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HAVE written this novel with the intention of showing the danger of entrusting the government of Church and State in the hands of theoretical speculators, who carry on their trades or callings without opposition, or without permitting open criticisms on their conduct and logic.

Ministers of the sectarian denominations have thus grown impudent and hardened in their sanctimonious work, who dare not be opposed with impunity; and they claim a holy right to usurp every means, good and ill, to sustain their false positions, which has been shown in their acts toward myself, as partly portrayed in this story.

My trial and imprisonment for publishing a scientific physiological book, and the several attempts to assassinate me, also the newspaper libels and sectarian connivings, as laid down in this novel, are all truer than most of the preaching that we hear from the fashionable rostrums.

I have drawn a heavy picture on both sides; however, I am convinced that the Protestant sectarian leaders, if they were a unit, as the Roman Catholics are, would do worse deeds than are given in this story; but instead of being a unit, they have several hundred sects, each hating the other, which may be the only benefit of the many sects.

The hero of the plot, as well as the heroine, Victor and Lucinda, are two people after mine own heart, and I would do things precisely as they are portrayed by them if I had it in my power! Moreover, I hope all thinking people will appreciate the charity of dealing summarily with those who misrepresent God, Nature and Jesus Christ, and who by so doing have bankrupted everything until the immutable laws of the Creator are spurned, whilst the traditions of