body of the Jewish traditions, commonly called the Talmud, opposed their heat, and told them, for aught they knew, the apostles might be act[uat]ed by the Spirit of God, and that in such a case it would be in vain to oppose them, since if they did so, they would only fight against God, whom they could not overcome. Gamaliel was so considerable a man amongst his own sect, that we may reasonably believe he spoke the sense of his party as well as his own. St. Stephen's martyrdom came on presently after, in which we do not find the Pharisees, as such, had any hand; it is probable that he was prosecuted by those who had before imprisoned Peter and John. One novice indeed of that sect was so zealous, that he kept the clothes of those that stoned him. This novice, whose zeal went beyond all bounds, was the great St. Paul, who was peculiarly honoured with a call from Heaven by which he was converted, and he was afterwards, by God himself, appointed to be the apostle of the Gentiles. Besides him, and him too reclaimed in so glorious a manner, we find no one Pharisee either named or hinted at by St. Luke, as an opposer of Christianity in those earliest days. What others might do we know not. But we find the Sadducees pursuing St. Paul even to death at his coming to Jerusalem, in the 21st of the Acts. He then, upon all occasions, owned himself to be a Pharisee. In the 22d chapter he told the people, that he had been bred up at the feet of Gamaliel after the strictest manner, in the law of his fathers. In the 23d chapter he told the council that he was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and that he was accused for asserting the hope and resurrection of the dead, which was their darling doctrine. Hereupon the Pharisees stood by him, and though they did not own our Saviour to be the Messiah, yet they would not deny but some angel or spirit might have spoken to him, and then if they opposed him, they should fight against God. This was the very argument Gamaliel had used before. The resurrection of our Lord, which they saw so strenuously asserted by the apostles, whose miracles they also saw and owned, [Acts iv. 16.] seems to have struck them, and many of them were converted [Acts xv. 5.] even without a miracle, and the rest stood still and made no opposition. • We see here, what the part was which the Pharisees acted in this important conjuncture. Of the Sadducees we meet not with one in the whole ароstolic history that was converted. We hear of no miracles wrought to convince any of them, though there was an eminent one wrought to reclaim a Pharisee. St. Paul we see, after his conversion, always gloried in his having been bred a Pharisee. He did so to the people of Jerusalem, to the great council, to king Agrippa, and to the Philippians. So that from hence we may justly infer, that it was not their institution, which was in itself laudable, which our blessed Saviour found fault with, but it was their hypocrisy, their covetousness, their oppression, their overvaluing themselves upon their zeal for the ceremonial law, and their adding to that yoke by their traditions all which were not properly essentials of their institution, that our Lord blamed. • But I must not run on. What I would observe, sir, is that atheism is more dreadful, and would be more grievous to human society, if it were invested with sufficient power, than religion under any shape, where its professors do at the bottom believe what they profess. I despair not of a papist's conversion, though I would not willingly lie at a zealot papist's mercy, and no protestant would, if he knew what popery is, though he truly believes in our Saviour. But the free-thinker who scarcely believes there is a God, and certainly disbelieves revelation, is a very terrible animal. He will talk of natural rights, and the just freedoms of mankind, no longer than until he himself gets into power; and by the instance before us, we have small grounds to hope for his salvation, or that God will ever vouchsafe him sufficient grace to reclaim him from errors, which have been so immediately levelled against himself. • If these notions be true, as I verily believe they are, I thought they might be worth publishing at this time, for which reason they are sent in this manner to you by, Sir, • Your most humble servant, No. 94. MONDAY, JUNE 29, 171S.* Ingenium, sibi quod vacuas desumpsit Athenas, IMITATED. HOR. 2 Ep. ii. 81. The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat, РОРЕ. SINCE Our success in worldly matters may be said to STEELE'S. a This letter signed with the final letters of his name appears to be Dr. Wotton's, by comparing it with his Miscellaneous Discourses, vol. i. p. 95. et seq. Dr. Wotton was probably the translator too of the parting Discourse of Cyrus to his Friends, and consequently the author of the whole of this paper, No. 93. See an account of Dr. Wotton, in Nichols's Anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer, p. 50. and p. 73. See also Supplement to Granger, vol. i. p. 150. depend upon our education, it will be very much to the purpose to enquire if the foundations of our fortune could not be laid deeper and surer than they are. The education of youth falls of necessity under the direction of those, who through fondness to us and our abilities, as well as to their own unwarrantable conjectures, are very likely to be deceived; and the misery of it is, that the poor creatures, who are the sufferers upon wrong advances, seldom find out the errors, until they become irretrievable. As the greater number of all degrees and conditions have their education at the universities, the errors which I conceive to be in those places fall most naturally under the following observations. The first mismanagement in these public nurseries, is the calling together a number of pupils, of howsoever different ages, views and capacities, to the same lectures. But surely there can be no reason to think that a delicate tender babe, just weaned from the bosom of his mother, indulged in all the impertinences of his heart's desire, should be equally capable of receiving a lecture of philosophy, with a hardy ruffian of full age, who has been occasionally scourged through some of the great schools, groaned under constant rebuke and chastisement, and maintained a ten years' war with literature, under very strict and rugged discipline. I know the reader has pleased himself with an answer to this already, viz. That an attention to the particular abilities and designs of the pupil, cannot be expected from the trifling salary paid upon such account. The price indeed which is thought a sufficient reward for any advantages a youth can receive from a man of learning, is an abominable consideration; the enlarging which would not only increase the care of tutors, but would be a very great encouragement to such as designed to take this province upon them, to furnish themselves with a more general and extensive knowledge. As the case now stands, those of the first quality pay their tutors but little above half so much as they do their footmen: what morality, what history, what taste of the modern languages, what, lastly, that can make a man happy or great, may not be expected in return for such an immense treasure. It is monstrous, indeed, that the men of the best estates and families are more solicitous about the tutelage of a favourite dog or horse, than of their heirs male. The next evil is the pedantical veneration that is maintained at the university for Greek and Latin, which puts the youth upon such exercises as many of them are incapable of performing, with any tolerable success. Upon this emergency they are succoured by the allowed wits of their respective colleges, who are always ready to befriend them with two or three hundred Latin or Greek words thrown together, with a very small proportion of sense. But the most established error of our university education, is the general neglect of all the little qualifications and accomplishments which make up the character of a well-bred man, and the general attention to what is called deep learning. But as there are very few blessed with a genius, that shall force success by the strength of itself alone, and few occasions of life that require the aid of such genius; the vast majority of the unblessed souls ought to store them selves with such acquisitions, in which every man has capacity to make a considerable progress, and from which every common occasion of life may reap great advantage. The persons that may be useful to us in the making our fortunes, are such as are already happy in their own; I may proceed to say, that the men of figure and family are more superficial in their education, than those of a less degree, and of course, are |