changers of the temples, and into the halls and by-ways of legislation, giving battle everywhere with evil; for it is through these that the world is given or denied its betterment, and it must set science on its right hand, recognizing it as an attribute of the Deity. Christianity with this companion, its pure ideal recovered from its ecclesiastical mists, setting out on its new journey through the world, blazing the way for truth instead of suppressing it, conforming itself in all ways to the natural religion of mankind, would become to humanity what the sun is to the earth, comforting the souls of men by its hopes, enlarging their charities by its precepts, and warming into life many a germ of virtue and goodness, which else, would never have blossomed, to shed its moral fragrance on the earth. The foregoing was written to indicate that line of thought, whose convictions are briefly expressed, here and there, through the pages of this little book, now offered to the public in its third edition. It is always safer and pleasanter to deal with received theology in the spirit of reverence, usually found in literature; thus offending no one, and meeting the approval of a worthy and influential class; but, there are other reasons why an adverse criticism of theological methods and beliefs, are not so often publicly exploited as their importance to society deserves. In the first place experience has shown that errors of religious belief, fixed upon the mind in infancy and youth, are seldom removed by discussion. We are not yet arrived at that stage, when the love of truth so predominates in the minds of men, that they will sacrifice every prejudice, and reject all opposing influence to obtain it. Christianity has imposed an elaborate system of prejudices on every young mind within its jurisdiction and they have become entwined with all the most hallowed associations of childhood, appealing so strongly to the affections, that any expressed denial of their exact truth excites, in most cases, a feeling of resentment, and often stirs to petty persecution. A large majority of the human race accept their opinions from authority, and all authority heretofore has encouraged beliefs, which appear so inseparably connected with the moral well being of society, and which hold in continued supremacy, institutions and modes of thought whose subversion it is alleged would be in many ways dangerous. Yet, the fact remains that it is mostly through its inroads upon these old beliefs that the world has arrived at its present stage of progress, and the opinion of orthodox theologians that they should be retained in their entirety, or of others that they should be abolished, cuts no figure; because, whether for good or evil in the opinions of men, Providence has ordained, that those only which represent the truth shall live, and knowing this of a certainty, it becomes of the greatest interest to discover what society