on" we may
write a few pages, as it is her religious manifesto.

In this work, the lady asserts her pantheistical doctrine, and openly
attacks the received Christian creed. She declares it to be useless now,
and unfitted to the exigencies and the degree of culture of the actual
world; and, though it would be hardly worth while to combat her opinions
in due form, it is, at least, worth while to notice them, not merely
from the extraordinary eloquence and genius of the woman herself, but
because they express the opinions of a great number of people besides:
for she not only produces her own thoughts, but imitates those of others
very eagerly; and one finds in her writings so much similarity with
others, or, in others, so much resemblance to her, that the book before
us may pass for the expression of the sentiments of a certain French
party.

"Dieu est mort," says another writer of the same class, and of great
genius too.--"Dieu est mort," writes Mr. Henry Heine, speaking
of the Christian God; and he adds, in a daring figure of
speech;--"N'entendez-vous pas sonner la Clochette?--on porte les
sacremens a un Dieu qui se meurt!" Another of the pantheist poetical
philosophers, Mr. Edgar Quinet, has a poem, in which Christ and the
Virgin Mary are made to die similarly, and the former is classed with
Prometheus. This book of "Spiridion" is a continuation of the theme, and
perhaps you will listen to some of the author's expositions of it.

It must be confessed that the controversialists of the present day have
an eminent advantage over their predecessors in the days of folios;
it required some learning then to write a book, and some time, at
least--for the very labor of writing out a thousand such vast pages
would demand a considerable period. But now, in the age of duodecimos,
the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist
draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead
of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has
it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our
shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of
proselytism--those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false sentiment,
false reasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and
piety--I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or man, be he ever
so silly, can take upon himself to write, and sell for a penny, as if
religious instruction were th