On February 7th, 1828, the Rev. Robert Taylor, B.A.,M.R.C.S., was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for blasphemy.[1] He was also ordered to find recognizances for his good behavior for five years in £1,000. Up to this time, Taylor and Carlile had been working apart. But Taylor was now left with nothing but general desertion. This caused Carlile to interest himself in the case. He toured the country, lecturing on Taylor's behalf, and founded The Lion in order to rally sympathy to the reverend orator’s side. In its columns the editor's versatile pen treated of a variety of subjects, although with unequal distinction. "There cannot be a superstitious civilization," was one of the maxims with which he familiarized his readers. Protestantism came under his lash in the following paragraphs :—

"The Protestant faith includes all that faith which protests against the Roman Catholic faith ; but reasons for that protest, which would not apply as forcibly to the Protestant faith, I have never met."

"The last fires in Smithfield were Protestant fires; the last religious murders in England were Protestant murders. All the religious persecutions of the last two centuries in England and Scotland-——and they form the blackest period of England's ecclesiastical history-have been Protestant persecutions; not the persecution of Protestants by Catholics, but the persecution of Catholics, Protestants, and Infidels, by Protestants."

Youthful readers of The Lion were counseled by its editor not to misemploy their hours, or waste away their lives in the wretched manner so many young people did, “only existing as useless drones ‘who crawl upon the surface of the earth to consume its produce.’” He insisted on the honor and profit accruing from an early and persistent attention to mental development. Method was his antidote for longing and trifling. Carlile also regarded the face as a certain index of the health of the body, and, in a great measure of the sanity, experience, or extent of the mind. He thought this judging from the face physiognomically was an instinctive, natural and rational compulsion. There was a rule and reason, diflicult to define in the judgment. “Moral character,” he concluded, “must have some relation to the human organization, as sure as, if we describe the variety of animal passions, the whole of which may be found concentrated in the human race, we refer inoffensiveness to the sheep and sporting lamb, ferocity to the wolf, fierceness to the tiger, and dignified courage to the lion; and we find the variance to be in the organization, for the principles of the mere animalization, or animal life, are the same in all animals.”

Carlile also denounced oath-making as a vice, on the ground "that the principle induced is that of fear, and whatever is done through fear, which would have been done in the absence of fear, is viciously done. Thus, upon the highest pretension that has yet been made for the practice of oath-making—-that of its being a necessary binding to a purpose, which binding is to be produced through the operation of fear——vice is exhibited; and oath-making is, in its best sense, a vice. It supposes vice in its presumed necessity, and proves it in its practice. It engenders the vice against which it would be presumed to guard us.” Carlile points out that the New Testament is the only religious book in the world that positively forbids oath-making as a vice; yet its so-called defenders are the most prone to practice it. Apart from its vicious encouragement of fear, Carlile urged that “the practice of oath-making is imperative, and is no more a pledge of truth or good in the believer than in the unbeliever. The good man of either party will do as well without it; the bad man of either party will do as ill with it; and cash alike, in not respecting that which he professed to respect. . . . An idle charm is uttered, and a dirty book is lipped, with as little failing as any other animal may be brought to the practice. A trial cannot be witnessed at the Old Bailey without the perception that the swearing is superfluous, and not useful to guide or correct the evidence to be given. If the oath were valued as giving weight to the evidence, cross-examination would be a very great presumption; for it presumes that the oath has not given weight.. to the evidence, and that it cannot give it weight.” Carlile then declares that the history of oath-making shows it to have “been established upon the idolatory of mankind,” and only available where idolatory continues to exist. Idolatory, superstition, and oath-making must fall in company.

Readers of The Lion were also presented with the appended editorial arguments against "belief” :-—

“Tell me that there is a peculiar kind of animal or vegetable in China, of which I have not seen the like in this country. and I can credit your tale; because I see a variety of animals and vegetables the products of this country. But tell me of heaven and hell, of gods, devils, and angels, of future states of existence to continued or reproduced identities, and I cannot credit your tale; because I have no analogy, in the literal sense, whereupon to proceed to conjecture; and because I do not see material identities, so composed and decomposed, as to leave me any idea of other existence for those identities. The earth is all sufficient to produce and sustain them as compositions, and to receive them as decompositions.

“All faith is in danger, because faith has no relation to the knowledge of mankind. All faith is in danger, because faith has no relation to the welfare of mankind. All faith is in danger, because it injures and disorders mankind. All faith is in danger, because it is a cheat upon mankind. All faith is in danger, because it is openly and ably assailed by infidelity. All faith is in danger, because truth exhibited must triumph over it."

With these extracts, we all but bring our quotations from the columns of The Lion to a conclusion. Following the practice that he had pursued in the columns of The Republican, Carlile several times openly addressed himself to the King and the leading ministers of State through the medium of The Lion. The following pungent extract from his second letter to the King is typical of the fearlessness of expression that distinguished all Carlile’s writings :--

“Henry the VIII. found dissensions of 400 years standing on doctrinal points in the English part of the Church of Rome. He determined that those dissensions should cease. He wrote; disputed; burnt opponents; obtained from the Pope——for his zeal——the title of defender of the (Popish) faith; immediately destroyed the faith and lessened the Pope’s authority; and retained and has handed down to you most inviolately the contradictory title! He did everything religiously, but that which he royally determined and pledged himself to do. Whatever he determined to do in promise broke away under him, and his effected determination ended in doing something contrary to the promised determination. He promised to defend the uniformity of the faith of the Romish Church, which he irrevocably drove from the country. All his children were placed in similar dilemmas. The Stuarts, from the first to the last, played a similar game, with worse consequences to themselves. Your family of the Guelphs has been whirled about in a similar religious vortex, until you find all establishment, and even all sects, breaking away from your grasp; and the man would be rash that should attempt to predict what will be the last point of faith your majesty shall defend. Faith is not a thing or principle to be established or defended. I hold by far the better and more dignified title, as the assailant of all and every faith. . . . Your priests cannot support you, nor you them. You are as chaff before free discussion. Enveloped in the mantle of free discussion, I feel and exhibit more moral power than the royally-robed defender of faith can exhibit. I am the greater man."

[1] A full account of this trial appears in our Life of Robert Taylor, published in the 1905 Agnostic Journal.