of the community, have been treated with deference; you have never been in the habit of mixing in your conversation words of coarse meaning; you have never indulged in the practice of profane swearing; you must be sensible that we are acquainted with your religious opinions as they are given to the world; what must we think of your present conduct? Why do you call upon Jesus Christ to help you? Do you believe that he can help you? Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ? Come, now, answer me honestly; I want an answer as from the lips of a dying man, for I verily believe that you will not live twenty-four hours." I paused some time at the end of every question; he did not answer, but ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I addressed him : Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions,-will you answer them? Allow me to ask again, do you believe, or-let me qualify the question,-do you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?' After a pause of some minutes, he answered, I have no wish to

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BELIEVE on that subject.' I then left him, and know not whether he afterwards spoke to any

person on any subject, though he lived, as I before observed, a few hours longer; in fact, till the morning of the 8th.

"Exclusive of Mr. Hicks, the Rev. Mr. Milledollar, the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, and one or two other gentlemen, who visited him from humane and Christian motives, he was abandoned on his death-bed, except by a few obscure and illiterate men, his former bottle companions, who attended him merely, it should seem, to urge him to persevere to the end in his deistical opinions. What his admissions would have been during those 'compunctious visitings of nature,' but for the whips and spurs of those persons, we cannot even conjecture.”

So perished, so miserably perished, a man whom Providence had endued with no niggard gifts of intellect; and to whom his fellow-beings had, at different periods of his life, awarded an ample measure of applause, confidence, and pecuniary recompense.

He had no reason to

complain of the cruelty of fortune, or of the selfishness of his fellow men. Vigorous and almost uninterrupted health was his, and circumstances independent, if not affluent. And yet his life was useless to any good or beneficial purpose, and his death a frightful spectacle of well-founded fears. No enviable fame is his. Throughout his lengthened existence he had been a rebel to his greatest benefactor. His life was one lengthened scoff at man's brightest hopes. The sole object for which he lived was to persuade his fellows that death reduces all men to the condition of the beasts that perish.

What did he effect for his kind? Nought but evil. He left behind him writings which have wrecked the faith of thousands; writings to which the pure and simple-minded allude only with a shudder or a sigh; and a name which the upright and high principled mention only to execrate. What did he effect for himself? Nothing that will bear the test of reflection. His principles failed him in the hour of his utmost need. His "lamp went out in obscure darkness."

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CHAP. II.

The Christian Philosopher.

JOHN LOCKE.

Nothing can be plainer than that ignorance and vice are two ingredients absolutely necessary in the composition of free thinkers, who, in propriety of speech, are no thinkers at all." DEAN SWIFT.

JOHN LOCKE, the eminent philosopher, was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, August 29th, 1632. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford. In 1664 he went abroad as secretary to Sir William Swan, envoy from Charles II. to the Elector of Brandenburg. In 1670 he began to form the plan of his Essay on the Human Understanding," and about the same time was made a fellow of the Royal Society.

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Lord Shaftesbury had befriended him, and in 1682, when that nobleman was obliged to

retire to Holland, Locke accompanied him in his exile. On the death of his patron in that country, aware how much he was disliked by the predominant arbitrary faction at home, he chose to remain abroad; and was, in consequence, accused of being the author of certain tracts against the British Government. These were afterwards discovered to be the work of another person; but Locke was arbitrarily ejected from his studentship of Christchurch by the King's command. At the revolution in 1688, he returned to England in the fleet which conveyed the Princess of Orange, and being deemed a sufferer for the principles on which it was established, he was made a commissioner of appeals, and was soon after gratified by the establishment of toleration by law. In 1690 he published his celebrated Essay concerning the Human Understanding," which he had written in Holland. was instantly attacked by various writers. The heads of houses in Oxford met formally to censure and discourage it. Nothing, however,

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It