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For instance; you may stigmatize England under the name of Rome, and Christianity under that of Popery. The true way is, to attack whatever you have a mind to injure, under another name; and the best means to destroy the use of a thing, is to produce a few incontrovertible facts against the abuses of it. Our late travellers have inconceivably helped on the cause of the new philosophy, in their ludicrous narratives of credulity, miracles, indulgences, and processions, in popish countries, all which they ridicule under the broad and general name of Religion, Christianity, and the Church. "And are not you ashamed to defend such knavery?" said Mr. Trueman "Those who have a great object to accomplish," replied Mr. Fantom, "must not be nice about the means. But to return to yourself, Trueman: in your little confined situation, you can be of no use." "That I deny," interrupted Trueman; "I have filled all the parish offices with some credit. I never took a bribe at an election, no, not so much as a treat; I take care of my apprentices, and do not set them a bad example, by running to plays and Sadler's Wells in the week, or jaunting about in a gig all day on Sundays; for I look upon it that the country jaunt of the master on Sundays exposes his servants to more danger than their whole week's temptations in trade put together."

Fantom. I once had the same vulgar prejudices about the Church and the Sabbath, and all that antiquated stuff. But even on your own narrow principles, how can a thinking being spend his Sunday better (if he must lose one day in seven by having any Sunday at all) than by going into the country to admire the works of nature?

Trueman. I suppose you mean the works of God; for I never read in the Bible that Nature made any thing. I should rather think that she herself was made by Him who made all things; by Him, who, when he said, “Thou shalt not murder," said also, "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbathday." But now, do you really think that all that multitude of coaches, chariots, chaises, vis-a-vis, boobyhutches, sulkies, sociables, phaetons, gigs, curricles, cabrioles, chairs, stages, pleasure-carts, and horses, which crowd our roads; all those country houses, within reach, to which the London friends pour in to the gorgeous Sunday feast, which the servants are kept from church to dress; all those public houses, under the signs of which you read these alluring words, An Ordinary on Sundays; I say, do you really believe that all those houses. and carriages are crammed with philosophers, who go on Sundays into the country to admire the works of nature, as you call it? Indeed, from the reeling gait of some of them,

when they go back at night, one might take them for a certain sect called the tippling philosophers. Then, in answer to your charge, that a little tradesman can do no good, it is not true; I must tell you that I belong to the Sick Man's Friend, and to the society for relieving prisoners for small debts.

Fantom. I have no attention to spare to that business, though I would pledge myself to produce a plan by which the national debt might be paid off in six months; but all yours are petty occupations.

Trueman. Then they are better suited to petty men, of petty fortune. I had rather have an ounce of real good done with my own hands, and seen with my own eyes, than speculate about doing a ton in a wild way, which I know can never be brought about.

Fantom. I despise a narrow field. Oh for the reign of universal benevolence! I want to make all mankind good and happy.

Trueman. Dear me! sure that must be a wholesale sort of a job: had not you better try your hand at a town or a parish first?

Fantom. Sir, I have a plan in my head for relieving the miseries of the whole world. Every thing is bad as it now stands. I would alter all the laws, and do away all the religions, and put an end to all the wars in the world. I would every where redress the injustice of fortune, or what the vulgar call providence. I would put an end to all punishments; I would not leave a single prisoner on the face of the globe. This is what I call doing things on a grand scale. "A scale with a vengeance!" said Trueman. "As to releasing the prisoners, however, I do not so much like that, as it would be liberating a few rogues at the expense of all honest men; but as to the rest of your plan, if all Christian countries would be so good as turn Christians, it might be helped on a good deal. There would be still misery enough left, indeed; because God intended this world should be earth, and not heaven. But, sir, among all your abolitions, you must abolish human corruption, before you can make the world quite as perfect as you pretend. You philosophers seem to me to be ignorant of the very first seed and principle of misery; sin, sir-sin: your system of reform is radically defective; for it does not comprehend that sinful nature from which all misery proceeds. You accuse government of defects which belong to man, to individual man, and of course to man collectively. Among all your reforms, you must reform the human heart; you are only hacking at the

branches, without striking at the root. Banishing impiety out of the world, would be like striking off all the pounds from an overcharged bill; and all the troubles which would be left would be reduced to mere shillings, pence, and farthings, as one may say."

Fantom. Your project would rivet the chains which mine is designed to break.

Trueman. Sir, I have no projects. Projects are in general the offspring of restlessness, vanity, and idleness. I am too busy for projects, too contented for theories, and, I hope, have too much honesty and humility for a philosopher. The utmost extent of my ambition at present is, to redress the wrongs of a parish apprentice, who has been cruelly used by his master indeed, I have another little scheme, which is, to prosecute a fellow in our street who has suffered a poor wretch in a work-house, of which he had the care, to perish through neglect; and you must assist me.

Fantom. The parish must do that. You must not apply to me for the redress of such petty grievances. I own that the wrongs of the Poles and South Americans so fill my mind, as to leave me no time to attend to the petty sorrows of work-houses and parish apprentices. It is provinces, empires, continents, that the benevolence of the philosopher embraces every one can do a little paltry good to his next neighbor.

Trueman. Every one can, but I do not see that every one does. If they would, indeed, your business would be ready done to your hands, and your grand ocean of benevolence would be filled with the drops which private charity would throw into it. I am glad, however, you are such a friend to the prisoners, because I am just now getting a little subscription from our club, to set free your poor old friend Tom Saunders, a very honest brother tradesman, who got first into debt, and then into gaol, through no fault of his own, but merely through the pressure of the times. We have each of us allowed a trifle every week towards maintaining Tom's young family since he has been in prison; but we think we shall do much more service to Saunders, and, indeed, in the end, lighten our own expense, by paying down at once a little sum to restore to him the comforts of life, and put him in a way of maintaining his family again. We have made up the money all except five guineas; I am already promised four, and you have nothing to do but give me the fifth. And so, for a single guinea, without any of the trouble, the meetings, and the looking into his affairs, which we have had (which, let me tell you, is the best, and, to a man of business, the

dearest part of charity), you will at once have the pleasure (and it is no small one) of helping to save a worthy family from starving, of redeeming an old friend from gaol, and of putting a little of your boasted benevolence into action. Realize! Master Fantom: there is nothing like realizing. "Why, hark ye, Mr. Trueman," said Fantom, stammering, and looking very black, " do not think I value a guinea! no, sir; I despise money; it is trash; it is dirt, and beneath the regard of a wise man. It is one of the unfeeling inventions of artificial society. Sir, I could talk to you for half a day on the abuse of riches, and on my own contempt. of money."

Trueman. O, pray do not give yourself the trouble: it will be an easier way by half of vindicating yourself from one, and of proving the other, just to put your hand in your pocket and give me a guinea, without saying a word about it; and then, to you, who value time so much, and money so little, it will cut the matter short. But come now (for I see you will give nothing), I should be mighty glad to know what is the sort of good you do yourselves, since you always object to what is done by others. "Sir," said Mr. Fantom, "the object of a true philosopher is to diffuse light and knowledge, I wish to see the whole world enlightened."

Trueman. Amen! if you mean with the light of the gos pel. But if you mean that one religion is as good as another, and that no religion is best of all; and that we shall become wiser and better by setting aside the very means which Providence bestowed to make us wise and good; in short, if you want to make the whole world philosophers, why, they had better stay as they are. But as to the true light, I wish it to reach the very lowest; and I therefore bless God for charity-schools, as instruments of diffusing it among the poor.

Fantom, who had no reason to expect that his friend was going to call upon him for a subscription on this account, ventured to praise them; saying, "I am no enemy to these institutions. I would indeed change the object of instruction, but I would have the whole world instructed."

Here Mrs. Fantom, who, with her daughter, had quietly sat by their work, ventured to put in a word, a liberty she seldom took with her husband; who, in his zeal to make the whole world free and happy, was too prudent to include his wife among the objects on whom he wished to confer freedom and happiness. "Then, my dear," said she, "I wonder you do not let your own servants be taught a little. maids can scarcely tell a letter, or say the Lord's Prayer;

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and you know you will not allow them time to learn. William, too, has never been at church since we came out of town. He was at first very orderly and obedient, but now he is seldom sober of an evening; and in the morning, when he should be rubbing the tables in the parlor, he is generally lolling upon them, and reading your little manual of the new philosophy."- -" Mrs. Fantom," said her husband, angrily, "you know that my labors for the public good leave me little time to think of my own family. I must have a great field; I like to do good to hundreds at once." "for

"I am very glad of that, papa," said Miss Polly; then I hope you will not refuse to subscribe to all those pretty children at the Sunday-school, as you did yesterday, when the gentlemen came a begging, because that is the very thing you were wishing for: there are two or three hundred to be done good to at once."

Trueman. Well, Mr. Fantom, you are a wonderful man, to keep up such a stock of benevolence at so small an expense; to love mankind so dearly, and yet avoid all opportunities of doing them good; to have such a noble zeal for the millions, and to feel so little compassion for the units; to long to free empires and enlighten kingdoms, and yet deny instruction to your own village, and comfort to your own family. Surely none but a philosopher could indulge so much philanthropy and so much frugality at the same time. But come, do assist me in a partition I am making in our poor-house, between the old, whom I want to have better fed, and the young, whom I want to have more worked.

Fantom. Sir, my mind is so engrossed with the partition of Poland, that I cannot bring it down to an object of such insignificance. I despise the man whose benevolence is swallowed up in the narrow concerns of his own family, or parish, or country.

Trueman. Well, now I have a notion that it is as well to do one's own duty, as the duty of another man; and that to do good at home is as well as to do good abroad. For my part, I had as lief help Tom Saunders to freedom, as a Pole or a South American, though I should be very glad to help them too. But one must begin to love somewhere, and to do good somewhere; and I think it is as natural to love one's own family, and to do good in one's own neighborhood, as to any body else. And if every man in every family, parish, and country, did the same, why, then, all the schemes would meet, and the end of one parish, where I was doing good, would be the beginning of another parish, where somebody else was doing good; so my schemes would jut into my

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