude-run after all things of a novel character, or foolish tendency. You will wonder at the ignorance and credulity which every

where abounds; for the world teems with priests and knaves, "odd fellows" and fools. Ah my child, whilst you are reading to improve your knowledge, and expand your mind, children of the largest growth, at the Bishop of Osnaburgh's, will be playing at a game, that bears a great affinity to one, that children of a smaller size sometimes play at.

What, exclaimed my Henry, they who make pretensions to the dignified epithet of philosophers; they who boast of their superior knowledge; the extent of their learning; of having shaken the shackles of early prejudice: they who boast of having knocked off the fetters of ignorance and of having freed themselves from the trammels of superstitious delusion. Impossible! They would not be carousing with "odd fellows," in their midnight revels. They would not place themselves on a pinnacle in the gallery of fools.

My child, your demands I cannot answer, your curiosity I cannot, gratify.

Oh, rejoined my Henry, then will you pay compliment to error and folly. Do not secret associations in all ages retard the progress of science and perpetual ignorance? Are they not the bane of liberty? Will they ever accelerate the progress of knowledge? Why hold me in suspense or keep the secret from me? have I forfeited your confidence? have I occasioned your displeasure? say, are my conjectures correct.

Alas! 'tis too true, they are "odd fellows."

At this, anguish opened the sluices of sorrow and I let fall a tear, I wiped the briny drop from my cheek, and addressed him as follows:"You, my child, have taken but a few steps in life, as you continue to advance, you will behold one man wallowing in wealth and rolling in luxuries on the other hand, you will behold pale haggard misery and pining want. You will behold one man rioting in the greatest splendour in a palace, another shivering in the dreary mansions of poverty. Then will your breast sigh with agony, and sadness bedew your eyes with tears-you will find one man with humanity on his lips, and you will be elated with joy. You will find his heart full of malignity, and you will be oppressed with sorrow. You will find one man calling himself a "Christian," whose hypocritical tongue is inspired with deceit. Shun his doctrine as you would the fury of the pestilence, he will pretend great concern for your welfare; but his doctrines will cramp the effusions of your mind, and fetter your genius in the cells of ignorance.

When the Christian troubles you with senseless importunities, hoist the rudder of inflexible truth and he will fly your presence. You can then gain the hallowed precincts of reason's temple; under its blessed arcade you may buffet the strong winds of persecution and sit sublime in all the dignity of manhood. Then the Christians may pour from their magazine whole vollies of their abuse; then may they heap upon you all the unfounded calumny and abuse which their imagination can invent; but their arrows though dipt in rancour's poisonous cup, will fall harmless to the ground-like dew drops from the lion's mane.

The Christian religion has debased millions to the level with the brute, from its first rise and progress, it hath been an evil. Think on the blood spilt; the lives lost; the desolation it hath every where spread, and it fills the mind with wonder, amazement and horror. With wonder at its rapid progress, after persecution had formed the holy zeal of the primitive fathers to a flame; with amazement when we consider the numerous host that has become its dupes; and with horror if we picture to our imagination the many evils it hath inflicted on the human race.

Look round the world, turn over the pages of history, and you will find when Rome was in the zenith of prosperity, and in the plenitude of great

*The Duke of York Public-House.