Dr. Lyman Beecher issued, some few years since, a series of lectures on Atheism, without merit or fairness, and which are here only alluded to as fairly illustrating a certain class of orthodox opposition. His statements of Atheistic opinions are monstrous perversions, and his answers are directed against the straw man built together by himself. The doctrine of "almighty chance" which Dr. Beecher attacks, is one which I never heard an educated Atheist teach, and the misrepresentation of Freethought objects is so obvious that it can only be effectual with those who have never freed themselves from the trammels which habit and fashion-faith bound upon them in their infancy, and which have strengthened with their growth. The Rev. J. Orr, in his "Treatise on Theism," says, "All inquiry about chance is, however, impertinent in the present day. The idea is an infantine one, possible of entertainment only in the initial state of human knowledge. Chance is _not_ the position relied upon by modern Atheism. And when, therefore, the Theist expends the artillery of his argument upon this broken down and obsolete notion, he is intermeddling with the dead, and after accomplishing the destruction of the venerable fallacy, the modern Atheist will likely ask him to come down to the nineteenths century and meet him there." The only attempt at argument in Dr. Beecher's book is founded on the assumption: 1st. That there is an existence called matter. 2d. That there are certain effects perceivable which can not result from matter. 3d. That therefore there is a God the cause for these effects. Where are there any Materialists who accept Dr. Beecher's limitation of matter? It is a word I do not use myself. On the question of evil, Coleridge, in his "Aids to Reflection," says: "1st. That evil must have had a beginning, since otherwise it must either be God or a co-eternal and co-equal rival with God. 2d. That it could not originate in God; for if so, it would at once be evil and not evil, or God would be at once God--that is, infinite goodness--and not God." If God be infinite goodness, can evil exist at all? It is necessary above all that we should understand the meaning of each word we use. Some men talk as if their words were intended rather to conceal than to express their ideas. So far as this essay is concerned I will endeavor to avoid this difficulty by explicitly defining each special word I use. Dugald Stewart, indeed, says, "That there are many words used in philosophical discourse which do not admit of logical definition, is abundantly manifest. This is the case with all those words that signify things un-compounded, and consequently unsusceptible of analysis--a proposition, one should think, almost self-evident; and yet it is surprising how very generally it has been overlooked by philosophers."