The benevolent reader will willingly do this, he I mean who is benevolent to himself as well as towards me. The so-called philosopher or man of liberal opinions, who cannot be so inimical in thought to me, as they are indeed to themselves, will frown at it; one such exclaims pshaw, or pish, according as he may affect the _forté_ manner, or the fine, of interjecting his contemptuous displeasure; another already winces, feeling himself by anticipation touched upon a sore place. To such readers it were hopeless to say _favete_, “_Numquid æger laudat medicum secantem?_” But I shall say with the Roman Philosopher of old, who is well entitled to that then honourable designation, “_tacete,—et præbete vos curationi: etiam si exclamaveritis, non aliter audiam, quam si ad tactum vitiorum vestrorum ingemiscatis._”[2] [Footnote 2: SENECA.] My own observation has led me to believe with Mr. Miller, that some persons are brought by speculating upon a Plurality of Worlds to reason themselves out of their belief in Christianity: such Christianity indeed it is as has no root, because the soil on which it has fallen is shallow, and though the seed which has been sown there springs up, it soon withers away. Thus the first system of superstition, and the latest pretext for unbelief have both been derived from the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. The former was the far more pardonable error, being one to which men, in the first ages, among whom the patriarchal religion had not been carefully preserved, were led by natural piety. The latter is less imputable to the prevalence of unnatural impiety,—than to that weakness of mind and want of thought which renders men as easily the dupe of the infidel propagandist in one age, as of the juggling friar in another. These objectors proceed upon the gratuitous assumption that other worlds are inhabited by beings of the same kind as ourselves, and moreover in the same condition; that is having fallen, and being therefore in need of a Redeemer. Ask of them upon what grounds they assume this, and they can make no reply.