e two of his works as heretical ("Christianity not Mysterious,"
and "Amyntor,") he hastened to England, and published two letters to the
Prolucutor, which were never laid before Convocation. He insisted that
he should be heard in his own defence before sentence was passed on
his works; but as usual this wish was denied him. A legal difficulty
prevented the bishops from prosecuting the works, and Toland gave the
world a full account in his "Vindicius Liberius."

The "Letters to Serena," written in a bold, honest, unflinching manner,
were the next performances of Toland. The first letter is on "The Origin
and Force of Prejudices." It is founded on a reflection of Cicero, that
all prejudices spring from moral, and not physical sources, and while
all admit the power of the senses to be infallible, all strive to
corrupt the judgment, by false metaphor and unjust premises. Toland
traces the progress of superstition from the hands of a midwife to those
of a priest, and shows how the nurse, parent, schoolmaster, professor,
philosopher, and politician, all combine to warp the mind of man by
fallacies from his progress in childhood, at school, at college, and
in the world. How the child is blinded with an idea, and the man with
a word. The second letter is "A History of the Soul's Immortality Among
the Heathens." A lady had been reading Platers "Phaedo," and remarked
as to how Cato could derive any consolation from the slippery and vague
suppositions of that verbiant dialogue. Toland, therefore, for her
edification, drew up a list of the specifications of the ancients on the
subject, analysing (in its progress) the varying phases of the fables of
the Elysian fields, the Charons, the Styx, etc., deriving them all from
the ancient Egyptians. Toland thought the idea had arisen among the
people, like our witches, ghosts, and fairy stories, and subsequently
defended by the philosophers, who sought to rule their passions by
finding arguments for their superstitions, and thus the rise of their
exoteric and esoteric doctrines were the first foundations of the belief
in the immortality of the soul. The third letter is on "The Origin of
Idolatry," or, as it might rather be called, a history of the follies
of mankind. He traces the causes, the origin, and the science of
superstition--its phenomena and its devotees, proving that all the
sacrifices, prayers, and customs of idolatry are the same in all ages,
they only differ in language and ada