Silly man, it is not within the scope or power of the present parliament to relieve the distresses of the people. The people must begin with relieving themselves from the burthens which oppress them. Your placemen and pensioners too, your old radical cry, for want of thought and sense, who are they? Do not you see, that a less sum of money pays the expences of the court, its pensioners, its ministers, its army, its navy, its placemen generally, the whole government expenses at home and abroad, the interest of the debt excepted, than pays for the religion of the country? The costs of government, with all your placemen and pensioners are but fifteen millions, while the costs of religion are full twenty millions annually! Who then are the placemen and the pensioners that injure and oppress the people? Who, but the priests ? I am not the advocate of any lavish expenditure in government, more particularly in such a time of distress as the present; but I like to see every thing well and respectably done, every necessary post well and respectably filled, and the salary commensurate with the sustenance of the character. No man can show but what some expences are necessary to the purposes of government and legislation; but I can show, that none are necessary or usefully applied to the cause of religion. I can show, that religion is altogether a cheat on one side, and an error on the other. Hell! where is it? Heaven where is it? God! what is it? Future state! what does it mean? Let any man give or receive correct answers to such questions as these, and he will find that religion is a cheat, that all expenditure upon it is real waste, that it impoverishes and degrades its followers, and that it is the great first principle of human misery. I can show fully, either historically or physically, that it is altogether a cheat. The man who now pretends to be a reforming politician, and is not an avowed Infidel as to religion, is a most serious humbug, a mischievous meddler, and a pest to the state. The hypocrite, who conceals his Infidelity, like Cobbett, and some of the minor fry of radicals whom I know, are men who have never done, and, without change, will never do any good in the country, as political reformers. We want honest men, in all public characters. The dispute at this moment about triennial or annual parliaments, is of just as much importance to the community, as the dispute about trinity or unity in deity. It does not at present concern the condition of the people of this country. There are evils, that of the cheat and insanity of religion, for instance, as one, that of our modes of dwelling and application of wages as another, that of excessive number in family as a third, which we can individually remove, but which the parliament cannot remove for us, whether it be reformed or unreformed. I am now in the very centre of that which has been hitherto the spirit of radicalism, and I am happy to say, that it will not be possible for Mr. Hunt, or any other man, to convene again in this county, large public meetings, under the pretence of petitioning about parliamentary reform. All the active men of this neighbourhood are better informed, than to be again drawn into such a deceptive project. I have heard; but have not seen it in print, that Mr. Cobbett has sent forth a letter in the Morning Herald, in which Mr. Taylor and myselfare denied the high privileges of being radical reformers. Archy of Manchester, says, that we are not at all reformers. Certainly, we are not, if he thinks John Knox, or William Cobbett to have been reformers. But I will put forth a Manifesto, and say, I am that which I have meant to be, and which I have felt myself to be for ten years past-the leading and most useful reformer in this country. On the ground on which they now stand, I will throw Cobbett and Hunt into the shade, as unworthy of being listened to. I know well the composition of their Chancery-lane meetings, if it be a continuation of that which met to talk about civil and religious liberty. It was entirely Catholic, and the lowest rank of Irishmen in London. It was such a body of men, as to whom I would say to their faces, you cannot be free, you can find no reform, until you begin it with yourselves. Let no man trust his judgment to a newspaper report. Such a set of reformers as that which met in the Mechanics' Institute up to Christmas last, and even so late as March, may do very well for tools to such men as Cobbett and Hunt; but they can make no impression on the country at large. Men, the lowest and wildest of the sect of Roman Catholics, stuffed with prejudices and bursting with bad religious passions, are but sorry creatures wherewith to work any kind of useful reform. them keep at home or be silent until they have reformed themselves. Better game is up. The working of Infidelity is the only safe and practicable means of reform at this time in this country. That alone can remove religious taxation, and the removal of religious taxation is a necessary first principle to the removal of other unnecessary taxation, and to a reconstitution of the legislature, which shall be in reality that which has been so much canvased as a radical reform of the parliament. It cannot begin with or be begun by the parliament. Let RICHARD CARLILE. P. S. Our Circular challenges have been sent to the following preachers: Rev. Mr. Ivy, DUCKENFIELD, Rev. Mr. Gaskill. Rev. Mr. France. STALEY-BRIDGE. 1 Rev. Mr. Morell. The Rev Mr. Hutchinson was very angry on the receipt of his Circular, called the Infidel Missionaries scoundrels, talked about taking up the person who had brought him the Circular, with much exhibition of wrath.-Mr. France, of Staley-bridge, banged the door in the face of the bearer of the Circular, after hearing from him that he read Carlile's publications. Our card of invitation, in Ashton, has been thus : "To the Inhabitants of Ashton-under-Line, and its vicinity. "The Rev. R. Taylor, B. A., and Mr. Carlile, of London, respectfully announce that they will present the great truths which they have derived from Historical and Scientific Research, bearing upon the present Religion and Condition of Mankind, in the Assembly-room, at the Commercial-inn, for this and three other evenings successively. To commence at half-past eight. Admittance one shilling each evening. "July 17, 1829." INFIDEL MISSION.-NINTH BULLETIN. Head-quarters, Ashton-under-Lyne, OUR apostolical duties, and prospects of usefulness at Stockport, having terminated with the distribution of our circulars to all the idolatrous priests of this town and vicinity. We arrived here, at Ashton-under-Line, yesterday evening, at about six o'clock, and found" a large door and effectual" opened to the hopes of our high calling." In all our troubles and adversities whensoever they oppress us," our spirit is from time to time refreshed by the happy starting up of spirits congenial to our own, and that is, a spirit, not of Infidelity merely, which is common enough, and for all I know of which, a man may be as mean in character, and as debased in mind, as the stark raving fanatic, but a spirit of sterling heart-felt passionate honesty; a spirit which having discovered that Christianity is in all the ignominy, guilt, and mischief that can attach to lying, an ignominous, wicked, and pernicious lie; will neither tell the lie, nor patiently endure its being told, "That generous scorn of vice's venal tribe And proud disdain of interest's sordid bribe, And conscious honour's quick instinctive sense." which is indeed the true dignity of man, and makes all the difference (and that is an infinite difference) between our wish-us-well and our serve-us-well friends: one of which men indeed, wherever found, outweighs ten thousand croaking, desponding, time-serving, any-thing-arians, who would revenge their own conscious debility of moral character, by doing all they can to break the heart of honest enterprise, and " dear fellow"-ing us into that submission to the state of things as they are, which characterises their own littleness of soul. Our experience has forced on our conviction no more certain truth, than that all the fault of the state of things, really exists, is originated, and continued only by the want of moral courage and honesty in Infidels themselves. Those whom Infidels are constantly scandalizing as bigots, intolerants, and persecutors, are in truth far more disposed to be just and liberal than Infidels will give them the means or opportunity of showing themselves to be. Let Infidels deserve respect: let them claim it. Let them be respectable: their claim would, I am sure, be universally conceded; and the good feeling, and frank interchange of diametrically opposed opinions, would bring about a heaven of moral happiness throughout society. But in common fair play between man and man, how is it possible, I ask, to respect persons who do not appear to respect themselves, who do not sustain the manner and carriage that should ask to be respected, who seem ashamed of their own principles, and who discourage all inquiry into the merits and grounds of their opinions, by "holding the truth in unrighteousness," and treating philosophy and reason as a guilty secret, a something of which a man should be ashamed, a freemasonry trick, a winking, skulking, cross-thumb thief's whistle-call, which all wise men should hate, all honest men abhor, and all brave men defy? What blame could attach to the hospitality of a host, who should not exactly put himself to inconvenience, to do honour to a guest who never required to be honoured, but would be perfectly satisfied with licking the dishes and lodging in the dog kennel? I wish this were not too much the real state of the relationship between the Infidel and the Christian part of the community, at this time, as I am sure that in a thousand instances to one, in which Infidels set up the excuse of a pretended fear of incurring loss of business, of their situations, or prospects in life, as a reason for not avowing themselves to be Infidels, the fear is imaginary, the pretence is a falsehood. Let us be just to all men: but more heedfully, more punctiliously just to those who most widely differ from us; that not ourselves alone, but they may feel and admit our justice! Be our righteousness as clear as the light, and our just dealing as the noon-day: and this is just and righteousness; that we should admit that we are conscious, that while ten hundred thousand⚫ dirty reasons and shirking evasions, must occur to the mind of any ill-conducted, offensive, and immoral professor of Infidelity, to induce him to charge the consequences of his ill-conduct, his offensiveness, and his wickedness, on his profession of Infidelity, and so to represent himself as persecuted for his sincerity, when he is only suffering consequences, which in any state or society, he would deserve to suffer: yet it would be hard, I am sure very hard, to make out any one clear case in which an inoffensive and unobtrusive, but most known and avowed advocacy of Infidel principles merely, cost any wise and good man to find himself a shilling minus in his year's account of commercial gain or loss. There may be danger, and consequent good reason of caution and concealment, to tenants holding under clerical landlords, to publicans depending on licenses at the option of a clerical magistracy, but can any thing be more ludicrous, more monstrously absurd more egregiously false than the shrugged shoulder, and significant wink of the general order of persons engaged in trade, as if they should lose their business, or the sale of articles of essential utility, could possibly be affected by the profession of any speculative opinions whatever? Is it a sane idea, falls it within any latitude of reason, that the most bigotted Christian that ever breathed, would choose to give a higher price rather than a lower one, or put up with an article of known inferiority, from one of his own sect or faction, rather than deal with the devil himself, if the devil sold a better and a cheaper? Has society come to such a pass, or can it ever come to it, that a man should have to say his prayers at his shop door, or write up the articles of his faith on his show-board? We have found the reverse of such a state of things actually existing. All our difficulties have arisen from the groundless fears and absurd apprehensions of those who have professed anxiety to aid and assist us. The magnificent Music Hall of Leeds, the Manor Court Room of Manchester, the assembly room of the first inn, here at Ashton, were to be obtained for the purpose of our lecture, with actually less difficulty and demur from Christians, knowing our purpose and conscious of our object, than we should have had to encounter from the supervacaneous scrupulosity and affected apprehension of the Infidel occupant of a garret. We have found here in the zeal and honesty of a single respectable working man, more effectual service rendered to our Mission than a hundred judicious, advising, consulting, opulent, prudent, and leave-as-we-were-friends, could have afforded, A Mr. Joshua Hobson did the business, engaged the suitable room, prepared the convenient accommodation, announced our inten |