CONTENTS PUBLISHER’S PREFACE THE FALLEN STAR, or, THE HISTORY OF A FALSE RELIGION AN ALLEGORY OF THE STARS. FORMING A NEW RELIGION. CONCLUSION ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL A DISSERTATION ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. FOOTNOTES: FOOTNOTES:...

RELIGION, says Noah Webster in his American Dictionary of the English Language , is derived from “Religo, to bind anew;” and, in this History of a False Religion , our author has shown how easily its votaries were insnared, deceived, and mentally bound in a labyrinth of falsehood and error, by a designing knave, who established a new religion and a new order of priesthood by imposing on their ignorance and credulity. The history of the origin of one supernatural religion will, with slight altera

And the Stars sat, each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. It was the night ushering in the new year, a night on which every star receives from the archangel that then visits the universal galaxy, its peculiar charge. The destinies of men and empires are then portioned forth for the coming year, and, unconsciously to ourselves, our fates become minioned to the stars. A hushed and solemn night is that in which the dark gates of time open to receive the ghost of th

By a rude and vast pile of stones, the masonry of arts forgotten, a lonely man sat at midnight, gazing upon the heavens. A storm had just passed from the earth—the clouds had rolled away, and the high stars looked down upon the rapid waters of the Rhine; and no sound save the roar of the waves and the dripping of the rain from the mighty trees, was heard around the ruined pile: the white sheep lay scattered on the plain, and slumber with them. He sat watching over the herd, lest the foes of a ne

It was the last night of the old year, and the stars sat, each upon his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. The night was dark and troubled, the dread winds were abroad, and fast and frequent hurried the clouds beneath the thrones of the kings of night. But ever and anon fiery meteors flashed along the depths of heaven, and were again swallowed up in the graves of darkness. And far below his brethren, and with a lurid haze around his orb, sat the discontented star that h

The question which has more than, any other harassed metaphysical reasoners, but especially theologians, and upon which it is probable that no very satisfactory conclusion will ever be reached by the human faculties, is the Origin and Sufferance of Evil. Its existence being always assumed, philosophers have formed various theories for explaining it, but they have always drawn very different inferences from it. The ancient Epicureans argued against the existence of the Deity, because they held th