4. Discourse upon the existence of God.

5. Ode II. The heavens instruct the earth.

6. Precepts of wisdom, extracted from the book of the Adorateurs.

7. Canticle, No. III. God Creator, soul of nature.

8. Extracts from divers moralists, upon the nature of God, and upon the physical proofs of his existence.

9. Canticle, No. IV. Let us bless at our waking the God who gives us light.

10. Moral thoughts extracted from the Bible.

11. Hymn, No. V. Father of the universe.

12. Contemplation of nature on the first days of the spring. 13. Ode, No. VI. Lord in thy glory adorable.

14. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Confucius.

15. Canticle in praise of actions, and thanks for the works of the creation.

16. Continuation from the moral thoughts of Confucius.

17. Hymn, No. VII. All the universe is full of thy magnificence.

18. Extracts from an ancient sage of India upon the duties of families.

19. Upon the spring.

20. Moral thoughts of divers Chinese authors.

21. Canticle, No. VIII. Everything celebrates the glory of the eternal.

22. Continuation of the moral thoughts of Chinese authors. 23. Invocation for the country.

24. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Theognis.

25. Invocation, Creator of man.

26. Ode, No. IX. Upon death.

27. Extracts from the book of the Moral Universal, upon happiness.

28. Ode, No. X. Supreme Author of Nature.

{INTRODUCTION;

ENTITLED

PRECISE HISTORY OF THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS.

"TOWARDS the month of Vendimiaire, of the year 5 (Sept. 1796), there appeared at Paris, a small work, entitled, Manual

of the Theoanthropophiles, since called, for the sale of easier pronunciation, Theophilanthropes (Theophilanthropists), published by C

"The worship set forth in this Manual, of which the origin is from the beginning of the world, was then professed by some families in the silence of domestic life. But no sooner was the Manual published, than some persons, respectable for their knowledge and their manners, saw, in the formation of a society open to the public, an easy method of spreading moral religion, and of leading by degrees great numbers to the knowledge thereof, who appear to have forgotten it. This consideration ought of itself not to leave indifferent those persons who know that morality and religion, which is the most solid support thereof, are necessary to the maintenance of society, as well as to the happiness of the individual. These considerations determined the families of the Theophilanthropists to unite publicly for the exercise of their worship.

"The first society of this kind opened in the month of Nivose, year 5 (Jan. 1797), in the street Dennis, No. 34, corner of Lombard-street. The care of conducting this society was undertaken by five fathers of families. They adopted the Manual of the Theophilanthropists. They agreed to hold their days of public worship on the days corresponding to Sundays, but without making this a hindrance to other societies to choose such other day as they thought more convenient. Soon after this, more societies were opened, of which some cclebrate on the decadi (tenth day), and others on the Sunday: it was also resolved that the committee should meet one hour each week for the purpose of preparing or examining the discourses and lectures proposed for the next general assembly. That the general assemblies should be called Fetes (festivals) religious and moral. That those festivals should be conducted in principal and form, in a manner, as not to be considered as the festivals of an exclusive worship; and that in recalling those who might not be attached to any particular worship, those festivals might also be attended as moral exercises by disciples of every sect, and consequently avoid, by scrupulous care, everything that might make the society appear under the name of a sect. The society adopts neither rights nor priesthood, and it will never lose sight of the resolution not to advance an thing as a society, inconvenient to any scct or sects, in any time or country, and under any government,

"It will be seen, that it is so much the more easy for the society to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed, that their moral is that upon which there has never been the least dissent; and that the name they have taken, expresses the double end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and love of man.

"The Theophilanthropists do not call themselves the disciples of such or such a man. They avail themselves of the wise precepts that have been transmitted by writers of all countries and in all ages. The reader will find in the discourses, lectures, hymns, and canticles, which the Theophilanthropists have adopted for their religious and moral festivals, and which they present under the title of Annee Religieuse, extracts from moralists, ancient and modern, divested of maxims too severe, or too loosely conceived, or contrary to piety, whether towards God or towards man."

Next follow the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists, or things they profess to believe. These are but two, and are thus expressed, les Théophilanthropes croient à l'existence de Dieu, et a l'immortalité de l'âme. The Theophilanthropists believe in the existence of God, and the immortality of the soui

The Manual of the Theophilanthropists, a small volume of sixty pages, duodecimo, is published separately, as is also their catechism, which is of the same size. The principles of the Theophilanthropists are the same as those published in the first part of the "Age of Reason" in 1793, and in the second part, in 1795. The Theophilanthropists, as a society, are silent upon all the things they do not profess to believe, as the sacredness of the books called the Bible, &c., &c. They profess the immortality of the soul, but they are silent on the immortality of the body, or that which the church calls the resurrection. The author of the "Age of Reason" gives reasons for everything he disbelieves, as well as for those he believes; and where this cannot be done with safety, the government is a despotism, and the church an inquisition.

It is more than three years since the first part of the "Age of Reason" was published, and more than a year and a half since the publication of the second part: the bishop of Llandaff undertook to write an answer to the second part; and it was not until after it was known that the author of the "Age of Reason" would reply to the bishop, that the prosecution against the book

was set on foot, and which is said to be carried on by some clergy of the English church. If the bishop is one of them, and the object be to prevent an exposure of the numerous and gross errors he has committed in his work (and which he wrote when report said that Thomas Paine was dead), it is a confession that he feels the weakness of his cause, and finds himself unable to maintain it. In this case he has given me a triumph I did not seek, and Mr. Erskine, the herald of the prosecution, has proclaimed it.

AN ESSAY ON DREAMS.

As a great deal is said in the New Testament about dreams, it is first necessary to explain the nature of a dream, and to show by what operation of the mind a dream is produced during sleep. When this is understood we shall be better enabled to judge whether any reliance can be placed upon them. and, consequently, whether the several matters in the New Testament related of dreams deserve the credit which the writers of that book and priests and commentators ascribe to them.

In order to understand the nature of dreams, or of that which passes in ideal vision during a state of sleep, it is first necessary to understand the composition and decomposition of the human mind.

The three great faculties of the mind are IMAGINATION, JUDGMENT and MEMORY. Every action of the mind comes under one or the other of these faculties. In a state of wakefulness, as in the day-time, these three faculties are all active; but that is seldom the case in sleep, and never perfectly: and this is the cause that our dreams are not so regular and rational as our waking thoughts.

The seat of that collection of powers or faculties that consti tute what is called the mind, is in the brain There is not, and cannot be, any visible demonstration of this anatomically, but accidents happening to living persons, show it to be so. An injury done to the brain by a fracture of the skull, will sometimes change a wise man into a childish idiot: a being without a mind. But so careful has nature been of that sanctum sanctorum of man, the brain, that of all the external accidents to which humanity is subject, this happens the most seldom. But we often see it happening by long and habitual intemperance.

Whether those three faculties occupy distinct apartments of the brain, is known only to that Almighty power that formed and organized it. We can see the external effects of muscular motion in all the members of the body, though its primum mo bile, or first moving cause, is unknown to man. Our external