As I grew up I attended missionary meetings, and my few pence were given to that cause. When told of heathen kings who knew not God, and caged their miserable victims, I shuddered at their barbarity and prayed for their conversion. O waste of money and prayers that should have been employed on Christian men. O infantile fatuity! Do I not reap the whirlwind for my pains? I learned the accents of piety from my mother's lips. She was and still is a religious woman. Whatever may be the dissent I entertain, I have never spoken of her opinions in the language of contempt. I have always left her (as she to her honour has left me), to enjoy her own opinions. In early youth I was religious. I question whether there is any here who have spent more time than I did as a Sunday school teacher. I have given hours, which I ought to have employed in improving myself, in improving others. It is not without giving to Christianity time and attention--without knowing what it was--that I have given it up. Some lines I contributed to a religious publication at that time, will show the tone of thought which inquiry has subsequently changed:-- THE REIGN OF TIME. The proudest earthly buildings show, Time can all things devour; E'en youth and beauty's ardent glow, And manhood's intellectual brow, Betray the spoiler's power: How soon we sink beneath his sway-- He glances, and our heads turn gray. Though, over all this earthly ball, Time's standard is unfurled, And ruins loud to ruins call Throughout this time-worn world-- Yet from this wreck of earthly things, See how the soul exulting springs. And after the archangel's wand Has wav'd o'er earth and sea, And Time has stopped at his command, The soul will nourish and expand Through all eternity. Religion--lovely, fair, and free-- Holds forth this immortality. By all the glories of the sky, To mortals yet unknown-- And by the worm that ne'er shall die, The fires that always burn-- By all that's awful or sublime, Ye sons of men improve your time.* * 'Baptist Tract Magazine.' Vol. ii., p. 341. It was stated by one of the magistrates that my being of no religion was no crime. I may conclude from what I heard this morning that I am not to be punished for not being religious. It was argued in, the _Cheltenham Chronicle_ that my expressing my opinions was no crime, and I was at some loss to know what my crime was. The charge stated I was guilty of _blasphemy_. In the depositions made against me, it is stated that I was brought before the Cheltenham magistrates on a charge of felony. I believe now what I have to answer is the accusation of uttering certain words offensive to the _Cheltenham Chronicle_.