composed chiefly of the "lowest of the working classes." I merely stated what I believed to be a fact, and if that be called in question, then I say that the "chairman" must have taken for granted, (contrary to custom) that as he was a "superfine" therefore the whole group must have been "superfines" also. As we are told that the common people heard Christ gladly, might we not have expected to have found the uncommon people hearing Mr. Cooper, it seems however, that the common people hear Belial as well as Christ, whether gladly or not is another matter. The "chairman" seems to quote scripture like the devil, that is, when he thinks it suits his purpose. I think, however, that in his quotation from Paul he has signally failed, for if the wise men after the flesh, the mighty and the noble are not called by Christ; then may we not infer that they are left in the ranks of the Secularists, and so according to the "chairman," it would appear that they are, for he will not allow that the audience was composed of the "lowest of the working classes," but wishes us to infer that it was composed of the wise, mighty and noble, who by Christ are not called to Christianity; and he seems to rejoice in the fact that they, like the Saviour of men, are the denounces of the priests of the day, forgetting at the same time that in Christianity there are no priests, but all are brethren, one in him. "Egomet's acquaintance with the chapel is not limited, and he does not know of any “who make a charge except the Seculars." If the "chairman" knew of any, why did he not state who they were?

To oppose Mr. Cooper would have been useless so far as edification was concerned, and indeed my opinion is that Mr. Cooper chose the course he did for the purpose of preventing any one from replying to him, of what avail would it have been to have quoted from Euesbius Clement, Polycarp and others; when Secularists do not believe in anything they say, and the more especially, when the audience was in so miserably quiescent a state. As well might you attempt to prove to every sceptic that the "chairman" wrote the letter to which I am replying, as to prove to the audience under consideration that the early fathers believed the Bible to be the word of God; they would in the one case doubt in spite of the evidence, whilst in the other case, they would believe without any evidence whatever.

I cannot plead guilty to the charge of being unjust towards Secularists. In my report I adhere to truth, I still adhered to it, and defy the "chairman" to call in question anything of the least importance contained in that report. What is truth, may be a question with him. Like a Secularist whom I met with the other day, he may believe that what is truth to-day may be false to-morrow. I take a different view, I believe that time cannot make falsehood truth, that truth is truth in spite either of time, opinions, or conduct, and that Christianity is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Yours respectfully,

'EGOMET.'

SIR,

THE PREDICTIONS IN THE GOSPELS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DEFENDER.

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There is an article in No. 10 of "The Defender," signed "Silverwater;" this article I have just read together with your answer. And though I think your answer abundantly sufficient for your Northampton" correspondent, yet a few thoughts have arisen in my mind, which I cannot refrain from sending you. Mr. "Silverwater" says, "If the reader will carefully examine the chapters Matthew 24; Mark 13; and Luke 21; he will be prepared to judge of

66

the correctness of my statements and if he expresses his honest conviction he will allow that my remark respecting the veracity of Jesus, or of the three evangelists before named is established on gospel truth." This paragraph like the rest of his letter, smacks more of the coxcomb than of the inquirer; he seems to think he has accomplished a feat, and given the Editor a poser; and that every reader of his article must be a fool if he is not convinced by it, and a knave if he does not say so. For no man it appears can "express his honest conviction" unless " by allowing that his remarks, &c., are established on gospel truth." Now Sir, I, for one, have carefully read the chapters referred to, for the purpose of ascertaining if his charge is founded on gospel truth," and I express my "honest conviction"-his insinuation to the contrary notwithstanding, that his "remark is established" only in his own gospelj ignorance. First, he entirely overlooks all those other statements in the New Testament which throw light upon the passages referred to, and assist in their correct interpretation, and which would consequently, correct the erroneous impressions which readers of the "Silverwater" class appear to be in danger of receiving. So far therefore, as they are concerned, no further statements need have been made on this subject. Now this may be ingenious, but it is not honest. It may suit a caviller but not a sincere inquirer after the truth. Secondly. In his haste to prove either Christ or the Evangelists liars, he passes by two important statements in the chapters themselves, which tend to correct such a notion as his respecting the time within the limits of which Jesus taught his disciples to expect that the general judgment would take place, viz. "The duration of the then existing generation of men." These statements are found in Matthew 24. 14. "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come."-Mark 13. 10. "And the gospel must first be published among all nations."--Luke 21, 24. "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Does Silverwater think that Jesus Christ taught, and that his disciples believed, the Gospel, which has not even yet been preached to all nations, would be so, and that all the predictions concerning "the treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles," and "the times of the Gentiles," would be fulfilled, and the whole wound up and ended within the lifetime of that generation? He may say, "Yes," but men of sense, who are acquainted with the New Testament will say, "No." Thirdly. He entirely forgets, that his friend Robert Cooper told his audience at Newcastle (See "Defender" No. 8, p. 120) that he thought the New Testament was not written till 2 or 300 years after the time at which it claims to have been written (and others of the same fraternity make similar statements.) Now does Silverwater think that the authors of the gospels would write and publish to the world as predictions, statements which ought to have been fulfilled, at least 200 years before, but were not? Does he think that any man possessing common sense enough to be an impostor-to say nothing of making such a work as any one of the gospels-would deliberately furnish the world with such a convincing proof of his imposture? Now, unless this has been the case, Cooper &c. must be awfully out in their dates, or " Silverwater" in his interpretation. My "honest conviction" is that they are all out together, and will know it if they will but use their brains honestly like other men. Should "Silverwater" write again I would advise him to lay aside his conceited tone, and write as if he thought some one else had some brains and used them, as well as he.

Yours truly,

Macclesfield, March 16, 1855,

AUFSEHER.

MR. EDITOR,

HAS SECULARISM ANY POETRY?

Northampton, March 18, 1855:

In number 4 of the Defender you informed your readers that Secularism has not and cannot have any poetry. I send you a sonnet on Death written by a secularist. I think there are many themes for a poet when such persons may rise among that body of "Dissenters." I hope you will find room for this in your Open Page and I will endeavour to deserve the space by my brevity. Per haps some of your readers may require to be informed that Nature is the mother of the Secularist.

SONNET.

To sleep at last upon his mother's breast,

And rest in peace beneath her starry eyes :-
That lot is his who lives by Honor's hest:
Nor is he lost to Nature when he dies.

All things subserve her vast and mystic plan;-
From atoms grow green fields and skies of blue.
And life for ever young-for ever new,

The scented flower, blythe bird, and Godlike man.

What though unknown was quenched the vital spark,
In desert, garret, cave, or prison foul;

The noble dead still move the noble heart:

Their atoms wander to the kindred soul-
Avoid the herd of weakly servile men,

And in the steadfast hearts of freemen live again.

SAYINGS OF THE WISE.

KWEXE.

CENSORIOUSNESS.-We are apt to be very quick at censuring others, where we will not endure advice onrselves. But nothing shows our weakness more than to be sharp-sighted at spying other men's faults, and so purblind about our

own.

Much of this comes from ill-nature, as well as from an inordinate value of ourselves; for we love rambling after, other people's faults, better than staying at home to mend our own, and blaming the unhappy, instead of protecting and relieving them.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

RECEIVED.-R. T., Hartlepool; W. B., Glasgow; S. T., Macclesfield.

Unpublished letter of John Locke, and replies to several correspondents must be deferred to our next.

The real names and addresses of correspondents required, though not for publication. The Editor does not undertake to return rejected communications.

Our correspondents in different places will do us service by giving us prompt information of what goes on in their localities.

Communications and works for review to be addressed to the Editor, 50, Grainger Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne, either direct, or through the publishers.

London: HOULSTON & STONEMAN, 65, Paternoster Row.

AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

Hunter & Co., Printers, Grainger Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

THE DEFENDER:

a Weekly Magazine,

OF CHRISTIAN EXPOSITION AND ADVOCACY.

Who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.-MILTON.

THE DISCUSSION AT HALIFAX BETWEEN THE

REV. BREWIN GRANT AND MR. JOSEPH BARKER, ON THE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.

EIGHTH NIGHT.

On Friday, the 2nd February, the discussion between Mr. Joseph Barker and the Rev. B. Grant, on the origin of the Bible, was continued in the Odd Fellows' Hall. Mr. Jennings again presided. The attendance was still more meagre than on the two previous evenings, a fact indicating the interest in the debate to be subsiding.

MR. GRANT opened the discussion by remarking that he accepted the opinions of Professor Norton, as he would those of any other great scholar, if, like his, they were in accordance with justice and reason. If Professor Norton did not admit the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, infidels could not say he was influenced by the priesthood in his investigations as to the authority of the authorised translation of the scriptures, and the many observations made by Mr. Barker upon the opinions of Mr. Norton were without date. Mr. Grant then read an extract from a volume of Professor Norton, showing that nineteen twentieths of the discrepancies found by him in our translation of the Bible were of an unimportant character, and the remarkable manner in which the Biblical documents had been preserved. Mr. Barker must have known that the interpretation he had given to many passages was unreasonable, and that it had

No. 14, Vol. 1.

often been proved so. He had yet failed to prove his proposition of the human origin of the Bible, and had given good proofs of its superhuman origin. Mr. Grant complained that his opponent had jumbled up Judaism with Christianity, and that his attacks had been confined to the Old Testament, as if the Gospels did not form a part of the Bible. He remarked that although infidels ridiculed the Bible, and pretended to prove its human origin, if they acknowledged a revelation from God to man, they must believe in the Bible. They would never believe in the Koran, the Shaster, or the book of the Mormons; and they knew of no other book than the Bible which could be considered a revelation from God. He then dwelt for some time on the adaptability of the Bible to man's capacity, by its great truths being made known in language that all could understand. The Bible, he continued, did not profess to teach the sciences. A person might say it was opposed to them, but how were we to judge upon many points of science, since men were so contradictory in their opinions on scientific subjects?

MR. BARKER observed that he must be excused if he said he could not see any argument in what Mr. Grant had advanced. In answer to the remarks on the character of Solomon, made on the previous evening, Mr. Barker observed that he considered Solomon unfit to occupy the position of a judge, as he was unable to judge and guide himself, and lived a very discreditable life. Passing to the subject of creation, he read from the Bible passages as to the period at which the earth was formed, and followed them up by quotations from the works of Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Harris, and Professor Hitchcock, in support of the indefinite antiquity of the earth. He considered the refutation of the Bible statements by geology to be unmistakable on this point, as could be shown by the remains of fossils and the strata of the earth. He also combatted the idea of an universal deluge, dwelling at length on the impossibility of collecting such a mass of the watery element-on the barbarity of the all but extermination of mankind-on the partiality of God in preserving but one family-and on the absurdity of attempting to assemble two of every species of all the animals in the world-and also to provide food for such number, the whole to be accommodated within the ark. Divines might attempt to explain away the deluge, but it was impossible to convince him that such an event ever occurred.

MR. GRANT said his opponent had quoted Dr. Pye Smith as an authority on the question of the earth's antiquity; but his quotations were most partial, and he (Mr. Barker) had made the author assert things which he would not be prepared to maintain if he were living. He (Mr. Grant) was aware that Dr. Pye Smith believed in an indefinite period since the creation of the earth, but the same author held that the present creation was of recent origin. Mr. Grant then proceeded to read extracts from Dr. Pye Smith's works having reference to the rendering of the first verse in the book of Genesis, which implied that the earth was created at a period unknown, but that the creation of man and other animals was of comparatively recent date. Mr. Grant referred also to the theory of the existence of light previous to the creation of the great luminary of the day. His opponent, he contended, had mistaken his premises, for he seemed to have abandoned the proposition of the human origin of the Bible. Mr. Grant then proceeded to show how the Bible affirmed its divine origin by the sentiments which it inculcated, and he laid down a number of propositions to show that it could not be a forged book, that it could not be the work of bad men or devils, nor even of good men, since it so often ascribed its origin to God. That it was written by different men was manifest from its various styles, as was also the fact that it was written at different times.