vilized and courteous nation changed of a sudden into a mass of murderous plunderers; when we behold a people, once polished in their habits, and gentle in their manners, breaking down every fence of decency, and sweeping away with infuriate barbarity the affections and the charities of social life; it is only from such testimony, that we can account for this wild waste of happiness; it is from such testimony, and from the punishment that has followed those who boast a freedom from superstitious bondage, that we ought to be taught the value of Christian dependance. And though, without any presumptuous decision, it may be affirmed, that tribulation is come upon the earth, that men's hearts are failing them for fear, and that many false prophets have arisen, and deceived many; yet are we assured, that amidst the darkness of the perilous storm, there is a light sown for the righteous; and that He, who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, will cause the very wrath of men to praise him-will, in due time, make manifest the ways of Providence, and shew the wicked ensnared in the traps they had laid for others.

From the progress of crime, and from the picture of misery, we willingly turn to scenes of milder aspect-to a country of Christian hope, and hitherto protected by a Saviour's love. But even in the British soil the seed of infidelity has fixed its root, and is now spreading wide its poisonous plants in all directions.

To the daring spirit of avowed atheism our minds are not yet tempered; but the alarming popularity of writings, which have nothing to recommend them, but the rant of blasphemy, the disturbance of established order, and the defiance of all authority, human and divine, are among symptoms that portend a defection from Christ, rather than a long-suffering for his faith. Issuing from the same licentious school, how many teachers, with an insolent tenderness for the public welfare, have stepped forth to instruct us! Our shelves are crowded with pretended discoveries in nature, to falsify the work of GOD, and the history of his creation. We have systems of morality, patched together from broken fragments of revelation, to disprove the exercise of God's will, or the necessity of his law; and we have essays on man's

origin and progress, which take him out of the hands of his Creator, and leave him to mould the form, and to compleat the sum, of his own happiness. Instead of asking of the days that are past to teach us wisdom, we seek for it in a speculative discussion, or in a partial experiment; and humility, the key that would open the treasures of eternal life, is buried under the rubbish of philosophic pride and delusive theory. Thus the brightest talents have been led into error, have opposed probabilities to the sure word of GOD, and denied demonstration, in order to avoid belief.

Baneful, however, as these fruits have proved, they are happily placed beyond the reach of many; but the branches that bear them, are of wide extent and abundant produce; and the crafty enemy of the human race is every where, and in every shape, aiding and tempting the unwise to pluck and eat. I advert to those loose and licentious publications, which, making the feelings à pander to the passions, dissolve the force of every moral precept, and extract the sting of guilt from every known sin; or which, quieting the fears of man by appealing to the

mercy and goodness of God, dispose at will of his justice and indignation. I advert to that fatal curiosity, which, with the genius of a neighbouring country, has imported a wildness of imagination, that despises sober restraint; a fictitious morality, that degrades re ligion; and abandoned principles, that pollute common life. I advert to those dramatic representations, which, by bestowing on vice the attractions of virtue, and through the recommendatory splendour of some popular qualities, bribe the integrity of the judgment, in its decision on the worst of conduct and the basest of characters. And when (to resume our metaphor) these are branches of the same fatal tree, which has been planted on the ruins of kingdoms, and watered with the blood of their inhabitants, is it a tree to be desired to make one wise? Is it a time to see it naturalized in our English soil? Is it a time to be silent, when so many thoughtless beings are aiding its growth, and grafting its pernicious scions on the fairest shoots in the christian vineyard.

In this state of things, (for it ill becomes us to look back on the calamities which the ini

quity of man has ever produced, without any self-application; or as servants of GoD, to arraign the impiety and enormities of others, without any national charge, or accusation against ourselves) in this state of things-not drawn, I trust, in the spirit of censure; not trespassing even beyond the bounds of common observation-what have we to oppose to the delusions of this world, but the testimony of GoD, the evidences afforded to the unalterable design and purpose of its great Creator? What stop can we hope to put to the frantic experiments and wild machinations of human policy, but the voice of Him who to the passions, as well as to the elements, can say, Peace, be still? who, from the beginning hath made bare his arm in the eyes of all nations, and travelling in the greatness of his strength, hath trodden down the people in his anger; who, arrayed in the splendour of that glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world, wielding the arms, and invested with all the titles, of Omnipotence, is represented as weigh ing the earth in his balance, as upholding the cause of righteousness, and vindicating by his