My depar ture from Vale. 82. With these ladies I spent three Skelfmore days in Skelfmore-Vale; and the time we talked, walked, played, and laughed away. Sometimes we rambled about the hills, and low adown the dales. Sometimes we fat to ferious ombre; and often went to mufick by the falling-ftreams. Mifs Turner fung; mifs Jacquelot played the fiddle and on my German flute I breathed the fofteft airs. We were a happy three, and parted with regret on every fide. Fain would they have had me stay, and Scarborough and London fhould be thought of no more but the reafon of things was against it, and the 28th day of June I took my leave. Through the mountain I had defcended, I went up again to Tim and my horfes; who were ftabled in the mouth of the cavern above, and had got provender from the vale below. A morning on the ri and the created it. 83. The fun was rifing as we mounted reflexion the horses, and ftruck me fo powerfully with fing fun, the furpaffing fplendor and majefty of its Great Spi- appearance, fo cheared me by the gladfome rit who influences, and intimate refreshment of its all-enlivening beams, that I was contriving as I rid on an apology for the firft adorers of the folar orb, and imagined they intended nothing more than the worship of the tranfcendent majefty of the invifible Creator, under under the symbol of his most excellent and nearly resembling creature; and this according to fome imperfect tradition, that man, as a compound Being, had, in the beginning, a vifible glorious prefence of Jehovah Elobim a vifible exhibition of a more diftinguished prefence by an inexpreffible brightness or glory: this is fome excufe for the first worshippers of the folar orb: and when the thing confecrated to the imagery and representation of its Maker, became the rival of his honours, and from being a help to devotion, was advanced into the fupreme object of it; yet confidering the prodigious glory of this moving orb, and that all animated nature depends upon its aufpicious prefence, we cannot wonder that the Egyp tian ruralifts, without a creed, and without a philofophy, fhould be tempted to fome warmer emotion than a merely speculative admiration, and inclined to fomething of immediate devotion. That univerfal chorus of joy that is manifefted at the illuftrious folemnities of opening fun-fhine, might tempt the weak to join in a feemingly-religious ac clamation. At least I am fure there is much more to be faid for this fpecies of idolatry, than for the papifts worshipping dead men, flocks, bones, and clouts. They have not only revelation exprefsly against them Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him E e 2 only only fhalt thou ferve. (Matt. iv, 10.) — Neither halt thou set up any image or pillar. (Deut. xvi. 22.) But downright reafon demonftrates that the things are useless to the prefervers, and offenfive to God: whereas, on the contrary, when the eye beholds that glorious and important luminary of heaven, and confiders the benefits difpensed to mankind by the means of its most beautiful and invigorating beams, it might strike not only an unpractised thinker, and cause the vulgar, (who are not able of themselves to raise their thoughts above their fenfes, and frame a notion of an invisible Deity), to acknowledge the bleffings they received, by a devotion to this fanfied vifible exhibition of divinity but even fome of the wife ones who were a degree above the abfurdity of popular thinking, might be led to addrefs themselves to the golden fun, in fplendor likeft heaven. They might afcribe the origin of their own existence, and the world's, to this feemingly adequate caufe, and genial power of the fyftem; when they beheld him returning again in the eaft, (as I now see him) after the gloom and fadnefs of the night; again the reftorer of light and comfort, and the renewer of the world; regent of the day, and all tl'horizon round, invefted with bright rays; that all inferior nature, the earth's own form, and the fupports of its animated inhabitants, feem feem to depend on his dispensing authority, Ee 3 This (I and (39.) When the tribes went off from Noah in Peleg's The weakdays, in the æra of the deluge 240, that is, fo many nefs of tra years after the flood, we must in reafon fuppofe, that dition. they had from the venerable patriarch, a final and farewel relation of the creation, and the ftate of innocency, and the fall; the inftitution of worship; and the hope of acceptance, and the promifed feed. We may believe they had, at going off, a diftinct repetition of all the capital articles of their faith. They received to be fure a clear review of the facts and revelations which Adam and Noah had the knowledge of, and in a compend of every doctrine and duty, fpeculative and practical, efpecially the doctrine of the being of a God, his unity and and wanted those helps to judgment which are derived from the experience, obfervation, and reasoning of past times, the fpecious ido and perfections, had a fufficient fund of useful knowledge to fet up with, in the new world. This is natural behaviour in all good parents, and we may conclude, that the pious patriarch acted in this manner, when he fent his relations away. But this oral tradition was liable to a gradual declenfion, and funk at last into a ftate of evanefcence. Doctrines deduced from facts long fince paft, and known by tradition only, become precarious. The tradition is rendered obfcure and dubious. It might remain pretty perfect, while Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nabor, and Terah, lived, as they had their informations from Noah, and were thoroughly advised to make God the object of their fupreme love and fear, and trust and worship; and to practise all vir- . tue and righteoufnefs towards each other, as the great inftruments and means of a general happiness. With an earneft tenderness, thefe things were recommended to them. But as the people who came after them never faw Noah, and their information depended on relators, who had it from relators, a dimnefs prevailed upon the antient facts, and diftance and other objects overfhadowed them. A depravation of tradition might likewife arife from relators forgetting material circumftances, and from a mifapprehenfion of antient facts. There might likewife be many that defignedly corrupted these facts, and out of a diflike to truth, and a diftafte to virtue, did their best to weaken the principles of religion, Inge nious bad men there were among mankind then as well as in our time, and as there was no written fyftem and hiftory to go by, they might give the antient flory a turn more favourable to finners. By this means, contradiction and obfcurity came on, endless fables were introduced, and truth was difguifed, corrupted and loft, |