country, and are brought in daily contact with each other in the busy scenes of life. Hence the children have the seeds of Methodism, Presbyterianism, Baptistism, Quakerism, and various other isms implanted in their minds in very early life. And which one of these will ultimately predominate depends upon what priest they fall victims to first. Having thus the germs of so many religious isms implanted in their minds, they are easily shifted about, and converted from one sect to another. And this shuttlecock process is called "getting religion," while, if they had lived in a country where only one form of religion exists, they would be as hard to convert as Mahomedans and Hindoos. _Repentance_.--Much importance is attached by the orthodox churches to the act of getting religion in the dying hour,--called "death-bed repentance,"--as if the person were better capable of discriminating between right and wrong when his brain is deranged with fever, and his whole system racked with disease and pain, than when in health. Such repentance can do nothing more than prove the honesty of the dying man or woman. For very often their doctrines, or religious belief, will be found no nearer right, and sometimes more erroneous after repentance than before, as repentance merely consists in the return to early impressions--the revival of former convictions, which may be either right or wrong, and are about as likely to be the latter as the former. No instance can be found of a person condemning a wrong act, or a wrong course of life, in his dying moments, unless he had previously believed it to be wrong, or if he had always believed it to be right. How much, then, does repentance do toward deciding what is right and what is wrong? Mahomedanism we know to be deeply fraught with error, but we never read nor heard of an instance of the many millions who had been educated to believe it is right, condemning it on their death-beds, or repenting for not having embraced Christianity, and led the life of a Christian, or for adoring Mahomet instead of Jesus Christ. On the contrary we have a well-authenticated instance of a Mahomedan (a Mr. Merton) who had embraced Christianity, and lived the life of a Christian for many years, renouncing it all, and returning to his primitive faith, when he was taken sick and became apprehensive he was going to die: his early religious impressions, returning involuntarily, wiped out his Christianity, and he died glorying in Mahomedanism. And we have an equally well authenticated case of an Indian of the Choctaw tribe, who had been taught to believe from early life that the white man was his natural enemy, and that it was his right and duty to kill him, repenting on his death-bed for having a short time previously neglected, when the opportunity presented, to despatch a "pale face" he met in his travels. Instead of killing him, he yielded for the moment to the impulse of his better feelings, and passed him by. But on reviewing his past life