graven, at the bottom of every heart, these indelible sentiments, which form the natural law. It is he who inspires us with remorse and pity, with the love of justice, horror of crimes, and that ardent and insatiable desire of happiness which it is impossible to find upon the earth. Yet if the soul be not immortal, if every thing perish with us, virtue is but a mere chimera, a weak convention, which can be submitted to exteriorly only, and this by the fear alone of the laws. God would therefore deceive us, in giving us an instinct and sentiments contrary to our nature: for if he have not destined for us rewards and punishments after this life, the only instinct proper for us is that of brutes. To live but to enjoy, ought to be our only philosophy. To combat our inclinations, whatever they may be, is a mere extravagance; to seek after and desire fame, which may outlive us, is the height of folly. Virtue, heroism, are only empty words, created to exist but an instant. Precipitated into nothing, after so short a life, reason, even the voice of nature ought equally to cry out to us, "Make haste, and taste of every pleasure; thou art going to be annihilated for ever: thou wert not born to combat thy passions, thou wert only made to give way to thy desires: there is but one real evil, pain; but one real good, pleasure."

"Let us suppose,' says the author, whom I have already quoted*, the soul to be mortal, all the ties of society are broken, because man has no longer a neighbour; no more relation with his cotemporaries than

The Abbé Gauchat, vol. i.

that dictated by personal interest. Being a member of a fugitive society, I have but slender connections with it, and of which I am the sole object. If they be troublesome to me, I can shake them off; no authority has a right to restrain me. It is only the will of man, his policy which has formed these connections, and he cannot oblige me to adhere to them. In vain will he hold up the public good as a pretext; or display the titles of husband, father, magistrate, country, great words without meaning. The universe assembled could not establish our duties; they essentially suppose order and the will of God: therefore materialism will never prove that one ought to obey the prince, serve one's country, love one's parents and friends. These duties would have a human source only, and thence would be as unstable as our caprices and inclinations. But does not probity prescribe to us rules of decorum and mutual regard? Alas! what is probity, if the principle which consecrates it be overturned? Can men think of destroying the eternal law, and of substituting for it human suffrages, policy, and interest? When once the bonds of the Creator are broken, no other motive is capable of fixing the mind, or of controling the heart. To brave, in one's caprices, the manners and usages of the world entire, is to act consistently;-such were the Cynics.

"If the soul be mortal, the punishments imposed by the laws are unjust. Crimes, of whatever nature they may be, are only pretended ones, sports of matter, legitimate propensities of nature, rights of each mem

ber of society. A terrestrial soul can owe nothing to patriotism. Its short existence, followed by annihilation, authorizes it to seek its happiness only. The whole world can neither require nor merit the sacrifice of its interests. Let us nevertheless suppose these punishments to be just, they are steril and without force; the same policy which inspires society with the idea of punishing disorderly members, inspires these with address enough to evade the pains to be inflicted. It is not, therefore, hypocrisy and heinousness, but prudence and wisdom, to bury in silence injustices, calumny, and murder. Still more, since crimes are avoided but by fear of the laws, it follows, that if they can be violated with impunity, force authorizes every thing. A crime becomes a success, a title of glory; an equal right in every profligate: nothing can be secure from those in whom power and rage are united."

Altogether, the subjects we have introduced into our work, it is not presumptuous to consider as beyond usual importance. They are infinitely important. When we object to the confessionalist, that he has quoted (as he has done with a freedom surpassed by nothing but his incongruity) authors of eminence, who have blessed the Christian community in the periods the most ominous for its repose, with their lucubrations; we object not to his having so moulded his book, to what we object is, the total irrelevancy of his examples. And his examples exceed enumeration. Those famous writers, whose works we have quoted, no one can quote, the subject being of a nature devout

and holy, to excess. For, whom have we quoted? Not

BOOK-MAKERS*!

Archbishop Secker was not eloquent. Secker wrote to teach. In those preliminary observations of his, with which he has ushered in his Catechismal Lectures, the bent of his mind is on simplicity. Simplicity is one of the habits of elegance. Simplicity and elegance are not at all incompatible with force and vigour.

The most forcible productions in our tongue, are many of them the most simple. Some are vigorous that are elegant in the extreme. Of this, the Lectures of Secker, in particular the first twenty pages of his Introductory Lecture, are noble displays.

The Lectures themselves are worthy of the utmost

* The confessionalist has made up a book; the confessionalist deprecates book-making; we deprecate just what he has. Yet objection would be done away, that moment when it should be unquestionably received, that mechanism will, fromthe nature of things, ever be wanting to the construction of all the works of the human mind. Mechanism presupposes instrumentality. If you are nof qualified to produce your work, unless you have recourse to adventitious means, unless you make excursions into the domains of other geniuses, this necessity will compel you to adopt with the manner the matter of those writers whose productions you take either for authorities, models, or guides. The high consideration, is, the adopting only what is valuable in either or in both. Mr. Lackington has adopted, with random luxuriancy, every thing that came in his way. Mr. Lackington has made two books, and was very near making a third !

commendation. Unless we had been persuaded of their great merit, we never would have engaged them, as we have, in our service. And they are written in a spirit truly evangelical.

The bishop was, as a writer, as much impartial as, rom the frail nature of man, man can be. Nothing harsh, nothing severe, nothing acrimonious, nothing vindictive occurs in the writings of Secker. He inculcates our duties with a father's tenderness.

The zeal of the archbishop, for disciplining in religious habits the youth of mankind, untinctured with fanaticism, no where inordinate, we think not the least among his merits. This merit we are known to have in other places extolled.

As the bishop justly remarks, the safety of kings and kingdoms depends on whether the maxims of Christianity be indefeasibly implanted in the young mind

or not.

Laws find in religion the guarantee of their permanency, the highest motives to their observance. Lawmakers are just only as they are religious. Laws are impartially or partially expounded, administered in season, or out of season, enforced with or not with mercy; but as judges and rulers conform to the divine ordinances of the Book of God. And so the "Holy seer,"

to whose memory we inscribe our eulogium, may be asserted to have thought.