department of our subject. We proposed to prove that life and mind were the result of organization, and not of an immaterial soul. We have instanced the absurdities with which the latter doctrine is surrounded. We acknowledge the difficulties, while we appretiate the importance, of this abstruse inquiry. We revert to Newton's principle of finding an adequate and a rational cause for the effects which we see in creation; we think we have done so, and, so thinking, we do not seek to multiply causes. We apply this principle of argument to the doctrine of an immortal soul, and find that it neither supplies an adequate, nor a comprehensible, cause for the effects which we witness. We look from the mite up to man, and we submit that an immaterial spiritual agency fails in accounting, even according to the doctrines of its supporters, for the innumerable varieties which living beings present to us; but that matter, variously modified and organized, presents an intelligible solution of, and an adequate cause for, all these effects; and should we be called upon to explain how matter can perceive, remember, judge, reason we might reply, by repeating similar questions, as to how spirit could perform these operations, and what evidence could be given to us of the existence of spirit at all, with the qualities which are ascribed to it. But are we, because we cannot tell, nor cannot be told even by these profound inquirers, how these various phenomena are accomplished, therefore, to acquiesce in the gravest absurdities, and the most monstrous contradictions? We certainly do not know how the brain accomplishes the mental phenomena, but we are equally ignorant as to how the liver secretes bile, how the muscles contract, or how any other living purpose is effected. We are also equally ignorant as to how bodies are attracted to the earth, how iron is drawn to the magnet; and we should be equally justified in conferring spiritual agency upon the magnet, because of its attractive powers as we should upon man, in consequence of his mental and living properties.

Experience and the scriptures are our only guides in relation to ourselves and our destiny; if we go beyond' their teaching we become involved in a mental labyrinth, from which there is no deliverance; for if we inquire how the mechanism of nature is carried on, we shall find every thing around us beyond the reach of our intellects, "from "the stone which falls to the earth, to the comet which

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"traverses the heavens; from the thread attracted by sealing-wax, to the revolutions of the planets; from the "existence of a maggot in putrid flesh, or a mite in cheese, "to the production of a Newton, or a Franklin." Neither do we know how we shall exist in a future life; but we have the assurance of the appointed messengers of God, that we shall do so, and that by means of the resurrection of the dead; we examine, and are satisfied with, the evidence upon which that assurance is communicated; we compare it with the doctrine of the natural immortality of the living and thinking powers of man, and find that the one is necessarily destructive of the other. We trace this latter doctrine, and find it irreconcileable with every fact and effect proceeding from a living and thinking being, besides involving its supporters in inexplicable and endless absurdities and contradictions. We turn to an opposite hypothesis, and we persuade ourselves that it sufficiently solves all our difficulties, by admitting the evidence of sense and experience; that every manifestation of life, or of mind, which we see in creation, results from one principle, simple in itself, but variously modified and organized, suitable to, and explanatory of, the circumstances, conditions, and nature of every living being. That, in regard to man, he is only a finely organized piece of machinery; being, as was happily expressed by the late Emperor Napoleon, "A machine for the purpose of life, organized to "that end; like a well made watch, destined to go for a "certain time."

This being our conviction, and these our feelings, we adopt the poetic language of the psalmist, in his address to the Supreme Being:-" I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works, "and that my mind, knoweth right well. If I ascend up into "heaven thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, "and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy right hand lead me. O Lord! thou hast searched me "and know me; thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising. "O Lord! how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou "made them all. The earth is full of thy riches."

The succeeding Essays will be occupied with an attempt to explain the various passages in the scriptures, some of them difficult ones, which are supposed to apply to this subject; and also with a statement of the evidence upon which the belief in a future state of existence is grounded in the New Testament.

FAST DAYS, FESTIVALS, AND SABBATHS.

ESSAY I.

"I pour out a flood of tears to think what human ceremonies have cost "all mankind, and particularly what a price my native country has paid for "them."-Robert Robinson, of Cambridge.

"In the Christian church no festival appears clearly to have been "instituted, either by Jesus Christ or his apostles.”—John Robinson, of Westmorland.

OUR design, in the series of papers which will come under the title affixed to the present article, is to put upon record a body of authority and argument, tending to prove that an attention to, and veneration for, days as religious observances binding upon Christians, have been derived immediately from the church of Rome; and that these observances can remotely be traced-not to the primitive Christians and apostolic command - but to the amalgamation of corrupt Christianity with the fasts and festivals of the several heathen nations of antiquity. To this latter source, in a particular and most striking manner, we are indebted for the pious institutions said to be in commemoration of the birth, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus; together with that of the births and deaths of his apostles, and a host of saints and sinners of the Roman catholic church. But glaring as we deem these impositions to be, and injurious as they necessarily are to a right estimate and practice of that religion which claims peculiarly for the objects of its worship a God-" that made the world and all things "therein" and who, as " Lord of heaven and earth, "dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all-life, and breath, and all things," yet we are not sure that we should have occupied our pages with such an investigation, which is necessarily a laborious one, were the ceremonies in question confined to the church of England and its "Holy Mother," (as some of the early reformers entitle the church of Rome ;) but as, in fact, the great body of dissenters afford their sanction to these heathen institutions, and even rigidly observe some of the most superstitious of them, we deem it our Christian duty to expose this sacred brotherhood—this

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"Holy Alliance;" descending, as it does, from the Romant pontiff to the enlightened Unitarian priest; and we are not sure that even the Quakers, with all their "simplicity," are quite free from a participation in these pious frauds;" for Barclay, in his Apology, (349) states of SUNDAY," or the first day of the week, or the Lord's day, that the Quakers agree with Calvin in giving it a spiritual sense;" and that, from various causes," they feel themselves sufficiently "moved to hold meetings, and abstain from working "on this day;" and in a modern Quaker work, written by Jesse Kersey, and first published at Philadelphia, we find, under the head " Days and Times," that "it is the practice of the Friends to unite with other professors of Christianity, in setting apart one day in seven, for the purpose of divine worship." But the Unitarians, a numerous portion of them at least, from whose professions, as the assumed revivers of primitive Christianity, we are entitled to expect better things, far exceed even some other bodies of dissenters, in their adherence to the ceremonies of the church of Rome; for that class of Unitarians whom Mr. Belsham represents, content themselves with adopting "The Book of Common "Prayer, revised according to the plan of the late Dr. Samuel "Clark;" although that learned writer's revision of the" Book "of Common Prayer," was, in truth, but a very moderate one, being chiefly confined to points affecting the doctrine of the Trinity, and with such exceptions, retaining unreformed several of the creeds, collects, vigils, fasts, and festivals of the wicked and corrupt "Mother of Harlots." Dr. Priestly too, when at Birmingham, drew up a set of forms for all parts of public worship, entitled " Forms of Prayer "and other Offices for the Use of Unitarian Christians, 1783." This production contains "Forms for the Morning and "Evening Service of the Lord's Day-Offices for infant "and adult Baptism," addresses to the communicant for the second and third service, "Prayers for Fast Days," and "Prayers to be used on the Morning of Easter Sunday."

Both the general and particular Baptists certainly do not countenance many of the superstitious observances thus supported by Dr. Priestly and Mr. Belsham, but they are all advocates for the strictest attention to a sabbath, either on the first or on the seventh day of the week; and, in addition, the Scottish Baptists refrain from eating blood, and observe the "Feasts of Charity.'

The Presbyterians observe Sundays with the greatest strictness, and the Thursdays previous to receiving what is

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called the "Lord's Supper," are held as solemn fasts; Mr. John Wesley, on the part of the Methodists, boasts of their adherence to the ceremonies of the national church; "they approve of, and adhere to, all that they learned when they "were children in their catechism and Common Prayer "Book." "The Methodists agree with the church of England in externals and circumstantials." To the objection of some, remarks Mr. Wesley," that we do not "observe the laws of the church, of our observances I will " mention a few. First, Days of fasting and abstinence. "Second, The forty days of lent. Third, The ember days "at the four seasons. Fourth, The three rogation days. Fifth, All Fridays in the year, except Christmas day." And, in the conditions for admission into this body, contained in the articles signed, May 1st, 1743, by "Charles and "John Wesley," an observance of the seasons appointed for "fasting or abstinence" is treated as indispensable. Finally, Mr. Belsham, the Unitarian minister of Essex Street, not merely appoints the service for prayer for every Lord's "day throughout the year-the same to be used with the "PROPER COLLECTS upon Christmas Day, Good Friday, "Easter Day, and Whitsunday," but likewise follows in the footsteps of the established church in its Christian "orders "for morning and evening prayer," for the "burial of the dead;" in prayers to be used in his majesty's navy every "day;" "prayers before a fight at sea;"

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prayers for single persons" (Christians of course)" that cannot meet "to join with others, by reason of the fight." And this gentleman even goes so far as to submit to the degradation of wearing the surplice in the public performance of his reformed" service. So that calmly viewing the general body of dissenters, we feel that their practices but too fully justify what has been said, by the author of a pamphlet in reply to Mr. Brougham and the Edinburgh Review; that among them "a resemblance to the church is "rather affected than avoided; their places of worship are no more called meetings, but chapels; their ministers assume the title of reverend. In some cases both the liturgy and surplice are used. The dissenting chapels are "like cheap shops; there is more shew in their windows,

"Letter to H. Brougham, Esq. M.P. upon his Durham Speech, and "Three Articles in the last Edinburgh Review, upon the subject of the "Clergy."-Rivington, 1823.

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