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Mary, by the instrumentality of the Holy Ghost; and that she will be delivered of a male child, the Shiloh promised to the Jews, about the middle of October next. This miraculous conception, it is said, was foretold by Joanna prior to the month of Oc tober, 1813-on the 14th day of which month, at midnight, it is pretended, the divine impregnation took place. On this part of the subject she says, in one of her books, that "this sign is set to prove the truth of the gospel, or to prove that the

if the visitation of the Lord does not produce a son this year, then Jesus Christ was NOT the son of God, born in the manner spoken by the Virgin Mary; but if I have a son this year, then, u like

declared it to be their "firm belief, that I redemption."-Bat the most extraordinary her prophecies, and other spiritual commu- part of Joanna's pretensions, is that of her nications, emanate wholly and entirely being actually with child, like the Virgin from the spirit of the Living Lord." Her further progress and success, are thus described by her biographer :"Joanna has visited in her missionary capacity, Bristol, Leeds, Old Swinford, Stockport, &c. &c. At Old Swinford she has many adherents; and at Leeds her followers are very numerous. Joanna has for some years been stationary in London, living with an amiable lady, who (much to ker praise) disposes of her income, in what the esteens the service of God. Joanna's cause in I ondon has been, for a consider-gospel is not true; for this I am answered, able time, in a flourishing state. She has a chapel in Duke-street, St. George'sfields, near the Obelisk, where they have preaching every Sunday, and where the Liturgy of the Church of England is also read. The service of the chapel is per- manner, our Saviour was born." Now, as formed by Mr. Tozer. They have a choir to the fact of Joanna's pregnancy, it apof singers, and the hymns they sing were pears that no fewer than nine medical gencomposed from the writings of their pa-tlemen have visited her since the 1st of troness. They administer in their chapel August; six of whom have given it as the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the their positive opinion, that she is with first Sunday in every month, and profess child, and the other three that she is not. themselves members of the Church of Eng-The evidence, it cannot, therefore, be deland. She has two other chapels, one at nied, preponderates in favour of Joanna's Greenwich and another at Twickenham. pretensions, in so far as the mere circumIt was customary with the prophetess, stance of the pregnancy goes, Herc induring the early part of her career, to deed she has been extremely anxious to commit her supernatural communications satisfy the world, that in this particular, to paper with her own hand; but, latterly, at least, ske neither wishes to deceive hershe has a secretary in attendance on her. self, nor deceive others; for, independent of When the Spirit is about to impart some inviting every medical gentleman of rescommunication, Joanna feels an agitation pectability in London to visit her, she sent within; then the prophetess, her secretary, a copy of her book, with her portrait, in and the witness, range themselves in one which the circumstances attending her imgroup. After this, the Spirit begins to pregnation are detailed, to the Prince speak, addressing himself not to the wit-Regent, to the Archbishops of Canterbury. ness, nor the secretary, but to Joanna within so that our prophetess has simply to sit down and talk to herself! This she actually does, when the secretary, another female, takes down whatshe says, and then the witness, likewise feminine, signs it. Joanna will sometimes dictate a line only, sometimes a sentence, stopping till it is perfectly committed to writing.-Joanna assumes to usher in the Millenium, and to seal the faithful for the enjoyment of it, to the amount of one hundred and forty-four thousand; also to chain down Satan for a thousand years; and having thus handed over the good fruit of the tree of knowedge, and reinstated her fallen sex, to terinate the immense undertaking of man's

and York, Bishop of Worcester, Duke of Gloucester, Lord Grovesnor, Lord Ellenborough, the Duke of Kent, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Salisbury; "to prevent any imposition (as she states) being practised, either in my name by others; or, if I am led by a wrong spirit myself, it will be proved this year; and that no imposition may be practised upon the Jews, when I know without a doubt that I am with child."-Here, it must be admitted that Joanna shews the utmost candour, whatever she may do in other points. She does not deny the possibility of having been led by a wrong spirit, though she confidently asserts that she is with child, and appeals to the birth in proof of her assertion. In

a letter addressed by Joanna to Dr. Reece, but I cannot help remarking here, that Dr.

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Sims admits the examination he made of Joanna was not so complete as, in my opinion, the circumstances of the case called for. He states, that it was only external," and that if this had not been sufficient to satisfy him, he would "have urged the propriety of her submitting to a more satisfactory examination." But why pronounce definitively, if there was a pos

on the 1st inst. I also find the following candid statement:-" Since I saw you, have found a considerable alteration in my self, by feeling the life much stronger, and moving in different ways to what it had before; and more particularly this last week since I had a journey in the coach, when I removed from my own house, I have felt it much lower, and much greater weight. Mr. Carder will give you the par-sibility of thinking otherwise, from a more ticulars how I have been for this week past, close inspection?-To me it seems pretty that my appetite returned, and my pain clear, that there is nothing in Dr. Sims and sickness left me, though in other re-statement to superinduce a persuasion that spects the feeling of life within is greater Joanna is not pregnant.-To adopt such than ever; but should it prove not to be a an opinion would not only be in opposition child in the end, it must bring me to the to the conviction of her own mind, strengthgrave; but as you have come forward with ened by every day's experience, but in diyour judgment to the public, and will be rect contradiction to what sur other me attacked for so doing, I wish to put every dical gentlemen, equally respectable with weapon in your hand, that if there is a Dr. Sims, have declared, upon a "satispossibility of my being deceived, that the factory examination." With regard to the life within should bring death upon me, supernatural part of the story, the concepwithout making its appearance in the tion of a child without any connection world; I now promise to give you liberty with a man, I leave this to others to believc to open my body, that you may find out the or disbelieve as they may think proper, cause which produced all these effects, Joanna asserts it; and says "this I can what life was in me to cause all these pains take a solemn oath to, I never had knowand sickness, like travail pains, the increase ledge of man in my life."-The Rev. Mr, of the size of my body, which have in- Tozer, Toozer, or Towzer, also offers to creased so much within a few months, so swear, that no man has seen or spoken that either in death or life you will be to Joanna from August 1813 to August enabled to judge of a cause, that never was 1814, when the doctors were admitted to brought before medical men, of a woman at examine her." This, perhaps, is sufficient my age."-It is unquestionably a most ex- for the greater part of Joanna's believers; traordinary circumstance, that a woman of but there are many, I find, who hesitate as Joanna's great age should be found with to avowing their faith, until the event of child; but nature, we know, is often very the pregnancy is demonstrated by the de capricious in her productions. Nor is livery. If that should take place, and the Joanna's case without a parallel, if the fol- child be a boy, I have no doubt her followlowing statement, taken from the newspa- ers will increase to an astonishing degree. pers, is to be relied on :-"Ellin Ellis, It is not of the miraculous conception, of of Beaumaris, in Anglesey, aged 72, was the divine incarnation, which people in brought to bed May 10th, 1776: she had general doubt, or which prevents the many been married 46 years, and her eldest from declaring themselves. It is the fact was 45 years old. She had not had a of the pregnancy only which they seem to child for 25 years before."-At all events, question. The human mind has indeed with the evidence already before the pub- been sufficiently prepared to admit of superlic, I do not see how, in the present natural conceptions. In all countries we stage of the business, the fact of Joanna's find the belief of divine incubations prepregnancy can well be disputed. A Dr. vailing amongst the people. The Indians Sims, one of the three medical gentle- believed that their God Vichenou undermen, who visited Joanna, and declared went different incarnations, which occaagainst the pregnancy, has published his sioned his appearance sometimes in the reasons for holding that opinion. He at- form of a boar, and sometimes in that of a tributes the symptoms which led others to lion. At last, say his followers, he will declare for the pregnancy, to a disease in assume the form of a horse," with a sabre the uterine organs.--I have no wish to in his hand, to destroy the present inha enter the lists with any medical gentleman; bitants of the world, to darken the stars,

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to drive the planets from their spheres, to dered prolific by a ray of the sun." The shake the whole earth, and to oblige the same pretensions to divine origin, by the mighty serpent to vomit a flame which impregnation of a female, was claimed for shall consume the globes." This same Appollonius Tyaneus, who was set up as Vichenou, it is said by the Bramans, was a rival to our Saviour. It was said that himself the production of the first Being, the god Proteus appeared to his mother, who," desirous of manifesting himself, se- and told her, that the child with which parated the faculties of male and female she was pregnant was himself. At an which were in him, and operated an act of early period of the church, the doctrine of generation, of which Vichenou is the incarnations having been disputed by some cablem."-The Heathens believed that heretics, the celebrated Lactantius. "in Jupiter converted himself into a bull, in order to establish that the spirit of God order to carry off Europa; and that Mi- could impregnate a virgin, cites the exnerva was incarnate in the brain, and ample of the Thracian mares, and other Bacchus in the thigh of the same god. females, rendered prolific by the wind."The mother of Plato said that she had keen Such are a few of the instances recorded visited by Apollo, to whom she attributed in history, of the belief, formerly enter her pregnancy of that philosopher. The tained by the credulous, that God operated Egyptians asserted that the sun was the production and reproduction of himbrought forth by their god Isis. They self, by having intercourse with the also believed that “God vomited an egg, creatures he had formed; and although from which was produced another God there is not an individual in this country named Vulcan." The Syrians pretended who gives the least credit to these abthat a dove sat, for a certain number of surdities, it must be acknowledged that days, on the egg of a fish, and that from the fact of this doctrine, possessing so rethis incubation Venus was born." The mote an antiquity, and having been repriests of Thibet teach the people, that the ceived and professed for so many ages, and grand Lama, who is also their god, never still believed by so great a proportion of dies, but becomes incarnate in his own per- the human race, is somewhat calculated to son, which he reproduces at pleasure. Of countenance the disciples of Joanna, in the this system, Volney gives the following credit which they give to her pretended su curious particulars: "Thus is God inces-pernatural conception. I shall say nothing santly rendering himself incarnate; but of the Divine impregnation of the Virgin his greatest and most solemn incarnation Mary, because all who are of the church was 3000 years ago, in the province of firmly believe it, whether they are followers Cassimere, under the name of Fôt, or Bed-of Joanna, or not. She declares, indeed, dou, for the purpose of teaching the doc- that her whole mission tends to confirm the trine of self-denial, and self-annihilation. doctrines of the church; and, as far as I Fot sprung from the right intercostal of a have been able to discover, she has not advirgin of the royal blood, who, when she vanced any thing subversive of the Faith. became a mother, did not the less con- A paragraph appeared last week in the tinue to be a virgin. The king of the Courier, in which it was stated, that it country, uneasy at his birth, was desirous was not unlikely there was now grafted to put him to death, and caused all the upon Joanna's doctrines "ascheme from some males who were born at the same period, infidels to gratify their passion for ridiculing to be massacred. Being saved by shep- what they cannot impeach. How long will herds, Beddou lived in the desert to the age this be endured? Is it not known that blasof thirty years, at which time he opened phemy is an offence punishable by law 2 his commission, preaching the doctrine of-If by infidels are here meant, those who truth, and casting out devils. He per- have written against the Christian reliformed a multitude of miracles, spent his gion, the objection does not in any shape life in fasting, and the severest mortifi-apply; for Joanna is not hostile to Chriscations; and, at his death, bequeathed to tianity, but the contrary. Neither is it his disciples, the volume in which the prin-treating these writers with fairness to asciples of his religion are contained."-The sert, that they employ ridicule only; when Tartars believe, that God becomes incar-it is well known, that in whatever way nate in human bodies. The Chinese say, they treat the subject, they are not met by that their god Fo (probably the same as argument of any description, but dealt Fot)" was generated by a virgin, ren-with agreeably to the above muxim, "that

world in the way other people's children come; where would be the blasphemy, or even the impropriety, of asserting what an Act of Parliament permits every man to

blasphemy is an offence punishable by law." It was upon this maxim, I presume, which supplies the place of fair discussion, that the magistrates shut up the meeting-houses belonging to the followers of Joanna. It is pre-assert? It is no doubt true, that I stretended that it was necessary to interfere as to the Borough Chapel, on account of a riot which took place there on a Sunday. But this was an unwarrantable stretch of power. The duty of a Magistrate is to preserve the peace by putting down riots, and to guard the peaceable inhabitants from their consequences. Here they not only suppressed the riot, but they took upon them, by shutting up a regularly licensed chape!, to exercise powers not conferred by Act of Parliament; contrary, in fact, to the statute, by which preachers are licensed, and which gives no authority to any set of Magistrates to deprive a body of Christians of the privilege, once obtained, of assembling together, to hear what doctrines they please. A preacher may utter, what is called, blasphemy from the pulpit; he may even preach up sedition and treason.--When he does so, let him be made answerable for this in his own person. But to deprive several numerous congregations, as has been done in this case, of the right every man has to worship God in the way he thinks best, and that too after all these congregations had received the sanction of a Justice of the Peace so to worship, was a proceeding that can be equalled no where but in the tribunals of the Inquisition.--The riot did not even begin in the chapel; though, if it had, this would not have been a sufficient reason for shutting it up. It was occasioned by the improper conduct of the enemies of Joanna; who, by the statute, merit punishment, for disturbing a congregation in the performance of Divine worship; while the parties disturbed, instead of being made the sufferers, should have been encouraged, by protection being afforded them against future insults. But, after all, what is the meaning that this writer, in the Courier, affixes to the word blasphemy? Is he aware, that the Act of Parliament, which declared it to be blasphemy to deny any of the persons of the Trinity, has been repealed? Can any one say, that Joanna, or her preachers, have gone so far as to deny the Divine Incarnation of Jesus Christ? Supposing it could be said, which I believe it cannot, that they do deny this; admitting that the whole of her followers asserted, that our Saviour came into the

nuously opposed the repeal of the Blasphemy Act; but now, that it has been repealed; and (let it be remembered) without any opposition from the Bench of Bishops; now, that every one is at liberty. by law, to deny the Divine Incarnation, or the Blessed Trinity, when and where he thinks fit, it is rather assuming too much; it is rather somewhat imperious; somewhat arrogant and presumptuous, in any man to charge another with blasphemy; or to call for the infliction of the punishment of that offence upon a sect of professed Christians, who, it is clear, hold those very doctrines as firmly as the Church, which it would even be no crime in them to deny. The celebrated Gordon, who wrote about the middle of the last century, very pertinently remarked, that "Blasphemy is like heresy -a big word, which they who make the loudest noise about it rarely define, and indeed rarely can; a word which passionate and crafty men throw at one another in their religious quarrels, and if you will believe either side, both sides are blasphemers."-For my part, I do not understand how the crime of blasphemy can be committed at all. The word signifies detraction, which implies malice, and is never used but in reference to the Deity. Gordon says, "A man who knows God, cannot speak evil of a Being whom he knows to be blessed and beneficent, the author and giver of all good, with whom no evil can dwell; and a man who knows him not, and reviles him, does therefore revile him, because he knows him not.He therefore puts the name of God to his misapprehensions of God. This is so far from speaking evil of the Deity, that it is not speaking of the Deity at all. It is only speaking evil of a wild idea; of a creature of the imagination, and existing no where but there."--Adopting this rational view, it is impossible any man can be guilty of blasphemy against God. The word seems, indeed, to have been introduced merely as a cover to the persecuting zeal of bigotry-and to afford protection to the abuses which have been introduced into religion. Whenever these are attacked; whenever it is attempted to undisguise truth, and to expose the ridiculous observances and tenets by which it has i

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been disfigured, the cry of blasphemy, like "to a renewal of your ardent and gallant the cry of jacobinism, is then set up, and "exertions for her advantage, notwiththe objects of it seldom or ever escape" standing the persecutions you are now until their ruin is effected. In the case of "suffering; and we sincerely hope that, Jeanna, however, I do not see that there" in defiance of party and faction, you exists even the shadow of a ground upon "shall again shine foith an ornament to which to justify the rigorous steps that" your profession, an honour to your have been taken against her followers.— “ country, and the boast of this place, the Much less do I think that Joanna herself" ancient residence of your noble family." is a person who has done any thing de- And they entreat his Lordship speedily to serving punishment. Her pretensions are forgive and forget those sufferings an such as no man can interfere with, without honourable mind must sustain whilst struga direct infringement of the rights ofling against unfounded accusations, “agnature, which preclude all controul of one gravated by unprecedented judicial proman over another, in matters of faith. It ceedings." This is the substance of the is likewise a violation of the law, which Address, and the following is a copy of his gives to every professed Christian a right Lordship's answer :- King's Bench, to assemble in any place of worship that "August 4, 1814.-SIR,-1 take the has been previously licensed, and there" earliest opportunity, which the pressure openly to deny, if he pleases, not only that" of my affairs afforded me, of conveying Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but also the to my much respected friends of Culross, whole doctrine of the Trinity. In no pos- my most heartfelt thanks for the intesible case, in my opinion, can the suppres- "rest they take in my character and welsion of opinions, by violence, be justified;" fare, and for the truly gratifying manner because open discussion can do injury to no "in which they have demonstrated their one who wishes well to the cause of truth." feelings, which are at once an honour to As to Joanna, there is not even the slightest" themselves and to me. You may, with reason for apprehension; for should she "great truth, assure our respectable townseven be delivered of a male child, her pre- men, that their unfeigned congratulatensions to supernatural agency may be" tions on my re-election, add greatly to met by fair argument, which can never be" the satisfaction which I derive from that overthrown by error; and, if her preg- triumphant event; and that whatever nancy prove abortive, or the fruit of it be a may be the value of my actions, the mofemale, her system will fall of itself, with- tives in which they originate ever have out any reasoning about it. "been, and ever shall be, such as may "claim the reward of their good opinion.. "I send you a newspaper, containing the "Letter of De Berenger, by which you Mr. COBBETT.-I have taken the "will perceive that my enemies have now liberty to intimate to you, that, so far back" an agent, even within the confines of as the 21st July, the inhabitants of the " my prison. But I shall eventually Royal Burgh of Culross and the neigh-" triumph over all their machinations." bourhood, called together by public advertisement, voted and transmitted to Lord Cochrane a Congratulatory Address upon his re-election for Westminster; which event, they said, “ may be considered as the verdict of the last tribunal," to whom he had appealed from the charges lately preferred against him. They did not overlook mentioning their admiration of the firmness with which his Lordship met those charges, and after taking notice of the great respect they ever held for his Lordship, as an active and vigilant servant of the country, they concluded "by calling "to mind the many heroic actions your "Lordship has performed in your country's cause, we look forward with confidence.

LORD COCHRANE.

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In your last Register you assert, that the respectable inhabitants of the town of Paisley are the first who have come for ward in this patriotic cause; but by a reference to the dates, you will perceive that this place was fourteen days earlier than Paisley. If any merit therefore is due from priority, I must be excused for as serting the right to this place; and while I do, I shall be glad if a subsequent paper shall announce that that is even claimed by some other. I shall esteem myself honour ed by your inserting this Letter in your valuable Register, and I have the bonour to be, &c.

A DETESTER OF TIRANNÝ. Culross, 3d September, 1814.