Christ's injunction—“Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's"-is a precept which the Christian Church daily repudiates.

Edward I. of England caused taxes to be levied on the clergy on the (true) principle that those who are protected by the State should share its burdens.

J. L. M. Curry, in Johnson's Encyclopedia (article "Religious Liberty") says: "Unfortunately, Constantine, in 313, established Christianity by law, and since that time Christians, when they have obtained power, have allied their religion with civil authorities."

The Jewish Times, in a recent article on sectarian enactments (such as Sunday, oath and blasphemy laws) and of the religious intolerance and fanaticism which has injected them into our politics, says: "There is not one of these enactments that may not on any day be invoked against citizens who do not profess the Christian religion. The Adventists, Jews, Agnostics and the great body of rationalists at large have not the equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution that Christians have."

John Stuart Mill says: "Mankind could be no more justified in silencing the honest opinion of one person than that one person would, had he the power, be justified in silencing the opinion of mankind." And yet, here in this country, where civil liberty is supposed to abound more extensively than in any other, there are millions of people whose opinions are silenced by the noisy, dogmatic, bigoted persecuting upholders of the Christian Church.

Civil liberty exists in this country to a very limited degree and it will so continue as long as this domineering, tyrannical and unjust Christian Church is permitted to rob us of our civil rights.

The late Rev. Henry J. VanDyke, D. D. (Presbyterian) had the courage to say: "If we cannot have liberty and orthodoxy, let orthodoxy go." And so let us say that if we cannot have religion and liberty let religion go. If religious liberty endangers civil liberty let religious liberty go by all means,

for we can easily dispense with the latter, but will be remanded to dark and barbarous ages if civil liberty be denied us.

Mrs. M. A. Freeman, Cor. Sec. American Secular Union, writes: "The people have permitted various privileges to the Church. It has become arrogant with the granting of them and follows but the course of bigotry in all ages. It is not satisfied with the various priestly perquisites it enjoys, but, throwing aside all disguise, demands for its divinities the nation itself."

The granting of religious liberty, at the expense of civil liberty, in the days of Thomas Paine, had this effect (says Col. Ingersoll): "All kinds of Christians had the right-and it was their duty-to brand, imprison and kill infidels of every kind."

There has been no greater enemy of civil liberty than the Christian Church, from the fourth century (when it became ascendant) even to the present time, during which period it has caused the shedding of rivers of human blood, in its hatred of and conflict with, civil liberty.

We boast of civil liberty in this country, seeming to forget that we are denied every civil right except such as the Church permits.

How long is this condition of things to last? Will the Church grow wise enough, in the near future, to recognize our rights and cease its opposition thereto, or will the time come when the lovers of civil liberty will demand the possession of those rights, at whatever cost? for the spirit of the age insists that we have true, pure, unmingled civil liberty.

MIRACLES.

"It is more probable that testimony should be mistaken than that miracles should be true."-Hume.

"It is a waste of time to regard any miraculous reports as even possibly true."-Rev. J. M. Capes.

THE

HE importance of the subject of miracles is apparent when the fact exists that it is by miracles, and by miracles alone, that orthodox Christianity is supported. Think of a religion that is sustained only by belief in violations of the laws of Nature; which laws every scientist of note the world over declare, are immutable! The whole immense fabric of Christianity is built upon miraculous records, such as the story of creation, of the fall of man, of the deluge, of Jonah, Joshua, Baalam, Daniel, the three men in the fiery furnace, of the raising of Lazarus, the turning of water into wine, the feeding of the multitude, the virgin birth, resurrection and ascension of Christ. These and other violations of natural law are the props by which Christianity is maintained and without which it would speedily totter to its fall.

We may then well ask for the evidence of this sustaining power. Where is it to be found? Is there one single instance in which there is the slightest reliable evidence of the performance of a solitary miracle? Is there a particle of testimony such as would be entertained, for even a second, in any court of justice, throughout the civilized world?

Besides, as Rev. Howard McQueary has said: "An extraordinary event should be proved by an extraordinary amount of evidence."

Rev. W. S. Crowe says of the miracles attributed to Christ: "We have only the testimony of partisans. In no unbiased

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secular record is there a word of corroboration. Of the tisans themselves we have not the testimony of a single eye witness. We have not one authentic word from the generation to which Jesus belonged. * * * The Christian churches were founded and were flourishing throughout Palestine and the whole Roman Empire before anyone seemed to think of putting the miracle foundation under them. * ** The miracles, if facts, would ruin all claims to benevolence in the founder of Christianity. The man who has power to heal every disease and to raise the dead, by a touch or a word, and who, in the course of his entire life only exercises that power in a few isolated instances, is worthy rather of the execration than the gratitude of mankind." our are!

The late Rev. Albert Barnes (Presbyterian, of Philadelphia) says: “An important question is whether there is any stronger evidence in favor of miracles than there is in favor of witchcraft, sorcery, reappearance of the dead, ghosts or apparitions; and if so, in what respect is the evidence in favor of the miracles of the Bible stronger than that which can be adduced in favor of witchcraft and sorcery? Has not the evidence in favor of these latter been derived from as competent and reliable witnesses as that in favor of miracles? Has not the evidence in favor of witchcraft and sorcery had, what the evidence in favor of miracles has not had, the advantage of a strict judicial investigation? Have not the most eminent. judges, in the most civilized and enlightened courts of Europe and America, admitted the force of such evidence (in favor of witchcraft and sorcery,) and on the ground of it committed great numbers of innocent persons to the gallows and to the stake?"

Judge Richard B. Westbrook, of Philadelphia, says: “The miracles claimed for the New Testament failed to convince the people, among whom they are said to have been wrought, of the divine mission of Jesus and his apostles, as shown by the treatment they received. * Miracles, sorcery and witchcraft were always based on the delusions of ignorance and superstition."

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"Miracles resolve themselves into the question whether it is more probable that the laws of Nature, hitherto so immutably harmonious, should have undergone violation; or that a man should have told a lie. We have many instances of men telling lies, none of an infraction of natural laws." (Shelley.)

"I have known theologians, occupying the highest positions in the Church, who frankly admitted among their own intimate friends, that physical miracles were impossible." (Max Muller.)

"Doubt of miracle is faith in the eternal order of Nature." (Lewis G. Janes.)

"Miracle is the negative of law."-(J. W. Chadwick.) "When miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation is out of the question."-(Kepler.)

"To exclude from history every event of a miraculous character is an absolute rule of criticism."-(Renan.)

"The world has trusted in the doctrine of miracle-mongers till skepticism became a condition of self-preservation." (Felix S. Oswald.)

"Miracles exist only for him who has not studied them." (Systéme de la Nature.)

Science demands the radical extirpation of caprice and the absolute reliance upon law in Nature."-(Tyndall.)

Hon. Andrew D. White expresses his disbelief in miracles in speaking of "that vast power which works in the universe in all things by law and in none by caprice."

As illustrating how insincere were some of the church fathers, in their pretended belief in miracles and in practising imposition on the ignorant, we quote from St. Chrysostom's writings (fourth century :) "Miracles are proper only to excite sluggish and vulgar minds; men of sense have no occasion for them."

"In our own time one of the most eminent and gifted of the prelates of the Romish Church, has expressed more or less distrust regarding miracles. The late Cardinal John Henry Newman said: "It is doubtless the tendency of religious