A VICTIM OF A LITERARY HOAX.

Evening Star, Issue 3449, 12 March 1874, Page 3

A VICTIM OF A LITERAR Y HOAX.

{From the Melbourne Age.) The Rev Thomas James, late of South Australia, and now residing in Melbourne, has allowed himself to be made the victim of a literary hoax, and has innocently hoaxed a large audience which assembled to hear him lecture in the We%qn Cliurch, St. Ivilda, recently. A few months ago a work was published in Fngland, entitled, “ The Crue History of Joshua Davidson, wlrch has since gone through several editions, and created considerable sensation in re'igious circles It is understood to have come froip the pen of Mrs Linn Lint n, the wife of the well-known engraver ; and the name of the subject of the memoir—the son of David - affords some clue to the character of the biography. Its design is to show that if Christ were to take upon himself human flesh and blood in tha present day, and be born of obscure parents in an out-of-the way corner of Kngland—Cornwall forexample—be would be sobiected to precisely the same treatment at the hands of modem Christians as that to which he was exposed from the Jew's when he came upon the earth upwards of 1800 years ago. All the incidents in his then career are desoribed as having happened—with such differences as the changed conditions and circumstances of modern society render necesiary—to Joshua DavicUon. He is the companion of publicans and sinners Be denounces the Pharisaism, the long prayers, and the missionary efforts of the clerical bodies of all denominat ons ; and is persecuted and prosecuted accordingly.

All his sympathies are with the poor and the oppressed, and he travels about the country preaching communism, and the leading doctrines of the New Testament. He draws down upon himself the reprobation of the Established Church, and excites the suspicion of the constituted authorities. By the former he is pronounced to be a blasphemer while the latter regard him as beside him*gflf. Finally he visits a place called Lowborough, addresses the people in public, and is put to death on the platform by a gang of roughs instigated by the rector of the pariah, who stawto in the room of the ancient high

priest. The whole of this satirical work of fiction did the Rev, Thomas James dilate upon as a genuine bio rapliy, thus paying a high comp iment to its vraisemblable character ; but wo should imagine that its clovei authoress was scarcely prepared to find a minister of religion justifying by implication the execution of our l ord. ThU, however, was what Mr James did, as the c'inclusion of his lecture was directed to show the death of the freethinker Davidson was a wellmerited one ; and that it was, in fact, a righteous retribution for the enunciation of opinions by the sou of the Cornish carpenter, which were altogether unorthodox 1 So that intolerance a. d. 1873 differs very little from intolerance A. D. 33.