The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-25 00:00:00

things that will not bear discussion, and that an in-
quiry into its evidences must necessarily be fatal to
its pretensions. I opposed it, indeed but I opposed
it only with the_ most noble and ingenuous challenge
that Was ever proposed to rational men. Nunkfingo :
num mentior? Cnpio refelli, quid enim laboro, nisi
zct veritas in omni qucestione illustretur. I beg leave,
gentlemen, to hand you a copy of this discourse.
Lord TENTsaisEN—You cannot ask the Jury to
read any thing which is not proved. It must be
put in evidence, or they cannot read it.
Mr. Taylor—Gentlemen, this oration fully ex-
plains the principles on which our Society
.was
founded, the rules by which it was conducted, and
the end at which it aims. On that day I waited on
the then Lord Mayor, in person, to request not
merely his allowance, but his patronage and support
of so unexceptionable and useful an institution. His
allowance, at least, and that of his successor, sanc-
tioned the known and publicly advertised continu-
ance of our meetings through two whole years, in
the course of which I ,have delivered upwards of a
hundred popular orations in exposure of the fallacies
and sophisms which abound in the writings of Chris-
tian divines, and have achieved the conviction of
many thousands of 'persons, without incurring any
menace of intended magisterial interference, without
any apprehension, on my part, that I had ever sub-
jected myself to such interference. You will ob-
serve, gentlemen, upon how candid a principle the
disctissions of the Christian Evidence Society have
been conducted from the very first, and you will
calculate as you please the chances whether they
could possibly have continued so long, would have
been patronised as they were; or oppoSed as they
have been, had they been conducted on any other
principles. Ministers, preachers, and competently
learned persons of all religious persuasions, were
earnestly invited to become the advocates of the faith
which they profess, before assemblies of intelligent
and respectable persons convened to hear both sides,
and who only required to be reasoned with as men.
Of the intellectual competence of the persons by
whom they were thus invited to the lists of contro-
versy, it becomes not me to speak, further than in
assurance that it is-not the very highest order of educa-
tion that England can confer upon hersons that could
guarantee that competence, if it were not to be encoun-
tered in the Areopagus. Of the part I held in these
discussions I claim no further consideration, gentle-
men, than your observance, that had my orations been
no better than my enemies would have them thought
to be, I should not have been here this day ; for it
was not till I had acquired a considerable popularity
—till the society had bei:ome possessed of a real
property, and the zeal and attachment of its Members
had given assurance to the public of the probability
of its permanent continuance, that our enemies
discovered the impotence of an affected contempt.
It will not bear telling to rational men that
such an edifice•as the Areopagus had been pur-
chased by voluntary subscription, and the ninety-
third oration attracted to that Areopagus a crowded
and intelligent audience, to listen to an orator whose
declamations had been destitute of argument; whose
style had been characterised by coarseness, or whose
language had been tainted with obscenity.--
Must I tell you, gentlemen, that the language of the
Old Testament, and certain passages of the New,
were, for any reason you may please to guess at,
never allowed to be quoted in the Areopagus ? It
has also been a standing rule of the Society, that the
being and attributes of the Almighty should never
be brought in question ; and that, not merely with a
view to confine the range of argument to the pre-
scribed topic, but to prevent the possibility of the
least approximation to any thing that could be deem-
ed profane, atheistical, or wicked; and I can confi-
dently appeal to the ladies of the Areopagus,—of
character as far above the breath of calumny to
taint, as the wife or daughter of any individual in
this Court,—that from my lips they never heard an
unpolished period, never any other than the very
chastest of language, and the noblest and • best of
sentiments. But the gravamen of the charge against
these philosophical institutions, it seems, is their ap-
prehensien of " mischievous influence upon the
minds of young persons especially." Now, how
regard ye, gentlemen, this audacious frontispiece of
hypocrisy ?—that influencing the minds of young
persons should be held to be so capitally criminal in
us by those who never made a convert to their own
opinions of any adult rational person in all the world,
whose ascendancy over the human understanding is
achieved only in the nurseries of infancy and in the
chambers of decrepitude, and who have instituted
their gospel-propagating and missionary bubbles for
the avowed purpose of preachiag to barbarians and
savages—to Caffres; Caribbees, and Hottentots—or
the fetid Samoeid and the fierce Lascar, the doc-
trines which they see secretly despised, or publicly
abjured, by the most intelligent and ♦irtuous men in
civilized society.
Lord TENTERDEN—No Sir, that is not so. The
wisest and best men of society are far from abjuring
those doctrines.

Mr. Taylor proceeded—But, Gentlemen, above
all things, I claim your very special consideration to
the characteristic feature of the Christian Evidence
Society, that the mode of argument adopted in fhe
Areopagus happens to be precisely that which ob-
tains in the Divinity Schools in Camtoridge, of which
I have the honour of being a member, and where, as
a necessary , discipline to the obtaining of their
Bachelor of Arts' degree, the students dispute in
Latin, both for and against the Christian religion;
and I have won high honour there for doing the very
thing for which my enemies would have me disgraced
and ruined here.. I leave it then, with sufficient
satisfaction of my own mind, to the conclusion of
any man who has a mind, whether it be any thing
like justice or fairness to make it a distinCtion, that
a thing may be spoken in Latin, which may not be
spoken in English; that that which is orthodoxy in
Cambridge, should become blasphenny in London;
or whether it be I, or they.whom•l oppose, who re-
flect the greater dishonour on Christianity; I bring-
it forth to the light, which every thing that is true
would seek to be set in; they, by their conduct, be-
traying their conviction that Christianity will not
bear the light, that public discussion will be danger-
ous, that ridicule and sarcasm will be fatal to it.
upon my honour, think that they will be so; but
surely it is barbarous to punish me for this, in the
teeth Of so strong a presumption that they think so
too; the only difference between us being, that I am
an unbeliever, and an honest one ; they are un-
believers, but as honest as you may, reckon them
to be. Allow me, Gentlemen, theindulgence of letting
a friend read for me a few passages from the inaugural
oration, and the manifesto of the Christian Evidence
Society; and if you shall afterwards think that a
society founded on the principles there avowed ought
not to be tolerated, I shall complain of no verdict
you may please to agree on, but resign myself to the
fate of all good men,who have made their calculation
that it is better to suffer wrong than to do it ; and
that man cannot suffer in a better cause than to un-
deceive and disabuse a priest-ridden pe6ple-7to re-
cover them from the insanity of a barbarous super-
stition—to reclaim their minds to reason, and their
hearts to virtue.

_ .
AlrrWY SY I.,t,axapi an'4locEsr, cp.,05':,37;!
Hare I your Lordship's permission to have some
quotations read to the Jury ?
Lord TRITERDEN—NOU may read them as part of
your address; but the Jury cannot receive them as
any thing else than as part of your speech unless put
in and proved.
!Mr. Taylor—Will your Lordship allow me the
favour of letting them be read by a friend—my
attorney ?
Lord TENTERDEN—NO ; I
.cannot allow that ; I
'am in no burry. Any time for rest, any accommo-
dation—refreshment, you want, shall be given to
you ; but you do not seem to stand in need of assist-
ance. You are very well able to proceed. I must
do in this as in other cases.

Mr. Taylor then proceeded—Gentlemen, I slial
take the liberty of reading a passage from this ]his.
course. It is as follows :

" The importance of theological discussions, even to
those who might think it but equivocally established in the
recorded practice and positive injunctions of the first twit-