Lord, which was
quite enough to make anybody sick. He pointed out the many interesting
examples of faith and obedience which had been set by the scaly race,
who were not only at all times easy to be caught in the gospel net, when
thrown over them by the preaching of the word, but were always ready to
surrender their existence to the Almighty, whenever he pleased to drop
'em a line. That as the first preachers of the gospel were fishermen,
so the preachers of the gospel, to this day, might truly be said to
be looking after the loaves and fishes, and they who, as the Scripture
says, are 'wise to catch soles,' speak to them for no other purpose than
that for which the Lord spake unto the whale--that is, to ascertain how
much they can swallow. The moral of this pungent persiflage, aimed
to admonish the proud and uncharitable believer, who expected his
acceptance with the deity on the score of his credulity, that when his
credulity was fairly put to trial, it might be found that he was in
reality as far from believing what he did not take to be true as the
most honest and avowed Infidel. 'Thou then who wouldst put a trick
upon infinite wisdom, and preferest the imagined merit of a weak
understanding to the real utility of an honest heart--thou who wouldst

'Compound for sins thou art inclined to,
By damning those thou hast no mind to;'

hast thou no fears for thy presumptuous self? Thou believest only that
which seemeth to thee to be true; what does the Atheist less? And that
which appeareth to be a lie thou rejectest; what does the Atheist more?
Can we think that God has given us reason only to betray us, and made
us so much superior to the brute creation, only to deal with us so much
worse than they, to punish us for making the best use we could of the
faculties he has given us, and to make the very excellence of our nature
the cause of our damnation?'"

This concluded his connection with the Church of England, and his
brother having consented to make him an allowance of one pound per week
if he would quit England, he retired to the Isle of Man. After nine
weeks his brother ceased to remit; and to support himself, Taylor wrote
for the two newspapers then published in the island, but his articles
attracting attention, he was summoned before the Bishop, and compelled
to quit the island under a threat of imprisonment. In deep distress, he
went to Dublin, where he lectured on Deism until 1824, when he came to
Lon