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prompted by nature to commit, he will undoubtedly answer affirmative. But if he be a Christian, produce an action to illustrate your theory, and the man will instantly be reduced to suck a dilemma that he will not know what to say. Let it be incest, a crime denounced by the law and anathematized from the pulpit : tell the lawyer that his code would have been blasphemous and absurd had it been put in force upon the immediate offspring of Adam, who were necessitated to commit that crime at which hunan nature now shudders; and remind him at the same time that' his laws are only a libel upon human nature, and an insult to us all, since we are undoubtedly the offspring of the most abominable incest, if the Bible history, which is fathered upon Moses, be true, and which your lawyer will perhaps pretend to believe; let the most delicate lady reflect, that if she refuse to lie with her brother, she tacitly reproaches our illustrious progenitors, who were not delicate, with an action which it was virtuous in them to perform, and which it is not virtuous in her to abstain from. Let no man henceforth be afraid to lead his sister to the altar; let hipi ubt fear the censure of the priest; incest, the most abominable incest, is not a crime, or we must boldly pronounce the Bible to be false.

It will be in vain for some prevaricating bishop, if there is one alive who is not too lazy to write, to tell me that the order of things is changed; that after his first end, which was the propaga tion of the human species, was served, the Deity for ever prohibiting the unnatural union, aud that there are sufficient women in the world for every man to have a wife without being obliged to marry

his sister.

If any of the Lords Spiritual (who by the way are not the most spiritual men in the world) should give themselves the trouble to make so silly a reply, to such a galling objection, I should tell his Lordship, that he is a trifler, and does not deserve to be noticed. If he means that what was virtuous, or at least indifferent, six thousand years ago, it becomes vice now, I am much obliged to his Lordship for the information, for at that rate all the virtues in the world will soon become vices; and then we shall have a raro world of it.

It has frequently, indeed, been objected to us, who are the friends' and advocates of virtue, in whatever dress she may appear, that mankind seem to have no fixed opinions on the subject; that what is virtue in one country is vice in another, and that in fact virtue is nothing more than a creature of the laws. Among the ancient Sarmate it was accounted virtuous to murder all those children who were born with any natural deformity, and all the old men who were past labour. And thus the greatest of all human virtues, bụnanity was despised as a weakness by the Sarmatian. The Greeks and Romans, it is well known, entertained such an aversion to royalty, that it was perinitted for any citizen to kill the man who dared to usurp sovereign authority; nay, he who rid his country -

of a king, or tyrant, (the names were synonymous in those days, and some say in our own) was thought to have performed a glorious action, and was uniformly rewarded with the highest encouniums his fellow-citizens could bestow. But what would the world say of the man, who in the present state of things, should boldly step forward and plunge his dagger into the bosom of the oppressor of his country? Would they denominate the action bad, or good? Would they reward it with a halter, or a civie crown? If with the former, would that prove the action to be vi cious; if with the latter, virtuous ?

To these objections against virtue, I shall only reply:-that 'tis. the opinions of men respecting it which vary, not the thing itself.-It was long the opinion of mankind that the little globe they so proudly call their own, was the centre of the universe, and the final cause of its creation-nevertheless their little world turned ́ou its own axis, and revolved round the sun, its primary planet, in spite of their opinion; and continued perhaps to be admired by the inhabitants of Jupiter, as a pretty little planet the Deity had kindly created to amuse their shepherds, and banditti, at night, by its twinkling light. So patriotisin, notwithstanding all that has been written and said against it, is still a virtue; and the man who rids his country of a tyrant is a good citizen.

I have heard inauy well-meaning people enquire, why philosophers, in their attempts to annihilate the power of civil tyrants, should attack religion, that bauble of the human mind, which is become venerable by its antiquity? The reply has been repeated a thousand times-in undermining a castle, do not men always begin by removing the earth and rubbish which conceal, or form, its foundation? Has not religion been a state engine ever since the strong have found it their interest to oppress and defraud the weak and the ignorant? Have not popes, bishops, and kings been in all ages, Atheis's and libertines, while the dregs of the people were pious godly fools? Have not the most unbelieving and cruel tyrants been assiduous promoters of ignorance and Bible Societies? Have they not industriously suppressed, and still continue to suppress, all those works which infuse free and noble sentiments into the human mind? And can the Republican who directs all the powers of his mind against the fortress that contains the talisma of Government, be accused of aiming at something foreign to the main desigu? Is not the unmasking of religions imposture as conducive to the freedom of man, as the unmasking of tyranny itself? Do not the artful hypocrites who govern and oppress nations, appear even more alarmed when religion is attacked, than when the shaft is bevelled directly at Despotism itself? This very alarm of theirs is a convincing proof that whoever would liberate the human race must commence by removing its prejudices. Observe the tenacity with which the governing faction grasp this handle of oppression; see with what sanctified faces they lay the foundations of new churches, which must of course be served by new priests, wlio must be paid by new contributions levied upon a

starving people, who want bread much more than sermons or Bibles: and be convinced, that a sneaking time-serving priest, is as much the enemy of the people, as a tyrannic king.

If this essay should fall into the hands of a religionist, I have not the least doubt but he will turn up his eyes, and commit the writer to the devil. If he be a priest, he will be enfuriated at the bare idea of seeing his hypocrisy unmasked; if a friend and follower of priests, (and of course a dupe) his piety will take the alarm, and he will prophecy, like a celebrated Jew who lived eighteen hundred years ago, that the end of the world is at hand.

However, I must inform my friend the priest, and his enlightened followers, that I intend this essay as an introduction to a series of Remarks on Government, and the conduct and character of priests in all ages, to be inserted in the Republican, when its pages are not occupied by more interesting matter. There will occasionally be introduced many observations on the present politics of the Court of St. James's the "sang froid" with which it looks on the distresses of the nation; and on the conduct of the Prince relating to the massacre at Manchester.

JULIAN AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN.

54, Gloucester-Street, Queen Square.

BRITONS WHO HAVE OFTEN BLED.
BRITONS who have often bled

In the cause that Hampden led,
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to Victory,

Now's the day, and now's the hour,
See the front of battle lour,
See approach your Tyrant's power,
Chains and slavery!

Who would be a traitor knave?
Who would fill a coward's grave?
Who so base as be a slave?

Traitor, coward, turn and flee!
Who at Liberty's sweet cry

Fredom's sword would raise on high?
Freeman stand, or freeman die,

Hark! your chief cries, " on
By Oppression's woes and pains,
By your sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free!
Lay your proud oppressors low!
Tyrants fall in every blow!
For the cause of God below,

Is the cause of Liberty!

with me !"

R. Carlile, Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London,

No. 8. Vol. I.] LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 15, 1819. [PRICE, 2D.

TRIAL OF MR. CARLILE.

Wednesday Evening, 9 o'clock

BEFORE this number of the Republican is issued to the world, the fate of Mr. Carlile will probably be decided. Whether the verdict of the Jury who are to decide upon his case, shall consign him to a dungeon for the next two or three years, or perhaps for life, or whether it shall restore him to his family, his friends, and his business; in either of these cases, he will carry along with him the greatest satisfaction which an honest man can enjoy, the consciousness of having done right in the first instance, and of having bravely defended himself in the hour of trial and difficulty. When Socrates was about to be deprived of life, one of his friends expressed to him, his regret that be should die innocent: "What," said the " Do sage, you wish that I should die guilty?" The greatest consolation which a man can receive, while suffering beneath the iron, rod of persecution, is the confidence which results from his injuries being undeserved; and should the verdict of the Jury be given against him, Mr. Carlile will receive this consolation in a great degree. The unprecedented interest and sympathy, which his case has excited, is a proof that public opinion is with him, that the mass of the People are the enemies of religious persecution, of intolerance, bigotry, and ty ranny. The question with the public, (and it is to be hoped that the Jury will look at it in the same point of view,) is not whether Mr. Carlile is right or wrong in his opinions, t

R. Carlile, Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London.

but whether he has acted from a purity of motive, whether he is a malicious person; in short, it is whether or not he has published the Age of Reason with a view to corrupt the morals of society. If the parties engaged in the prosecution are unable to prove this, their case cannot be made out, for when there is no bad intention, there is no crime. It is in vain that a servile tool in the garb of a Judge, declares in the accustomed jargon of the bar and the bench that Christianity is part of the law of the land, for whatever might formerly be the case, Mr. Carlile has proved over and over again, that the Act of Parliament, usually called Mr. Smith's Bill, has completely destroyed the protection which the Christian religion received from, the laws of the country. That Mr. Justice Abbott should wish to explain away the application of this statute, is not surprising, when it is considered that the act authorises any person to deny the existence of the Trinity. It is, however, to be hoped, that the Jury will be led away by no such explanation, that they will judge for themselves, and if they do this, there can be no doubt of their immediately prónouncing a verdict of Not Guilty.

The conduct of the Judge, and of the Attorney General, in the proceedings of the two days which have already passed, has been partial and malignant in the extreme. The only mode of defence by which Mr. Carlile could hope to escape the vulture fangs of the law, was by shewing that he had no evil intention in publishing the work, and he could not do this better than by shewing that it contained nothing immoral, and that the objections which Paine makes to the divine origin of the Bible were well founded. This was his only defence, and the only one he could have, which was likely to justify his conduct in the eyes of the Jury and the world. He was permitted to read the Age of Reason through, but the' moment he began to comment upon the various passages of the Bible, he was interrupted by the Judge, who declared that he would not suffer any observations to be made which impugned the divinity of the Christian religion: by means of this sweeping declaration, he deprived Mr. Carlile of the

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