In taking a candid survey of the teaching, manner, and life of Jesus as it is written in the evangelists, we find that both he and his apostles lived a wandering life. How they raised funds, we know not, but it seems that Judas Iscariot was treasurer; and that he loved money better than he did his master, his betraying him to the rulers for thirty pieces of silver, fully proved. His having no fixed home, and following no regular and permanent employment, will throw some light on the system of morals which Jesus inculcated. Although some of his moral precepts were undoubtedly good, and calculated to make those happy who reduced them to practice, still others there were, which, if practised, would create disorder-—such as that which repudiates the taking any thought for the morrow. There is a vast difference in taking prudential thought for the morrow, and always looking at the gloomy side of what may possibly happen. Jesus makes no distinction; but in his explanation he leaves the subject more obscure than if he had not left any comment at all. Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” And again, “Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor wherewithal ye shall be clothed, for your heavenly father knoweth ye have need of all these. But seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Again, “If a man sue you at law and take your coat, let him have your cloak also:” and many more precepts of the same nature, which are impracticable, and which must be left to prudence and common sense to carry into practice.

But this very imperfect code of morals could be practised better by Jesus and his followers, considering their mode of life, than by others who had fixed homes. How Jesus and his apostles lived, as to their means to buy food or clothing, is unknown,—unless they lived the lives of mendicants, or, to speak more plainly, by what they could pick up, which is implied in the saying of Christ: “for,” says he, “foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has not where to lay his head,” To persons so situated, the taking thought for the morrow would be but of little use; but by those persons who had homes, and who, by labor, had to provide for a family, such morality could not be practised. We will give but one instance.

Suppose a person had business from home for some weeks, and had given his wife orders to provide his linen, with other things, for his journey; and when the time arrived for him to leave home, his wife had, agreeable to the precepts of Jesus, taken no thought for the morrow,—would such an excuse satisfy the husband? No. Prudent forethought is connected with every thing moral; and without it, society would be entirely broken up. But to persons living a wandering life, and not knowing from one day to another how they should fare; and rising in the morning ignorant how it might turn out as to where they could lie down at night—to such, the sayings of Jesus would better apply. But to those who were settled and had fixed homes, the taking no thought for the morrow would break up every family who should attempt it. Had we been of the Jewish nation, and lived in the time of Jesus, in all probability we should have considered the conduct of Christ very strange. Sometimes, he upbraided the Jews for their unbelief; and at others, charged his own apostles to keep as a secret that he was the Christ.

The only way to understand this strange history of the Messiah is, to reject the account of his preaching altogether; and to consider the whole of his ministry as being written by unknown persons from hearsay only. And it is nearly proof positive that no such person as Jesus existed, who said and did those things ascribed to him; for it is utterly impossible by his history, admitting it to be correct, to gather, from the evangelists’ account of it, for what he came, and also what end was answered to the Jews. They we're left in a worse state than if Jesus had not been among them: for, as the Jews mistook the object of his mission in consequence of the obscurity of his preaching, so the different sects, to this day, have not decided what is Christianity.

The history of the life and preaching of Jesus, is such a confusion of opposite doctrines, that, after eighteen hundred years’ investigation, by men the most learned; and after thousands and tens of thousands of volumes have been written, and commentators have endeavored to settle the different and conflicting accounts of what he taught, it still remains unsettled whether Christ is part God and part man, or whether he had a natural father, and is to be considered as nothing but a man, but of superior holiness of life. It is not settled whether Christ died for all, or only a part of the human race. Again, it is not yet agreed on by Christian sects whether baptism should be extended to infants, or be administered exclusively to adults. These, and many more subjects, are by different parties viewed differently; at the same time all and each appeal to the New Testament in support of their respective creeds.

I will now appeal to the reader whether a God of infinite wisdom and power would be the author of a religion which could give rise to so many contradictory doctrines? which in the life-time of the propagator was not understood? and for eighteen hundred years has been a fruitful field of discord, war, and murder, instead of producing “peace on earth and good-will towards men?” It has never failed to be a source of war, hatred, malice, and ill-will towards men; and nothing but the extension of Infidel Principles can secure the human race against a recurrence of those dreadful scenes, which, for ages, converted this otherwise happy world into a slaughter house of human victims. To my brother Infidels, then, I say, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” If you cease from your noble exertions, the human race may again exhibit one mass of theological putrefaction. If Infinite wisdom and power had ever undertaken to give a revelation to man, we should not have witnessed any blunders or mistakes. A revelation coming from such a being, would have been directed to some beneficial end, and, like the eternal laws of the universe, the means made use of would not have failed to bring about the glorious end intended. But the Bible, including the Old and New Testaments, is not only unworthy of its pretended high authority; but it portrays the all-wise Governor and Director of all worlds as a being changeable, cruel, and unjust.

In addition to the obscure manner resorted to by Jesus in his speeches, he seldom conversed with any of his countrymen of any distinction. It was always the lower ranks of society to whom he directed his sayings; so that, to the most learned and opulent of the Jews, he was little known; for when the higher powers were about to take him into custody, to them he was unknown. It then became expedient to offer a reward to some one to point him out to the officers appointed to arrest him. Judas Iscariot was the man who seemed willing as well as competent, to conduct this ungrateful business. Jesus had often said that one of his apostles would betray him. There is something very strange in the saying of Jesus, that he had chosen twelve apostles and one would betray him. If Jesus came to the Jews as the promised and expected Messiah, the very idea of betraying him implies that he did not intend that the Jews should ever know him as the sent of God. At all events, Jesus, at the time Judas made him personally known to the chief priest and rulers, complained of the deceitfulness of Judas, which is full proof that he did not wish at that time to be put on his trial.

But in what did this betraying consist? The Jewish rulers wished to have the man pointed out to them who had made so much noise and stir among the lower order of the people. Judas took the reward, and if Jesus were really sent by the Lord of all to his nation, this betraying was only giving him an opportunity of openly avowing his Messiahship. Here then was the time for him to show such signs and wonders as to prevent any doubts as to who he was, and of the important object of his coming; for if he came into the world to die for the sins of mankind, Judas then was of vast importance in bringing about that which was before ordained by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. But if he (Jesus) did not intend to suffer death, then, and only then, had he cause to complain of Judas as a traitor. Jesus, in speaking of Judas, says, “it had been good for that man if he had never been born:” but if the salvation of mankind depended on the death of Christ, a more important person than Judas was never born of woman. Whether such a man as Jesus ever lived or not, it is impossible to determine; but admitting that such a man as he is said to have been, did exist, it does appear that his life was a scene of incongruities bordering on insanity. And the whole of his public ministry was so erratic, that it seems as if he had no specific object in view.

[CHAPTER IV.]

NOTHING can be more unreasonable than to admit, for a moment, that the Almighty Power which governs the vast unbounded universe, should be the author, either directly or indirectly, of a system which has produced so much cruelty, carnage, and bloodshed, as the Christian Religion—a very large portion of which has been brought about by the discordant doctrines attributed to the preaching of Christ. If God is its author, (which is more than doubtful,) if, in addition to the evils with which human nature is afflicted, he had intended to make man’s misery complete, the Christian religion seems well adapted to secure that end, for it is the key-stone of human wretchedness. A great amount of evil has resulted from the different sects that have arisen from the New Testament.