A DEIST. 33 



literally, some of us had uncomfortable experience). He had 

 been brought up to the best of the cunning of his parents and 

 friends, a strict ist ; and nothing can be more character 

 istic of the blundering progress likely to be made by a man 

 cramped with an &quot; education,&quot; after the cowardly fashion to 

 which the stiff-necked people of England so generally condemn 

 their children, than his account of his coming to Deism. 



While quite young, he said that he saw inconsistencies in 

 the religious doctrines w r hich had been battered into him, and 

 for years labored painfully and devoutly to reconcile them ; 

 yet each dogma, however contradicted by another, seemed 

 plainly to rest on Bible language (always understanding that 

 language as interpreted by his teachers), constantly looking 

 into every thing else that came in his way, he obtained from 

 itinerant lecturers some knowledge of phrenology, and read 

 ing a few books upon it, and practising among his fellow- 

 workmen, he soon acquired not only a good deal of theo 

 retical understanding of the science, and acuteness in discern 

 ing character, but considerable skill as a manipulator. So, 

 as he moved from place to place, sometimes, I suspect, giving 

 lectures himself also upon it, he had accumulated experience 

 that to him incontestably proved the foundation in nature of 

 the science. He was still a church-going man, and still wor 

 shipped under the shadow of his congenital creed, still trying 

 to reconcile what seemed its discrepancies, when one day he 

 read in the religious newspapers of his sect an article on 

 phrenology, in which the reverend editor, in strong terms, 

 declared its devilish origin and untruth. 



His argument, what there was of it, for his strength was 

 mostly spent in ridicule, denunciation, and everlasting con- 

 demnation, was based on the assumption that phrenology 

 was inconsistent with free will and moral responsibility, 

 therefore irreconcilable with the Bible. To listen to phre- 



