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5. His disciples still flourish, both by their labour, and the continence of their lives, not denying their master: nay, in his name doing the greatest good.

6. If I had not exceedingly feared the sedition of the people, that was almost glowing, perhaps this man might yet have been living among us.

7. Although rather compelled by my fidelity to your dignity than led by my own will, I did not heartily oppose his righteous blood, which was clear of the whole accusation, suffering destruction, and being sold unjustly to the malignity of men at their bidding, as my letters explain. Farewell. April 2.

There exists also a fifth pretended epistle of Pilate to Tiberius, in the Persian History of Christ, by Jeremy Xavier; which Xavier seems to have forged from the celebrated passage of Josephus, which is now universally admitted to be a forgery :-but thus it is

EPISTLE TO TIBERIUS.

1. There was at that time a certain man in that country, whom his disciples called GOD.

2. And he wrought various miracles.

3. Whom many men beheld, and he ascended alive into heaven.

4. And his disciples now do great wonders in his name, and testify that he is God, and a teacher of the way of salvation in truth.

To the Editor of " The Lion."

SIR,-I know not whether any thing I can say will be sufficiently good for your "LION," but I pray you not to insert this article unless you think it is worth it.

I have long thought the earth an animated body, and was much pleased by reading D. D.'s article referring to it. We must all be aware, that only a part of the composition of the earth enters the human body. This being the case-could the earth and its atmosphere furnish sufficient animal substance to re-produce and assemble at one time all the past generations with the present? I think not. One thing is certain, if the animal species go on in succession, ad infinitum, the time must come when it could not do it. The probability is, that every animal body now extant, is the collection of fractional parts of numberless animal bodies that have heretofore lived and acted in the world. Who can tell where may be the essence of the bodies of the great heroes and philosophers of antiquity? It may be, having entered into the atmosphere, it has been absorbed by plants, inhaled by moving beings, returned to the earth, again inhaled by beings, and the identical bodies of the great Caesars, Pompeys, &c., are, perhaps, at this time, constituting parts of the bodies of many brute ani

* The doctrine of resurrection in the body I hold to be physically impossible, for the above reasons. I shall forward a communication on another

subject at the first opportunity.

↑ The animal body has no essence. Matter knows or has no essence, as many suppose, of intellect and vitality. Vegetable life begins under one kind of combination-animal life under another kind of combination; but in the ingredient gases, there are neither animal nor vegetable remains. In decomposition, the animal or vegetable property is lost.-R. C.

mals. No one can doubt that the bodies of brute animals are materially the same as our own. I mean by this to show that there are sufficient reasons for at least discussing the vital and thinking principle, with reference to its abode in the earth-and imagining that it may, when the earth is overchanged with it, find a receptacle in human and other bodies. I cannot suppose that the principle of life has forsaken a man, when he ceases to be what is, in the common acceptation, a living being; for a man drowned has in this way ceased to be a living being, but the life is still in his body-its common mechanical action has stopped-but when the common mechanics of the body are agitated, the parts of the structure commence working, and it is a man again. When the mechanics of the body are suspended, after a time the essence departs from it-the body is unable to retain it-and it flies off in the process of decomposition; and the particles exciting a peculiar sensation through the medium of our nasal organ, with which sensation the idea of putrefaction is associatedthe ignorant suppose the body is absolutely annihilated, when the particles have changed only in order, not in quality, as an atom can change only by shape, separation, or combination. Thus the vital essence is transferred from the body to the original stock concentred in the earthwhich, by this means, being perpetually replenished, perpetually releases itself, and puts forth fresh animals. I have no time to say more-one idea gives a clue to another-by the help of them, we may, at some future time, confine truth in a circle-while all the world may look upon it.— Wishing you may prosper and enjoy good health,

I remain, your's respectfully,

J. F.

*This is but an idle notion; and, to be worth stating, must pre-suppose animal sensation in inanimate matter. This is the fundamental error of the religious sect of Deists.-R. C.

+ The experiments which have been tried by injecting blood into the human body, when weakened by the loss of it, have succeeded. Surely, the blood of other animals would do as well, as robbing a human being of his blood. If any object to it, it must be affectation. Few scruple to deposit flesh and blood from animals in the very centre of their body-the difference is, shall it be received externally or internally?

Note by Editor. We have seen no sufficient analogy upon which we can suppose the earth to be an individual animal being. The nature of animal life is to require solid food, of an animal or a vegetable kind. It must have it or die. It dies with it; but it cannot live without it. It is the same with the animalcula and the animal man. Now, if the earth be a large animal, on what does it feed, that is equivalent to support its animal nature? It would analogically require to be fed by smaller planets; and, on this hypothesis, we should occasionally find it leaving its orbit, to go a hunting or a fishing for little planets, to roast them before the sun, or to gobble them up without cooking, or running aside to have a bite at the moon. Hypothesis is but another synonyme for folly. It is a beginning to seek knowledge at the wrong end, where it is not to be found. It is like the folly of Deism, that sets up an intelligent idol creator, and erroneously attempts to deduce all existence from it; instead of physically examining that existence, to see what sort of creating power may be fairly and honestly deduced.

Extract from Dean Humphrey Prideaux's Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament, book 1, part 1, page 62, Old Edition.

pre

CYAXARES, the son of Phraortes, having succeeded his father in the kingdom of Media, as soon as he had well settled himself in the government, drew together a great army, to be revenged on the Assyrians for the late loss, and, having overthrown them in a great battel, led the Medes the second time to the siege of Nineveh; but before he could make any progress therein, he was called off to defend his own territories against a new enemy. For the Scythians from the parts about the Palus Meotis, passing round the Caucasus, had made a great inroad upon them, whereby he was forced to leave Nineveh to march against them. But he had not the same success in this war, which he had against the Assyrians, for the Scythians having vanquished him in battel, dispossessed him of all the upper Asia, and reigned there twenty-eight years, during which time they enlarged their conquests into Syria, and as far as the borders of Egypt. But there Psammitichus, King of Egypt, having met them, vailed with intreaties and large gifts, that they proceeded no farther, and thereby saved his country from this dangerous invasion. In this expedition they seized † on Bethshean, a city in the territories of the tribe of Manasseh, on this side Jordan, and kept it as long as they continued in Asia; and, therefore, from them it was afterwards called Scythopolis, or the city of the Scythians. But how far the ravages of these barbarians might affect Judea is no where said, although there can be no doubt, but that those parts, as well as the rest of Palestine, both in their march to the borders of Egypt, and also in their return from thence, must have suffered much by them. It is related of them, that in their passage through the land of the Philistines, on their return from Egypt, some of the stragglers & robbed the Temple of Venus at Askalon, and that for the punishment hereof, they and their posterity were afflicted with emrods for a long while after.

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Is not this one proof, that the Jews did not inhabit Judea before the Babylonish colonization ?-R. C.

§ Herodot, lib. 1.

AN IMITATION OF COWPER'S "MARY," &c. &c.

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Printed and Published by RICHard Carlile, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post-paid, or free of expense, are requested to be left.

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No. 23. VOL. 1.] LONDON, Friday, June 6, 1828.

[PRICE 6d.

TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

LORDS, LAWYERS, DOCTORS, MASTERS OF ARTS, ESQUIRES, AND REVERENDS.

You have professedly undertaken to disseminate useful knowledge among the people of this country, by the circulation of printed tracts: and while your tracts are filled with useful knowledge, unalloyed with superstition, unstained with fables, free from vicious examples, and offering an improvement on the moral and scientific inculcations of the Encyclopædias and the general publications of the day, your persons and purpose have a claim on the general respect, and on mine in particular; because, I feel, that I can amend my condition in life only by the dissemination of useful knowledge: resting not so much on that which I disseminate on my own behalf as a publisher, as on that which is generally disseminated by the whole trade of publishers. But you have deviated from the high and pure path which you prescribed for yourselves, and which I would prescribe for you. Your tracts are alloyed with superstition, stained with fables, not free from vicious examples, and offer no improvement on the moral and scientific inculcations of the Encyclopædias, and the eneral publications of the day. They are, indeed, merely paltry plagiarisms from the Encyclopædias and other books.

Your Treatise on Animal Mechanics indicated your disposition to fall in with and support the superstitions of the day. It was a plagiarism from Paley. Your Almanac had also many indications of the same kind. Detailing the base life of the worthless Cardinal Wolsey, as your first piece of Biography, was a further departure from the dissemination of useful knowledge, and now,

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62. Fleet Street. No. 23.-VOL. I.

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