the mind is occupied in pouring forth praises to its maker in acts of devotion. Want of genuine sincerity

is always detected by the knower of hearts, who is himself Divinity. Poor humanity, alas! has not the power of ascertaining this divine property in the devotion of its fellow men, for the lips often belie the inward man, and make the hypocrite appear to be the true worshipper.

The total impossibility of man to scrutinize the motives of man must necessarily subject the writer of these pages to many false and erroneous judgments. That his efforts in presuming to venture on expounding the "Scriptures" on the principle of DIVARICATION will be misunderstood, misrepresented-nay, even his motives impugned - there can be no doubt. So perverse is humanity as to assume motives when men have not the power to Judge. These assumptions are the very judgments that the Saviour reproved on the mount:"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye! - How wilt thou say to thy brother,

let me pull the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye! Thou Hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye." Nay, I have been admonished by true and legitimate divines to refrain from innovations like the present, and to consider that I am treading on awful and dangerous ground. These kind friends have my warmest thanks for their advice. Yet, with these admonitions before me, I cannot desist from obeying what I regard as a higher authority-the dictates of my own CONSCIENCE- that Spirit of Truth which Christ says "will tell you what you ought to say." Nor will I shrink from the task, though I am deeply impressed with the truth of the above observation; still I feel that I stand reconciled with my Maker, whatever fate my fellow men may

reserve for me.

"He who presumes to make men wiser and better than they are, whether in Religion, Politics, or Morals, must make up his mind to bear in turn the abuse of all parties to be the victim of ingratitude proportioned to the benefits he has conferred on society-to be cursed by those whom he has blessed in a word, to be anathematized and excommunicated of men, till

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Time, who sinks the falsehood and draws forth the truth - let it be deeper than ever plummet sounded-has at last done him justice, by the just award of posterity." "And shall we fear Superstition now? Now that we have advanced from dawn to noon

now that the

It were,

full light of Science has arisen over all the nations, and is rapidly attaining the zenith of its glory! indeed, a base abandonment of REASON — of that REASON Which forms the foundation of our Faith-if now we quailed. Let us then meet Superstition in the field of REASON, armed with the shield of faith and the sword of the divine word—and who need fear the issue of the combat-but they to whom such a field is strange — they who have cast away that buckler, and know not how to wield that sword, which for centuries they have neglected to handle! A zeal for the 'Scriptures' such as no former times have witnessed hath arisen; and the same feeling by which our fathers were delivered from the tyranny and more intolerable impostures of the Romish Church is manifesting itself anew-to uphold the religious freedom which we have inherited, and to extend the privileges and the blessings of that freedom unto the people who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death."

-

Superstition is a Religion taken up and believed in from the "WORD OF MAN;" while true Religion must consist wholly of pure principle—the precepts delivered by our Saviour which it is out of the power of man

either to confute or to communicate to his fellow-man to absolute CONVICTION-because it must be the workings of man's own REASON- and then only is he sure that it is the WORD OF GOD. The perfecting and propagating "Moral Philosophy" is the most effectual means of establishing "true Religion in the heart," and "vindicating the ways of God to man." Wherever there exists a human mind, there is a Temple consecrated to the service of the Deity! But Superstition, that foul vice, perverts even this Sacred Temple to the purposes of Sensuality.

Now what says Dr. Buchanan? "I have witnessed the Pagan Idolatry in all its turpitude and bloodshed, and no man can know what it is who has not seen it. I have seen libations of human blood offered to the Moloch of the heathen world, and the prominent characters of idolatry are the same as in the Scriptures' – cruelty and lasciviousness, blood and impurity. The prostitution of the heart to sensual images in the daily worship is the deep and prolific source of general im

purity in the heart, and indecency of speech and action. Let our Christian Nation, then, behold the Hindoo people, falling prostrate before a black stone, and that stone an indecent emblem. On great solemnities, women, in the frenzy of false devotion, throw themselves down before the wheels of the car that exhibits their God and are crushed to death!”

To complete the deplorable HISTORY of the horrid vices engendered by SUPERSTITION, that corrupter of the heart and destroyer of true "Religion," we need but turn to Remusat, who boldly affirms: "I fear not to be confuted when I assert that a man who has not read any of the Buddhist Books must be ignorant of the extent of human extravagance, and unable to form an adequate conception of the degree of absurdity into which the human mind may be conducted by meditations without aim, and the application of disjointed abstractions to subjects which pass all understanding."

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Oh! Philosophy and Religion! let me address you in the words of Milton: "Go on hand in hand be disunited! Be the praise and heroic song of all posterity! Seek only virtue, and to settle the pure 'Worship of God' in his Church; then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out themselves before ye