Man, you say, offends God by killing his neighbor; if this be the case, the directors of nations must indeed be tremendous criminals; for, while even invoking God to their assistance, they urge on to slaughter immense multitudes of their fellow-beings, for contemptible interests which it would show infinitely more policy, as well as humanity, to abandon. But how--to reason merely as philosophers--how do they offend God? Just as much as tigers and crocodiles offend him. It is, surely, not God whom they harass and torment, but their neighbor. It is only against man that man can be guilty. A highway robber can commit no robbery on God. What can it signify to the eternal Deity, whether a few pieces of yellow metal are in the hands of Jerome, or of Bonaventure? We have necessary desires, necessary passions, and necessary laws for the restraint of both; and while on this our ant-hill, during the little day of our existence, we are engaged in eager and destructive contest about a straw, the universe moves, on in its majestic course, directed by eternal and unalterable laws, which comprehend in their operation the atom that we call the earth. GOSPEL. It is a matter of high importance to ascertain which are the first gospels. It is a decided truth, whatever Abbadie may assert to the contrary, that none of the first fathers of the Church, down to Irenæus inclusively, have quoted any passage from the four gospels with which we are acquainted. And to this it may be added, that the Alogi, the Theodosians, constantly rejected the gospel of St. John, and always spoke of it with contempt; as we are informed by St. Epiphanius in his thirty-fourth homily. Our enemies further observe that the most ancient fathers do not merely forbear to quote anything from our gospels, but relate many passages or events which are to be found only in the apocryphal gospels rejected by the canon. St. Clement, for example, relates that our Lord, having been questioned concerning the time when His kingdom would come, answered, "That will be when what is without shall Resemble that within, and when there shall be neither male nor female." But we must admit that this passage does not occur in either of our gospels. There are innumerable other instances to prove this truth; which may be seen in the "Critical Examination" of M. Fréret, perpetual secretary of the Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris.