superior lustre. It is but a meteor, and it sets in darkness. When he has time for reflection; when eternity is near; he sees a dreadful gulf opened under his feet: but the abyss is covered with darkness; he dares not fix his eyes on it; and he cannot avert them from it: he dares not plunge; but expects soon to be precipitated into it. Something within assures him that there is a future state. But I am now come to the fourth class. The indifferent can no longer be indifferent ; the careless can no longer be careless; when death and eternity come to support the terrors of conscience. When the tumult of the world no longer drowns the small still voice of conscience, the darkness by which they are enveloped cannot hide the whole of futurity from them; and the clouds which hang over it rather increase than diminish its horror. There is no way of escape, there is no light, there is no one to guide, no one to direct. I have gone far enough with this melancholy eture: and, surely, that is the best religion which delivers men from so much darkness and misery. What religion effects this? We pronounce immediately, "The Christian." It has, I think, been proved,* that virtue produces happiness. That the christian religion is the purest of all religions, has, I think, been sufficiently shewn.* The enemies of the gospel, even if opposing a cheat, are opposing a cheat in which the happiness of the human race consists. Let them, then, tell us of the happiness of the pagans! They cannot struggle against facts! Oh! thou bloody city of Jaggernaut, ye pilgrims, fainting under its scorching sun, bear your united testimony to the happiness of pagans ! THE EVILS OF DESPOTISM AND ANARCHY I Ir is an old assertion, that there is nothing worse than anarchy. But it is also true, that there are few things worse than tyranny. shall endeavor to compare these two great evils. Absolute power vested in one man, is * Referring to one of the immediately preceding essays. not necessarily connected with tyranny. A good king may be invested with absolute power, and use it only for the good of his subjects. But I am now speaking of a tyranny, under which no man is safe;—and any man may be imprisoned, tortured, or strangled, without being able to ascertain the cause of his punishment;-under which none but the most obscure are safe ;-the powerful and the rich in continual danger of losing their fortune, their liberty, and their life. The tyrant himself is, perhaps, an upstart, who has gained the throne by multiplied crimes: or, if not, he is, it may be, governed by infamous favourites, or is himself of so bad a disposition, that he delights in the misery of his subjects, But when a nation has thrown off the yoke of oppression, that nation may not find it so easy to rebuild as to pull down; and it may not be able to erect an orderly edifice on the ruins of ancient establishments. It may not be able, after the tumult into which a revolution has thrown it, to separate the bad from the good, to separate that which is useful from that which is injurious: it may not be able to draw the line of distinction between that which is ancient and that which is odious; between licentious anarchy and a just degree of freedom. In such a state of things, ambitious men, whose interest it is to influence the public mind against all that is ancient, all that is venerable, all that is excellent,-endeavor, by their harangues and by their conduct, to throw the nation into a state of anarchy, that they, in the tumult, may become its rulers. : And thus the name-and the name aloneis changed. It is, indeed, no longer the tyranny of an ancient and honorable family but it is the tyranny of upstart plebeians-men whose elevation is the fruit of their crimes; and who are lower than the common vulgarmore cruel than those generally thought cruel -more detestable than those commonly detested,-Men who, to attain power, have fawned on superiors whom they hated, and courted a commonalty they despised; who have carried all their vices with them into power, and have left the few virtues they did possess, behind. And though their power may be short-lived, yet others, as ambitious and as wicked as themselves, are ready to succeed them. SUPERSTITION. (December, 1815.) WE take a melancholy pleasure in examining the dilapidated walls, the falling arches, and the solitary columns of a magnificent ruin. But if a man had possessed that building when in a perfect state; if he associated with each ruined arch the idea of some long lost pleasure; if every stone reminded him of some friend that was gone for ever; if desolation pervaded the place that had once witnessed domestic happiness; if brambles grew on that hearth where he had been accustomed to sit, and if ivy crept round the room of which he was once peculiarly fond;-his feelings would be those of unmixed melancholy. Such is the human mind! A few solitary columns, a few broken arches, fallen pillars, scattered chapiters, and defaced sculpture, are the sole indications of its original |