Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with silk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings.

Now, supposing those stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings, both before and after the darning!" The subject is here presented in a ludicrous point of view, and some may doubt whether this is a legitimate method of treating it.

But it should not be forgotten that while _ridicule is no safe test of truth, it may be the most effective exposure of nonsense and folly_.
SECTION III.
THE RELATIONS OF MATERIALISM TO THEOLOGY.
It has been generally felt and acknowledged, that the doctrine which preserves the distinction between matter and spirit, body and soul, is more in accordance with the truths of Natural and Revealed Religion, than the opposite theory which identifies them; and that, on the other hand, a profound and serious study of these truths has a tendency to raise our thoughts above the low level of Materialism, and to direct them to the contemplation of a higher and nobler world,--the world of spirits.
There are many distinct points at which the theory of Materialism comes into contact and collision with the truths both of Natural and Revealed Religion.

By a brief enumeration of these, the practical importance of the subject may be clearly evinced.
1.

The doctrine of "the immortality of the soul" is seriously affected by the theory of Materialism.