human knowledge, for it treats not of objects discoverable within the field of human observation. 'No,' will you say? 'but its knowledge is superhuman, unearthly--its field is in heaven.' My friends, the knowledge which is not human, is of slippery foundation to us human creatures. Things _known_, constitute knowledge; and here is a science treating of things unseen, unfelt, uncomprehended! Such cannot be _knowledge_. What, then, is it? Probability? possibility? theory? hypothesis? tradition? written? spoken? by whom? when? where? Let its teachers--nay, let all earth reply! But what confusion of tongues and voices now strike on the ear! From either Indies, from torrid Africa, from the frozen regions of either pole, from the vast plains of ancient Asia, from the fields and cities of European industry, from the palaces of European luxury, from the soft chambers of priestly ease, from the domes of hierarchal dominion, from the deep cell of the self-immolated monk, from the stony cave of the self-denying anchorite, from the cloud-capt towers, spires, and minarets of the crescent and the cross, arise shouts, and hosannas, and anathemas, in the commingled names of Brama, and Veeshnu, and Creeshna, and Juggernaut; heavenly kings, heavenly queens, triune deities, earth-born gods, heaven-born prophets, apotheosized monarchs, demon-enlightened philosophers, saints, angels, devils, ghosts, apparitions, and sorceries! But, worse than these sounds which but stun the ear and confound the intellect, what sights, oh! human kind! appal the heart! The rivers of earth run blood! Nation set against nation! Brother against brother! Man against the companion of his bosom! and that soft companion, maddened with the frenzy of insane remorse for imaginary crimes? fired with the rage of infatuated bigotry, or subdued to diseased helplessness and mental fatuity, renounces kindred, flies from social converse, and pines away a useless or mischievous existence in sighings and tremblings, spectral fears, uncharitable feelings and bitter denunciations! Such are thy doings, oh! religion! Or, rather, such are thy doings, oh! man! While standing in a world so rich in sources of enjoyment, so stored with objects of real inquiry and attainable knowledge, yet shutting thine eyes, and, worse, thine heart, to the tangible things and sentient creatures around thee, and winging thy diseased imagination beyond the light of the sun which gladdens thy world, and contemplation of the objects which are here to expand thy mind and quicken the pulses of thy heart!... I will pray ye to observe how much of our positive misery originates in our idle speculations in matters of faith, and in our blind, our fearful forgetfulness of facts--our cold, heartless, and, I will say, _insane_ indifference to visible causes of tangible evil, and visible sources of tangible happiness. Look to the walks of life, I beseech ye--look into the public prints--look into your sectarian churches--look into the