which impels them to reject the religion of Jesus, they turn hardily round and impeach its moral influence!! They will make it responsible for all the mischiefs and crimes; for all the sorrows, and convulsions, and ruins which have scourged the world since its first propagation.

.. Before such a charge can be substantiated, the structure of the human mind must be altered; the nature of things reversed; the doctrine of principle and motive abandoned for ever. It is only for the forlorn hope of impiety to engage in an enterprize so mad and despe rate. Say, Can a religion which commands me to love my neighbour as myself, generate or foster malignant and murderous pafsions? Can a religion which afsures me, that all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, encourage a spirit of difșimulation and fraud? Can a religion which requires me to pofsefs my vessel in sanctification and honour, indulge me in violating the laws of sexual purity? in breaking up the sanctuary of my neighbour's peace? in throwing upon the mercy of Scandal's clarion the fair fame of female virtue? Can a religion which forbids me to be conformed to this world, cherish that infuriate ambition which hurls desolation over the earth, and fertilizes her fields with the blood

of men? Can a religion?But I forbearFrom whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even from your lusts? Those very lusts from which it is the province of faith to purify the heart? The infidel pleads for his unholy propensions, on the pretext that they are innocent because they are natural: And when a thousand curses to himself and to society follow their indulgence, he charges the consequence upon a religion which enjoins their crucifixion, and which, to give them their career, he trampled under foot. But stop, vain man! Was it the religion of Jesus Christ, which, on its first promulgation, breathed out threatenings and slaughter? shut up the saints in prison? punished them oft in every synagogue? compelled them to blaspheme? and being exceedingly mad against them, persecuted them even unto strange cities? Was it the religion of Jesus Christ which, in its subsequent progress, illuminated the city of Rome with the conflagration of a thousand stakes, consuming, by the most excruciating of deaths, a thousand guiltless victims*? Was it the religion of Jesus Christ which, at a later period, when the Tiber overflowed, or the Nile did not overflow; when the earth quaked, or the heavens withheld

* Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. 44.

their rain; when famine or pestilence smote the nations, ordered its opposers to the lions*? Was it in obedience to the religion of Jesus Christ, after the expulsion of pagan idolatry, that the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth became drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs?—Was it the religion of Jesus Christ which, after being rejected with marks of an unexampled insult, suggested to the knights-errant of blasphemy, the project of regenerating the world by the power of atheistical philosophy? Was it this religion which taught them to blot out the great moral institute of society, the Sabbath of the Lord? to extinguish the best affections of the human heart, to break asunder the strongest ties of human life, and to subvert the basis of human relations, by exploding the marriagecovenant? This, which instigated them to offer up hecatombs of human sacrifices to every rising and every setting sun? to hew down, with equal indifference, the venerable matron and her hoary lord; the vigorous youth, the blooming maid, the sportive boy, and the prattling babe? and while they were thus writing the history of their philosophical experiments in the blood of the dead and the tears of the living, to

*Tertull. Apolog. cap. 40.

boast the victories of their virtue? But my soul sickens-Ah, no! The wisdom which cometh from above, that wisdom which the gospel teaches, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated; full of compassion and of good fruits; without partiality, and without hypocrisy. Such was its imposing aspect in the primitive ages. 'Give me a man,' said a celebrated father of the church, the eloquent Lactantius, ' give me a man pafsionate, slanderous, ' ungovernable: with a very few words of God < I will render him as placid as a lamb. Give, 'me a man greedy, avaricious, penurious: I 'will give him back to you liberal, and lavishing his gold with a munificent hand. Give me a man who shrinks from pain and death; ' and he shall presently contemn the stake, the gibbet, the wild beast. Give me one who is libidinous, an adulterer, a debauchee; and 'you shall see him sober, chaste, temperate. 'Give me one cruel and blood-thirsty? and 'that fury of his shall be converted into cleitself. Give me one addicted to in'justice, to folly, to crime; and he shall, without delay, become just, and prudent, and harm'lefs*.'

mency

Similar, in proportion to its reception by

* Lact. De falsa Sapientia, lib. iii. cap. 25.

faith, are still the effects of this blefsed gospel. What has exploded those vices which, though once practised even by philosophers, cannot now be so much as named? What has softened the manners, and refined the intercourse, of men? What is it which turns any of them from sin to God, and makes them conscientious, humble, pure, though at the expence of ridicule and scorn from the licentious and the gay? What has espoused the cause of suffering humanity? Who explores the hospital, the dungeon, the darksome retreat of unknown, unpitied anguish. The infidel philosopher? Alas, he amuses himself with dreams of universal benevolence, while the wretch perishes unheeded at his feet: and scruples not to murder the species in detail, that he may promote its happinefs in the grofs! On his proud list of general benefactors, you will look in vain for the name of a HOWARD; and in their system of conduct your search will be equally fruitlefs for the traces of his spirit. Christianity claims, as her own, both the man and his principles. She formed his character, sketched his plans, and inspired his zeal. And might the modesty of goodness be overcome; might the sympathies of the heart afsume visible form; might secret and silent philanthropy be called into view, ten thousand Howards would ifsue, at this moment,