Temple, of London, said recently, "Would to God that I might stir you all to indignation-fierce and holy-against the horrible mischief that English traders do in heathen lands."

Is robbery civilizing and moral?

Benjamin Franklin has said that "a highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single, and a nation which makes an unjust war is only a great gang. What part of our globe is there where this highwayman of nations has not illustrated the robber maxim that "might makes right?

Think of the devastations of countries, the destruction of property, the despoliation of homes, the sacrifice of life, the misery, poverty and tears, the wretchedness and woe, that have been caused; the widows and orphans that have been made; to appease what Theodore Parker has called, "the earth hunger of the Anglo-Saxons."

(The substance of what follows has been largely taken from a magazine of a recent year.) Can we mention a single instance in which England's relations with a weaker government have been characterized by that large and even justice which distinguishes the philanthropist from the trader?

Can we name China? Is it one of the glories of "free trade" that is recorded in the histories of the seven years of the wars of 1840 and 1857—of the occupancy of Hong Kongof the forcible introduction into the empire of nine millions pounds sterling of opium every year?

Is it Spain, whose chief fortress was (in 1704) seized by England, at a time when peace existed between the two nations, and is retained-John Bright has told us-" contrary to every law of morality and honor?"

Is it India, of whose patient, dumb and famine-stricken people, even the very salt is taxed two thousand per cent., that England may prosecute Imperial wars, in which the Hindu has no voice?

Is it Afghanistan, struggling for its independence in resistance to what some of the greatest of England's statesmen have pronounced an utterly unjust and wicked war; but whose

voices were drowned by the popular clamor of men like Sir James Stephenson, who declared that "we are to decide according to our own interests?"

Is it Zululand, the first step of whose annexation has been taken by what has been called an unnecessary and criminal war? Is it the Transvaal, whose Boers saw their cherished independence rudely trampled under foot, when it seemed to conflict with English interests?

Is it Bulgaria, to the atrocious butchery and outrage of whose inhabitants by the Turk, the English ambassador could be officially blind for the sake of "English interests?"

Is it Cape Colony (seized in 1652); Jamaica (in 1665); Canada (1759); Australia (1788); Malta (1798)? Is it Cyprus -Egypt-Abyssinia-Burmah?

All, against the protests of the wisest and noblest of England's heritage of true men, but whose remonstrances were powerless against the popular postulatum-as enunciated by a leading London newspaper-"the preservation of our rule in the highest moral law."

Besides all which, these immoral, cruel and unjust acts have exerted a demoralizing influence upon the English people themselves.

Says Andrew Carnegie, "Governmental interference of a so-called civilized power, in the affairs of the most barbarous tribe on earth, is injurious to that tribe not only, but never under any circumstances-can it prove beneficial for the intruder."

Benjamin Franklin has expressed the same thought, and accounts for this intruder's "deficiency of justice and morality" by her "oppressive conduct to her subjects and unjust wars on her neighbors?"

If the religion which asserts that "nations must answer for their sins" be true, then will England have a longer and blacker list of crimes to "answer" for than any nation in either ancient or modern times, for-as John S. C. Abbot, the historian, has said-"there is no nation in Christendom whose annals are stained with so many acts of unmitigated villainy as those of Great Britain."

THE FAMOUS THIRTY-SIX INFIDELS.

IN the New York Tribune of November 9th, 1887, appeared a

George Henderson Smyth, minister of the Second Reformed Church of this city, in which sermon it was stated that many years ago there existed a society of thirty-six Infidels; that on one occasion they baptized a cat and gave communion to a dog, and that within a year from that time the entire membership of the society was exterminated by death. The report added that Grant B. Taylor, Esq., a lawyer of Newburgh, had investigated the statement and found it to be true.

This was so astounding a recital that I wrote to the lastnamed gentleman, saying that if it was true it ought to be spread wide as a warning to "Infidels." If not true, it ought promptly to be contradicted, in the interest of truth; and asking him to be kind enough to furnish authority therefor. In answer to this he referred me to "The History of Orange County, published by Evarts & Peck, of Philadelphia, page 267, et seq.," adding that "Dr. John Johnston's life, therein referred to, has a full account of the affair."

I also wrote to Rev. G. Henderson Smyth a letter, similar to that written to Mr. Taylor, and in answer thereto Mr. Smyth referred me to a book called Ad Fidem, written by Rev. E. F. Burr, D. D., on reference to which I find it stated (page 259) in substance, that of this "Druidical (or Infidel) Society," one died a violent death the same day, one was found dead in bed the next day, one died in a fit three days after, one was frozen to death, two were starved to death, three died "accidentally," five committed suicide, seven were drowned, seven died on the gallows, eight were shot in all thirty-six.

Dr. Burr adds: "In short, within five years (not one year, as Mr. Smyth stated) from the organization of the society, every one of the original thirty-six members died in some unnatural manner."

Determining to press my inquiries still further, I wrote to the Rev. E. F. Burr, D. D. (at Lyme, Ct.), asking him to favor me with the source of his information on this matter. He replied that I could find the account in Arvine's Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdote.

Referring to this most remarkable collection of miraculous events! I found substantially what Dr. Burr had stated, but without quoting a single authority. Rev. Dr. Arvine adds: "Of the foregoing statement there is good proof; they have been certified before Justices of the Peace in New York;" but the certificates (or affidavits) are (suspiciously) omitted from the record.

I have made every possible effort to ascertain the whereabouts-if living-of Dr. Arvine, or some corroboration of these extra-natural events, but without success. I have consulted, I believe, every known historical authority for information and proof of these marvelous statements.

In Evarts and Peck's History of Orange County, (to which Mr. Taylor referred me), a Society of Druids is mentioned, but the record is silent as to the amazing circumstances related by Mr. Smyth, except what is stated on the authority of Rev. Dr. John Johnston, viz: after mentioning the mock communion incident, Dr. J. is quoted as saying that "the principle actor in this impious transaction did not long survive; on the following Sabbath evening he was found convulsed with awful spasms, and died without being able to utter a word. (July 2d, 1799.)"

Eager's History of Orange County mentions a Society of Druids, but gives no particulars whatever.

Mr. H. Spencer Clarke, an old resident of Newburgh, to whom I wrote for information on the subject says with reference to the story, "that any such direful effects ever followed is flatly contradicted by several old residents whom I have

questioned, and in whose veracity I have the fullest confidence." Another correspondent at Newburgh, also an old resident, and who was personally acquainted with its oldest. inhabitants, writes: "Rev. Dr. Johnston's account has always been criticised, particularly the mock ceremony."

In Rev. Dr. Wm. B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, is a sketch of Dr. Johnston's life (pp. 396-401), in which no allusion is made to these remarkable circumstances. The sketch is concluded with a letter (giving recollections of Dr. Johnston) by Rev. John Forsyth, D. D., in which the "Society of Ancient Druids" is mentioned; but not a word with regard to the untimely end of the thirty-six members of the Society, nor indeed of any of them.

I have also consulted the Autobiography of Rev. John Johnston, D. D., with an Appendix, by Rev. James Carnahan, D. D. (1856); but neither furnishes any particulars additional to what I have already referred to, nor any authority whatever for what statements are made.

Ruttenber's History of the Town of Newburgh, gives an account of what Rev. Dr. Johnston is quoted as saying, with reference to the Druid Society, but does not, by any manner of means, present it as "history." On the contrary, in answer to a letter I wrote to him on this matter, he says: "My examination of the subject, from written and printed evidence and conversation with living, impartial actors in the occurrences, led me to assert that the stories told by Dr. Johnston et al., was gossip, almost pure and simple. I traced the deaths of several of the most pronounced cases, and found that unnatural deaths came to none of them, while others lived to be old men. The stories you speak of have been repeated in religious circles so long, however, that many will believe them, no matter what the denials, and hold up holy hands in horror against any denial of a tradition that has religious sanction. It is no consequence to me what men may say, or who says it, nor what the motives. I know the stories are mostly false and wretchedly perverted from the truth."

Let us analyze Mr. Smyth's story, for the purpose of detecting what truth, if any, there is in it: