tter, subsisted from eternity, and will for ever subsist; but
the present regular frame of nature had a beginning, and will have
an end. The parts tend towards a dissolution, but the whole remains
immutably the same. The world is liable to destruction from the
prevalence of moisture, or of dryness; the former producing a universal
inundation, the latter a universal conflagration. These succeed each
other in nature as regularly as winter and summer. When the universal
inundation takes place, the whole surface of the earth is covered with
water, and all animal life is destroyed; after which, nature is renewed
and subsists as before, till the element of fire, becoming prevalent in
its turn, dries up all the moisture, converts every substance into its
own nature, and at last, by a universal conflagration, reduces the world
to its pristine state. At this period, all material forms are lost in
one chaotic mass: all animated nature is re-united to the Deity, and
nature again exists in its original form, as one whole, consisting of
God and matter. From this chaotic state, however, it again emerges, by
the energy of the efficient principle, and gods, and men, and all the
forms of regulated nature, are renewed, and to be dissolved and renewed
in endless succession. The above is collated from Ritter, Enfield,
and Lewes, as a specimen of one of the earlier phases of Freethought.
Freethought as then expressed had many faults and flaws, but it has
grown better every day, extending and widening its circle of utterance,
and we hope that it will continue to do so.

"I."

MATTHEW TINDAL.

It is easy to mark the progress of the age by recurring to the history
of past Freethinkers. Bishops, established and dissenting, are now
repeating the parts the old Deiste played. _They_ were sadly treated for
setting the example, modern divines follow with applause.

Matthew Tindal was an example of this. He labored to establish religion
on the foundation of Reason and Nature. It was to be expected that
Christians would be pleased at efforts which would have no effect but
to strengthen its foundations. The effort was met by reprobation, and
resented as an injury. It is but a just retaliation that believers
should now have to establish in vain that evidence they once denounced.

Matthew Tindal was an English Deistical writer, who was born at
Beer-Terres, in Devonshire, 1656.--His father, it appears, was a
clergyman, who held the living of Be