to him throughout with the air of a man who is delighted
at the good things he is hearing, and exactly in the cue to
enjoy all the other good things that he is sure will follow.
Mr. Campbell's watch was the only one which reminded us that we
had listened to him for half an hour; and having continued
speaking for a few minutes after he had looked at it, he sat down
with, I should think, the universal admiration of his auditory.

Mr. Owen again addressed us; and his first five minutes were
occupied in complimenting Mr. Campbell with all the strength
his exceeding hearty laughter had left him. But then he changed
his tone, and said the business was too serious to permit the
next half hour to pass so lightly and so pleasantly as the last;
and then he read us what he called his twelve fundamental laws
of human nature. These twelve laws he has taken so much trouble
to circulate to all the nations of the earth, that it must be
quite unnecessary to repeat them here. To me they appear
twelve truisms, that no man in his senses would ever think of
contradicting; but how any one can have conceived that the
explanation and defence of these laws could furnish forth
occupation for his pen and his voice, through whole years of
unwearying declamation, or how he can have dreamed that they
could be twisted into a refutation of the Christian religion,
is a mystery which I never expect to understand.

From this time Mr. Owen entrenched himself behind his twelve
laws, and Mr. Campbell, with equal gravity, confined himself to
bringing forward the most elaborate theological authorities in
evidence of the truth of revealed religion.

Neither appeared to me to answer the other; but to confine
themselves to the utterance of what they had uppermost in their
own minds when the discussion began. I lamented this on the side
of Mr. Campbell, as I am persuaded he would have been much more
powerful had he trusted more to himself and less to his books.
Mr. Owen is an extraordinary man, and certainly possessed of
talent, but he appears to me so utterly benighted in the mists
of his own theories, that he has quite lost the power of looking
through them, so as to get a peep at the world as it really
exists around him.

At the conclusion of the debate (which lasted for fifteen
sittings) Mr. Campbell desired the whole assembly to sit down.
They obeyed. He then requested all who wished well to
Christianity to rise, and a very large majority were i