than a septuagint of _new_
planetoids.

ON RELIGIOUS INSURANCE.

The Constitution and Rules of the Ancient and Universal 'Benefit
Society' established by Jesus Christ, exhibited, and its advantages and
claims maintained, against all Modern and {346} merely Human
Institutions of the kind: A Letter very respectfully addressed to the
Rev. James Everett,[723] and occasioned by certain remarks made by him,
in a speech to the Members of the 'Wesleyan Centenary Institute'
Benefit Society. Dated York, Dec. 7, 1840. By Thomas Smith.[724] 12mo,
(pp. 8.)

The Wesleyan minister addressed had advocated provision against old age,
etc.: the writer declares all _private_ provision un-Christian. After
decent maintenance and relief of family claims of indigence, he holds that
all the rest is to go to the "Benefit Society," of which he draws up the
rules, in technical form, with chapters of "Officers," "Contributors" etc.,
from the Acts of the Apostles, etc., and some of the early Fathers. He
holds that a Christian may not "make a _private_ provision against the
contingencies of the future": and that the great "Benefit Society" is the
divinely-ordained recipient of all the surplus of his income; capital,
beyond what is necessary for business, he is to have none. A real good
speculator shuts his eyes by instinct, when opening them would not serve
the purpose: he has the vizor of the Irish fairy tale, which fell of itself
over the eyes of the wearer the moment he turned them upon the enchanted
light which would have destroyed him if he had caught sight of it. "Whiles
it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it (the
purchase-money) not in thine own power?" would have been awkward to quote,
and accordingly nothing is stated except the well-known result, which is
rule 3, cap. 5, "Prevention of Abuses." By putting his principles together,
the author can be made, logically, to mean that the successors of the
apostles should put to death all contributors who are detected in not
paying their full premiums.

{347}

I have known one or two cases in which policy-holders have surrendered
their policies through having arrived at a conviction that direct provision
is unlawful. So far as I could make it out, these parties did not think it
unlawful to lay by out of income, except when this was done in a manner
which involved calculation of death-chances. It is singular they did not
see that t