it signifies to relieve, to restore that which is right: in its immoral policy, it defines oppression and injury of every kind. The Major should therefore have dedicated his book to the moral or the immoral Reformers of Great Britain. The reader will again say: "This is all an idle criticism about words." Have patience, and you shall see what is to

work out of it.

Having shewn that the words political reformer do not distinguish any kind of reformer, either moral or immoral, either right or wrong, I will now show what the Major meant to distinguish by the use of those words, which are but two adjectives in quality, when alone, and nothing more when joined.

Ever since the time of my imprisonment, and not before, for the publication of Mr. Paine's Theological works, the Major and his regiment of Radical Reformers, a regiment that I can trace in my mind's eye most distinctly, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants, Ensigns, Serjeants, Corporals, companies and all, satisfied with nothing less than an hereditary King for their Colonel, and all the Priests that are, or may be, as their Chaplains and guides to heaven, have turned their arms against me as an enemy, and against all who enlist on my side; and since that time, they have sought to raise a distinction between themselves and us, as political reformers and theological or religious reformers. I am quite willing to let this distinction remain; only, I shall contend for the prior right to the distinction of being engaged in moral reform, and leave them to flounder in that which is immoral.

The reader will stop and say: "now you have shewn us the right sore," now I have shewn you the right sore; but I will also show you how I will heal it!

In the whole of human action, practised; or possible to be practised, there are but two principles, moral and immoral, good and bad. To the one or the other of those principles, the whole of religion must relate. Either it is moral to set up an idol in our minds as an object of worship, or it is immoral. The consequence on the community who so act, or among which such actions occur, is either good or bad. There can be no medium in the matter: what benefits a community as a whole is good and moral; what injures,. is bad and immoral; and there can be no kind of action but does either good or harm; more particularly, actions so extensive in their range and operation as those denóminated religious.

It is an admitted and indubitable fact, that in our religious

reveries, we know nothing of what we profess to worship. There is no truth more clear than this; it is the same in the wisest man, in the present day, and noue more wise ever existed than do exist at present, as far as history informs us, and the most ignorant of the time present or past. The one knows no more than the other, the object of his worship; nor can be assign an atom more of reason why he does worship! The principle of ignorance, on that score was the same in Newton as in Johanna Southcote! The same in Archbishop Tillotson, in Priestley, in Paine, as in Humphreys the living Methodist Parson, of Yorkshire! The only question, therefore, that remains to be settled is: What are the effects of this worship upon the community?

As we positively know nothing of what we call Deity; and as it is utterly impossible to prove the existence of truth in what we use as religious words, an abandonment of all such words and notions cannot be construed to be an abandonment of truth and morality; but there is more than presumptive proof, that it would be an abandonment of falsehood and immorality. In my mind, no doubts remain upon this matter, a circumstance which leaves me in a state of perfect freedom to pursue the investigation for the benefit of others. Setting aside the truth or falsehood of the matter, let us enquire into the physical effects of religion.

Its physical effects are two fold: affecting both the mind and the body of man; or, in other words, retarding his means of progressing in knowledge, and lessening his share of the comforts of life, in its tendency to waste time; and not only to waste time for a whole community and to generate idleness; but to support a numerous body of idlers from the produce of those who do labour on stated days, by permission.

There is no real property any where among mankind, but that which has been or is produced by labour; and however it may change hands from adventitions or arranged circumstances, there can be no question, but that the original right to property must be in the producer-in the labourer. It is therefore equally clear, that the more the labourer has to give up from his produce to support others in idleness, without any returning substantial equivalent, the greater injury, both physical and moral, he must receive from the system which enforces the practice. The taxation is the same to the labourer, whether it be to deck a splendid, an idle, and a useless king, or to feed a corrupt, a lazy, and a pampered priest. To the payer of taxes the principle is

the same, both alike political, both alike injurious to him as an individual, and to the community of which he is a part. To reform the one evil and to leave the other in existence, is not sufficiently moral, and so far as not sufficient--immoral: to reform both, must be the perfection of moral reform. I will first fully consider the question of religion on its tendency to check the progress of knowledge.

Knowledge is power: knowledge teaches how the comforts of life may be increased and labour lessened, by unfolding to our minds the properties and relations of the dif ferent kinds of matter upon which we have to operate: to restrain the progress of knowledge must therefore, become in effect, injurious to mankind, or prohibitory of benefits that may otherwise be obtained.

That religion with its priests does restrain knowledge, is every where visible, where religion and priests do exist. If such was not the case, hostile opinions would never be persecuted; moral changes would not alarm; scientific discoveries would not be declaimed against as the work of the devil! But even if the utmost latitude were given for opinnion to range and imagination to invent; still so long as any thing like religious feeling, that could not be justified, and religious opinions that could not be shewn to be well founded, remained operating upon the sensations, there would be a bar to the full powers and progress of knowledge; an impure stream to pollute the lake of the mind would be always flowing! That stream does flow! the mind is polluted, and pure knowledge restrained and destroyed! scientific discoveries are declaimed against! moral changes are dreaded! and hostile opinions are persecuted! the real cause of which is RELIGION, and the desire, those, who alone benefit by it, have to hold their powers. The mind of man is therefore injured by the existence and practice of religion.

Whatever injures the mind, injures the body. They are, in fact, but one and the same thing. The whole of man is life the whole of life is sensation. Body and mind are, therefore, strictly, but one thing; though we divide them in idea, and assign to one part the power to rule or to regulate the actions of the other.

On the other hand, or the evil which religion entails upon the labouring man, in its direct and immediate tendency to lessen his comforts and to stay all improvement of his personal condition, no argument, nor logic, is necessary to demonstration. A simple statement of causes and effects,

which every eye can behold, will be sufficient for the object in view.

As we are more immediately interested in what relates to our own country, we will look at home. In Great Britain and Ireland, an annual sum of nothing less than twenty millions of pounds sterling is devoted to purposes that wholly relate to religion! This sum is considered to include all that is levied by trick and art, and all that is levied by compulsion; and the estimate is not too high! Religion, or priests, in the name of religion, swallow up that sum every year! That sum is annually taken from the old and the new property of the country, and given to the priests for their priestly purposes! The givers, in return, do not receive a particle of benefit; and in addition to this gift of their property, they have to sacrifice a full sixth of their time: the gross value of which if rightly spent is incalculable!

Now, if this time was spent in obtaining, and these priests employed in imparting, useful knowledge, there would be a returning benefit; but, as religion cannot be made to define useful knowledge; in addition to the expence, or the loss of property which the expence brings on the labouring man, a mental injury is incurred, where the ear is open to the priestly dogmas, and the poor labourer receives a double injury, that embitters every moment of his life, that torments bis waking thoughts, distracts him even in his dreams, and robs him both in food and sleep of his necessary sustenance! His wife, instead of a cheerful and consoling partner, becomes a gloomy and disagreeable fanatic! his children cry for nourishment, or are trained up in ignorance, bad health, and bad habits and life becomes one continued scene of pain, misery, and despair!

It is quite unnecessary, in fact, it is impossible to say, what would be the difference, if the above lost time, and the money and goods taken and given, were well applied the improved condition of the people would be the extreme of comfort and content, as their present condition is the extreme of wretchedness and discontent. The just inference is, that man is altogether, both in body and mind, injured by the existence and practice of what is called religion; and that no man can be a moral and Radical Reformer, who does not make it a first principle to eradicate this abuse: he cannot even be a political reformer, in any other sense than Castlereagh was a political reformer! In the sense of reforming from better to worse, in taking from the multitude and enriching a favoured few, Castlereagh was a

Radical Political Reformer! And thorugh the prevalence of false notions, through the superstition, which the Major with Paul can condemn in the men of Athens, he and his regiment of Radical Political Reformers are not two shades removed from the principles of Castlereagh! The one was immoral through an attachment to absolute individual power; the other is not a moral reformer, through an unfortunate attachment to superstition, more baneful than any that ever existed among the men of Athens, when they wisely inscribed a stone to the UNKNOWN GOD!

Now, gentle reader, what do you think of the sore? I can assure you that it has never festered; and that no man has ever been able to prick and irritate it. I have now healed it, and feel that I am a sound man after the conflict! I also heartily wish, that all, who read this address, may be able to say the same.

There are several other little points in the Dedication of the Major's Book that will bear cavilling with; but as I' shall encounter them fully in other parts of the work, I will only notice one, which, though I acknowledge to be well meant, is in reality infamous in its relations. It is thus: "Constantine the Great is said to have seen in the heavens a luminous Cross with an appropriate inscriptions which having converted him to Christianity, and having been adopted as his STANDARD, his armies thence forward became invincible. Be this a fact, or a fiction, it is however certain, that "that happiest discovery of political wisdom, REPRESENTATION" hath in our reasoning age so far perfected political science, that it now holds up to the view of mankind a BANNER or STANDARD of divine workmanship, being an emanation of eternal truth! Shall not then the faithful followers of this sacred BANNER, the enlightened champions of political truth, assuredly triumph in the end over the dark-minded powers of modern tyranny, as CoNSTANTINE Conquered the ignorant of antiquity?"

The reader will see in an instant, that the Major meant well, that the principle of the paragraph is good; but I have to shew, that the troppe, the simile, is as wretched in construction as false in inference! Nor is my motive a mere criticism of words and composition. I am not only sensible, that my own attainments do not qualify or justify me for any thing of the kind; but I detest the practice, where good sence and good principles are conveyed in writing, even if it be comparatively imperfect in its relation to elegance. My object is to expose, refute, and condemn, that