cane, pushed him into the church. The rest fol lowed like meek lambs; and from that day have continued firm Proteftants. The Proteftantifm of Rum is ftyled by their Popish neighbours the faith of the yellow stick.

To apply any means for making profelytes, other than fair reasoning, appears to me a strange perverfion. Can God be pleafed with ufing rewards or punishments, or can any rational man justify them? What then fhould move any one to put them in practice? I fhould be utterly at a lofs to answer the question, but for a fact mentioned more than once above, that the rude and illiterate judge by fight only, not by reflection. They lay weight on the external visible act, without thinking of intention, which is not vifible. In truth, the bulk of mankind reft upon the external profeffion of religion: they never think of the heart, nor confider how that ftands affected. What else is it but the external act merely that moves the Romish miffionaries to baptize the infants of favages even at the moment of expiring? which they profecute with much pious ardour. Their zeal merits applaufe, but not their judgment. Can any rational perfon seriously believe, that the dipping a favage or an infant in water will make either of them a Chriftian, or that the want of this ceremony will precipitate them into hell? The Lithuanians, before their converfion to Chri

ftianity,

ftianity, worshipped ferpents, every family entertaining one as a household-god. Sigifmundus, in his commentaries of Muscovy, reports the following incident. A converted Chriftian having perfuaded a neighbour to follow his example, and, in token of his converfion, to kill his ferpent, was furprised, at his next vifit, to find his convert in the deepest melancholy, bitterly lamenting that he had murdered his god, and that the moft dreadful calamities would befal him. Was this person a Christian more than nominally? At the end of the last century, when Kempfer was in Japan, there remained but about fifty Japan Chriftians, who were locked up in prifon for life. These poor people knew no more of the Chriftian religion, but the names of our Saviour and of the Virgin Mary; and yet fo zealous Chriftians were they, as rather to die miferably in jail, than to renounce the name of Chrift, and be fet at liberty. The inhabitants of the island Annaboa, in the gulf of Guinea, have been converted by the Portuguese to Chriftianity. No more is required of them, as Bofman obferves, but to repeat a Pater Nofter, and Ave Maria, confefs to the priest, and bring offerings to him.

I cannot with fatisfaction conclude this Sketch, without congratulating my prefent countrymen of Britain upon their knowledge of the intimate connection that true religion has with morality.

VOL. III.

Ff

May

ged: love of money becomes the ruling paffion : it is coveted by many, in order to be hoarded; and means are abfurdly converted into an end.

The fenfe of property, weak among favages, ripens gradually till it arrives at maturity in polished nations. In every stage of the progrefs, fome new power is added to property; and now, for centuries, men have enjoyed every power over their own goods, that a rational mind can defire * : they have the free difpofal during life, and even after death, by naming an heir. These powers are fufficient for accomplishing every rational purpose they are fufficient for commerce, and they are fufficient for benevolence. But the artificial wants of men are boundless: not content with the full enjoyment of their property during life, nor with the profpect of its being enjoyed by a favourite heir, they are anxiously bent to preferve it to themselves for ever. A man who has amaffed a great estate in land, is miserable at the profpect of being obliged to quit his hold: to foothe his difeafed fancy, he makes a deed fecuring it for ever to certain heirs; who muft without end bear his name, and preferve his eftate entire. Death, it is true, muft at laft feparate him from his idol: it is fome confolation, however, that his will governs and gives law to every fubfequent proprietor. How repugnant to the frail state of man are fuch fwollen conceptions! Upon these, however, are found

*Hiftorical Law-Tracts, Tract 3.

ed

ed entails, which have prevailed in many parts of the world, and unhappily at this day infeft Scotland. Did entails produce no other mifchief but the gratification of a distempered appetite, they might be endured, though far from deferving approbation : but, like other tranfgreffions of nature and reafon, they are productive of much mischief, not only to commerce, but to the very heirs for whose fake alone it is pretended that they are made.

Confidering that the law of nature has bestowed on man every power of property that is neceffary either for commerce or for benevolence, how blind was it in the English Legislature to add a most irrational power, that of making an entail! But men will always be mending; and, when a lawgiver ventures to tamper with the laws of nature, he hazards much mischief. We have a pregnant inftance above, of an attempt to mend the laws of God in many abfurd regulations for the poor; and that the law authorifing entails is another inftance of the fame kind, will be evident from what follows.

The mischievous effects of English entails were foon discovered: they occafioned fuch injuftice and oppreffion, that even the judges ventured to relieve the nation from them by an artificial form, termed fine and recovery. And yet, though no moderate man would defire more power over his eftate than he has by common law, the legiflature of Scotland enabled every land-proprietor to fet

ter his eftate for ever; to tyrannize over his heirs ; and to reduce their property to a shadow, by prohibiting them to alien, and by prohibiting them to contract debt, were it even to redeem them from death or flavery. Thus, many a man, fonder of his eftate than of his wife and children, grudges the use of it to his natural heirs, reducing them to the state of mere liferenters. Behold the confequences! A number of noblemen and gentlemen among us lie in wait for every parcel of land that comes to market. Intent upon aggrandizing their family, or rather their eftate, which is the favourite object, they fecure every purchase by an en-. tail; and the fame course will be followed, till no land be left to be purchased. Thus every entailed estate in Scotland becomes in effect a mortmain, admitting additions without end, but abfolutely barring alienation; and if the Legiflature interpofe not, the period is not diftant, when all the land in Scotland will be locked up by entails, and withdrawn from commerce.

The purpose of the present Effay, is to fet before our Legiflature, coolly and impartially, the deftructive effects of a Scotch entail. I am not fo fanguine as to hope, that men, who convert means into an end, and avariciously covet land for its own fake, will be prevailed upon to regard, either the intereft of their country, or of their pofterity: but I would gladly hope, that the Legislature may

be