To set the Breakfast-Table free.
AMERICAN INCREDULITY.
In a speech delivered at New York on "Forefathers' Day," the Rev. Henry Beecher, discoursing of the "Pilgrim Fathers," said:—
"That they had their faults we all know. They brought with them some of the prejudices of Europe, and had not freed themselves from notions of persecution. They believed, above all things, in the existence and power of the evil one. The devil was everywhere in their thoughts. In our modern times we have gone free from that superstition. We of New York know there is no such being."
In the early days of New England anyone who owned to being an Adiabolist would have been deemed an Atheist. But then there was no Tammany or Erie Ring. Plunder and fraud, picking and stealing, are courses from which some natures can only be restrained by the piety which firmly believes in the personality, cornute and caudal, of Milton's hero. "We of New York know there is no such being." Do we? We think we do, but may have flattered ourselves.
Printed by Joseph Smith of No. 24, Holford Square, in the Parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, in the County of Middlesex, at the Printing Offices of Messrs. Bradbury, Evans, & Co., Lombard Street, in the Precinct of Whitefriars, in the City of London, and Published by him at No. 85, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride, City of London.—Saturday, January 20, 1872.