he expressed wrong views.  He might have expressed them in a decent way as long as he liked, and no one would have interfered with him.  He was punished because, with malicious and insulting intention, he wrote blasphemous words where he thought they would cause pain and horror.  He was punished for that:  and rightly.  Mr. Buckle seeks to excite sympathy for the man, by mixing up with the question whether or no his crime deserved punishment, the wholly distinct question, whether or no the man was so far sane as to deserve punishment for any crime whatever.  These two questions have no connexion; and it is unfair to mingle them.  The question of the man’s sanity or insanity was for the jury to decide.  The jury decided that he was so sane as to be responsible.  Mr. Buckle’s real point is, that however sane the man might have been, it was wicked to punish him; and I do not hesitate to say, for myself, that looking to the entire circumstances of the case, the magistrates who committed that nuisanee of his neighbourhood, and the judge who sent him to jail, did no more than their duty.

There are several statements made by Mr. Buckle which must not be regarded as setting forth the teaching of the Magazine in which they were made.  Mr. Buckle says that no man can be sure that any doctrine is divinely revealed:  that whoever says so must be ’absurdly and immodestly confident in his own powers.’  I deny that.  Mr. Buckle says that it is part of Christian doctrine that rich men cannot be saved.  I deny that.  Christ’s statement as to the power of worldly possessions to concentrate the affections upon this world, went not an inch further than daily experience goes.  What said Samuel Johnson when Garrick showed him his grand house?  ’Ah, David, these are the things that make death terrible!’ Mr. Buckle says that Christianity gained ground in early ages because its doctrines were combated.  They were not combated.  Its professors were persecuted, which is quite another thing.  Mr. Buckle says that the doctrine of Immortality was known to the world before Christianity was heard of, or any other revealed religion.  I deny that.  Greek and Roman philosophers of the highest class regarded that doctrine as a delusion of the vulgar.  Did Mr. Buckle ever read the letter of condolence which Sulpicius wrote to Cicero after the death of Cicero’s daughter?  A beautiful letter, beautifully expressed; stating many flimsy and wretched reasons for drying one’s tears; but containing not a hint of any hope of meeting in another world.  And the same may be said of Cicero’s reply.  As for Mr. Buckle’s argument for Immortality, I think it extremely weak and inconclusive.  It certainly goes to prove, if it proves anything, that my cousin Tom, who lately was called to the bar, is quite sure to be Lord Chancellor; and that Sam Lloyd, who went up from our village last week to a merchant’s counting-house in Liverpool, is safe to rival his eminent namesake in wealth.  Mr. Buckle’s argument