or revenge, but from the same motive which prompts you to the deed, viz., that the particular virtue of the slain, be it courage, strength, cunning or intelligence, may enter into, and become incorporated with the living; and this induces him to eat the eyes, the brain, the heart, the muscle, etc., of his fallen foe.

On these two points, idolatry and transubstantiation, no explanations of mysterious meanings, symbolism or sophism of any kind should be listened to. They are two villainous and degrading practices which, like others of even less evil complexion in former times, deserve to be forbidden by law in every civilised land, if by means of the law they could be put down; but that we know by experience, must be left to argument, and time; to the good sense, advanced education, and feeling of propriety towards God, and respect to themselves growing with the growth of the people; then we may hope that this outrage on good sense, good taste and good feeling, will finally be abolished among civilised nations.

The doctrine of the Universal Church is:

1. That no name or person shall be addressed in prayer or praise, but the Lord God alone, the One only and Holy Creator of this world, of man, and of the universe.

2. That no man hath seen God at any time; consequently that no likeness of Him can be made.

3. That God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

4. That any representations purporting to be of God, under any form now existing shall be removed from the temples.

5. That neither now nor in the future shall any image purporting to be that of God, under any form, be admitted into the temples.

6. That it is unlawful to do reverence in any way or to address in supplication any image, or other representation of holy men or women, who have departed from this life.

7. But that such images or representations may be used for the adornment of the churches, and in honour

not only of the character of those now dead, but also of the living. 8. That such statues introduced into the churches, are to be held in no more honour than those erected in other situations, to commemorate the genius, learning, good deeds or general services of the persons so honoured to their fellow-creatures or to the State.

9. That the addressing any figured representation of Deities or saints, in prayer or praise, constitutes idolatry.

10. And that all idolatry is not only expressly forbidden and denounced throughout the Old and New Testaments, but is on merely rational grounds most injurious and pernicious to the soul of man, whether as regards his ideas of God or his own spiritual welfare.

CHAPTER III.

MIRACLES.

It is to be received as a most certain fact, that miracles, so-called, in all ages, amongst all nations, and in all records of history or religion, are either downright fabrications, thoughtless perversions of facts, or traditional errors, handed down unquestioned, and increasing in their course from generation to generation.

It is unnecessary to enter into a philosophical analysis of the love and desire of the human mind, in certain stages of its existence, for miracles. It is certain that the mass of people have received them, believed in them more or less religiously, and have even adduced them as proofs of the supernatural, God-inspired origin of their particular creeds.

Gross and common they were amongst the ancients in Asia, Egypt, and Greece-so gross and common as finally to fall into contempt when the people became more educated.

Miracles were wrought by Jesus of Nazareth also, as

a test of the truth of his inspired mission, of his personal divinity; and in this respect no more was claimed than by former prophets and lawgivers of his nation.

But a miracle is no test of truth. Truth disclaims such assistance. Truth is simple, clear, and self-dependent, and would no more seek to prove its existence by miracles than a virgin would claim belief in her maiden purity by holding live coals in her unsinged palm, or swallowing unlimited yards of tape.

Wherever we find a religion attested by miraclesmiracles which transgress and nullify the well-considered, perfect, regular, and infallible laws of God the Creatorthe natural, the unavoidable, presumption is, that the religion which the miracles are supposed to confirm, may be, and probably is, as false as the miracles themselves.

If it elect to stand or fall in human estimation with such miracles, the result will speak for itself. We have said that miracles amongst the ancients were gross and common. Amongst the Jews, however, they may be considered to have reached their culminating point.

These Munchausens of the old world, these divinelyinspired and governed Gascons, by the very audacity of their braggadocio claims, fortunately did much towards shaming their contemporaries out of childish confidence in, and unquestioning reception of, the more wild and foolish errors to which mankind were subject, and "Credat Judæus" became at last a bye-word for gross credulity. Such absurd fables as the passage of the Red Sea, repeated on a smaller scale by Joshua at Jordan (Josh. iii. 16), by Elijah and by Elisha (1 Kings ii. 8, 14); the stoppage of the sun and moon during a whole day by Joshua; the backward motion of the sun for Hezekiah's behoof, that Hezekiah who, having the choice given to him of the shadow on the dial being advanced or put back ten degrees, observed that he considered the former a small matter for God, and so chose the latter as the most difficult performance the fall of the walls of Jericho flat down at the shouting of the Jews and the braying of Joshua's trumpets; the stories of Balaam and his ass; of the Jews in the fiery furnace; of Elijah destroying 100 men with fire from heaven (2 Kings i. 10). These and innumerable other miracles of the same description in the Jewish

writings, only require to be read to be recognised as the vaunting, boastful stories of a people who sought to make the rest of mankind believe that they were under the immediate and active protection of God, their King and Leader, who personally and by His angels and ministers, and in violation of His established laws, visibly and forcibly interfered in their favour to the confusion of their enemies.

We have said, and we repeat it, that these and numerous other records in the Hebrew scriptures do not merit even serious notice as actual facts, and as such they are distinctly related, whatever so-called spiritual signification may be sought to be attached to them. Let children discuss Münchausen, the "Arabian Nights," the "Seven Champions of Christendom," and other legendary literature; when we were children we might think as children, now that we are men it is our duty to put away childish things. Let whoso will, believe, and take his proper place amongst

men.

We have here, then, miracles which most grossly transgress the laws of our great Creator, turn His wisdom to mockery, and tend to bring His name into contempt, executed in favour of a peculiar nation. We will next allude to miracles supposed to attest the divinity of a particular person, and which performed by him are adduced as proofs of his divinity, viz., those performed by Jesus of Nazareth. We will take only out of the series, the turning water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana (a similar miracle of changing water into blood was performed by Moses, Exodus, ch. vii.), and the feeding five thousand human beings (who was it counted the crowd thus exactly?) with five loaves and two fishes, whereof when they had all eaten and were filled, there remained twelve baskets-full of fragments, (a miracle performed on a smaller scale also by Elisha, who fed a hundred men with twenty loaves and "left thereof," 1 Kings, ch. iv.) Now even admitting these miracles to have been apparently facts, yet we have no hesitation in asserting that, however accomplished, they were not done by God's aid nor by God Himself. The Deity is not a mere king of jugglers, nor does He pit himself against the Prince of Darkness to see who can perform the most astounding feats of magic, as

D

fabled during the Egyptian captivity of the Jews, and on other numerous occasions mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments.

and

It is ordered by our Creator, the Creator of this world and all that therein is, that wine shall be made in one way in one way only. It is as credible that a crab-apple can be changed instantly by God into a peach, a mite into a butterfly, a thistle into a rose, and a bit of wood into a diamond, as that water should be changed instantaneously into wine. He has also ordained that a certain amount of food is required to satisfy a certain amount of hunger.

Are you not ashamed to read out publicly and in holy places such silly stuff to grown-up people? If twelve baskets-full of fragments are obtainable from five loaves after they have served to satisfy the hunger of five thousand people, why not a thousand, a million baskets-full? Having so grossly adventured on our credulity, why should numbers or quantity restrain you? One loaf is as good as five; one crumb and a fish's scale, could they be infinitesimally divided, as good as all. Do not come puling to us about spiritual significations, about the limitless power of God. You laugh at the miracles of the Romanists and have discarded them; now we ask you to give up equally those of the Jews.

The glory and majesty of the great and good God are shamefully insulted, and His infinite wisdom made a mark for mockery and scorn by imputing to Him these ordinary feats of legerdemain, these miracles which are such barefaced gallimatias. You undermine the very basis of our faith in the Creator when you thus present Him to us as a being who acts against the laws of His own established order, who cheats our senses with shallow tricks, who indeed is not a being of perfect and immutable wisdom, according to you, but a mere capricious magician, a divine juggler who makes playthings of his own creations, and like a mountebank could astonish the crowd by throwing the glowing orbs of heaven, as if they were gilt balls, in swift and dazzling succession, now in a circle before him, now spirally in the air above, and now in a line from hand to hand, under his legs, behind his back, in fine, without any order or system excepting such as it might please him for the moment to assume. A Creator who could by one turn of his hand, as by magic, transform death into life, evil