effect upon my mind, to the disadvantage of your religion, would not have taken place.

In consequence of this argument extending further than I expected, I am here obliged to break off, and reserve the remainder until my next Letter. My object in troubling you with the history of my mind, is to make it clear to your lordship's perceptive powers, that man cannot be held responsible for his belief, and as this is a most important fact, I am anxious to impress it upon your lordship's mind, and also upon the mind of every human being. No fact can have a more important bearing upon the present preceedings of men than this, and especially upon the proceedings of priests of every sect and party in the world. These men are exerting themselves, your lordship among the rest, to enforce a belief upon the minds of the people under the pretext that it will save them from eternal damnation hereafter, that is to say, unless men entertain certain beliefs, the Deity will damn them eternally; now if it can be shown that the Deity will not damn them eternally, that is to say, if it can be shown, that a just and intelligent power will not hold men responsible for their belief, then it will follow, that all your labours as priests are entirely useless, time mis-spent, and money thrown away, for it will be of no consequence what men believe. This is the inference to be drawn from the fact when established, and whether I have done any thing towards that end in this Letter, I leave to the minds of men to determine.

Hulme, June 24th, 1841.

I remain, &c.

C. J. HASLAM.

I beg to state that it is my intention, as soon as this work is completed, of commencing a small Periodical, the particulars of which I shall give hereafter.

PRINTED BY C. J. HASLAM, HULME.

LETTER XXIV.

TO THE BISHOP OF EXETER:

CONTAINING

MATERIALS FOR DECIDING THE QUESTION,

WHETHER OR NOT

THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD?

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 65, STOTT-STREET, HULME, MANCHESTER.

MY LORD,

Price one Penny.

To resume my argument of the false assumption upon which your religion is founded, namely, that man can believe as he pleases, I was speaking, at the close of my last Letter, of the effect produced upon my mind by the circumstance of your ill treatment of Thomas Paine. I observed that I saw that you were bad men to treat a good man with so much injustice, and that the fact of your burning a good man's writings, raised a suspicion in my mind that you were afraid your religion should be proved to be false; and these two arguments operating upon my mind together, confirmed me in my faith far more effectually than the Bishop of Durham confirmed me in his faith by his imposition of hands.

Up to this condition of mind, I had not, as yet, examined to any great extent the evidences either for or against the Christian religion, and of course I was not yet justified in declaring it to be false. I come in contact with Christians, both lay and clerical, and we have discussions upon the question. They advise me to read certain books in which I will find evidences of the Christian religion. I read these books, but with no effect in the way of proving the sentiments I entertain to be erroneous; rather the contrary, for my faith, or rather my want of faith, becomes more confirmed. I find, for instance, in Dr. Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies an enormous quantity of forgeries, some of which I have exposed in these Letters, forgeries committed by the first advocates of the Christian religion, and these have the effect on my mind of destroying all confidence in these men, for it is a maxim admitted by all, that no confidence can be placed in liars. These men forged passages in favour of the Christian religion, and introduced them into the works of their opponents; and in some instances they forged whole books, to which they affixed the name of some celebrated man who had opposed them, and they handed them down to posterity as important evidences in favour of the Christian religion; and this has been acknowledged and declared to have been the case by modern Christian advocates. I do not mean Methodist preachers or men of that description; I mean the highest and most eminent of Christian authorities of this and the last century. These men have acknowledged and declared that the first Christian advocates were guilty of lying and forging, and not only this, but as Mosheim says, they considered it an act of virtue to do so.

Can any man resist the impression upon his mind when he becomes acquainted with these things? Can he after this have confidence in such men ? And if he cannot have confidence in such men, is he to blame for that? I find, for instance, in the works of Josephus, who wrote immediately after the origin of the Christian religion, a

paragraph to the effect that Jesus Christ performed miracles, and that he was the Son of God, and upon looking into the work of Dr. Lardner, I find that he tells me that that paragraph was forged by some Christian, and introduced into the writings of Josephus on purpose to cause people to believe that the Christian religion was true. Am I to blame then, because I cannot believe that the Christian religion is true, seeing that the men who tell us that it is so were guilty of such monstrous deception ?

Instead of my being to blame, my Lord, for these forgeries having produced an impression upon my mind to the disadvantage of your religion, you yourselves are to blame. You ought not to have told me to look for evidences, for had you not done so, I should not perhaps have looked, and not having looked, I should not have known that these forgeries had been committed, and of course their effect upon my mind would not have taken place. And had the first Christians not forged at all, I should have had no reason to doubt that they were honest men, and esteeming them honest men, I should have had confidence in their relations.

Having made myself acquainted with all external matters in relation to the Christian religion, I examine more minutely the word of God itself. I compare the character there given of the Deity, with that Power which gives motion to the Universe, and not the least harmony or agreement exists between the two characters. I examine the character of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, and I find it inconsistent, absurd and irrational, as I proved in Letter XXII. I find that Jesus Christ falsified in his conduct his own professions, and acted in direct opposition to the precepts he propounded, and which he exhorted other people to practice. And these, in connection with other things, operated upon my mind in such a manner as to make my decision complete, that the Christian religion was a falsehood.

Am I then to blame for this decision, or for this belief ? Am I to blame, my Lord, for the want of harmo

ny between the characters of the God of the Bible and the God of the Universe ? for this it was that tended to make my decision complete. Am I to blame for Jesus Christ's inconsistency? for this it was that tended to make my decision complete. Am I to blame, my Lord, for any of those things which have forced upon my mind its present impressions ?

As I informed your lordship in my last Letter, a man's belief, or condition of mind, is the result of certain causes. And if these causes exist independently of the man, the man is not to blame for the effects of these causes. To make it plain to your lordship, you treated Thomas Paine with injustice independently of me, you burnt his writings independently of me, the first Christian advocates forged independently of me, they were impostors independently of me, they considered it an act of virtue to deceive and lie independently of me, the Bible contains contradictions independently of me, the characters of the God of the Bible and the God of the Universe differ independently of me, Christ was inconsistent independently of me; if these then, being causes, operated upon my mind to produce certain impressions, am I to blame for those impressions? As well might you say, my Lord, that this paper on which I now write, is to blame for the impressions I am now making upon it.

I have now said enough to convince any mind capable of reflection, that man can not believe as he pleases, and therefore he can not be held responsible for his belief. But what proving did this require ? I could quote numerous authorities who declare the truth of my position; men of the highest attainments, and some of whom of your own profession; but since it is said by Paley, that "the influence of names is in exact proportion to the want of knowledge," I thought I would decide the question by argument, which I conIceive I have now done. For the sake of those, how