"O how I should have liked to have been in heaven, when he was down here then," replied the child, "for then, you know, all the angels would get a holiday, and they would be so merry!" The same child, to whom Sunday had been made a day of gloomy restraint and incessant application, was so shocked by a long sermon, in which the pious preacher expatiated on the nature of a future state, under the figure of an eternal Sabbath, that it required no small pains of an able and judicious parent to counteract this unfortunate association.

When notions of God and of religion are associated with ideas of a painful and a gloomy cast, can we wonder, if the mind should seize the first opportunity of emancipating itself from their cruel bondage? This opportunity can, to young men at least, be never wanting. With avidity will they listen to the sophistry of scepticism, who have been taught to tremble while they believed. Those who have found belief to be slavery, will consider infdelity as freedom. They may, however, find it an easier matter to triumph over their fait.. than their prejudices; and while they exonerate themselves from all obligation to religious duty, it is not impossible that they may still retain the slavish spirit of fear and superstition.*

Such converts to infidelity nothing less than a miracle can reclaim. The gloomy and unpleasant ideas they have associated with religion, strengthen their resistance to the admission of truth; and render them incapable of examining with impartiality the weight of the arguments on either side, their prejudices being all won over to that of scepticism.

*The life and death of Voltaire furnishes an apposite illustration of the truth of what is here asserted.

7* VOL. I.

When a man has in these circumstances, made up his mind, all arguments intended to convince him of his mistake only serve to confirm him in his chosen way of thinking. One who has been altogether uninstructed in the principles of religion, has here a manifest advantage; as it has been well observed by a celebrated philosopher,* that "an argument or evidence of any kind that is entirely new to a man, may make a proper impression upon him; but if it has been often proposed to him, and he has had time to view and consider it, so as to have hit upon any method of evading the force of it, he is afterwards quite callous to it, and can very seldom be prevailed upon to give it any proper attention."

Let us now consider the consequence of this dereliction of religious principle.

The associations of happiness and virtue, of vice and misery, which are fixed and confirmed by religious principle, can scarcely fail to be weakened by its loss. If the idea of happiness be connected with self-gratification, and the idea of misery attached to the disappointment of self-will, present interest and present pleasure will be pursued as happiness; and where the passions are ardent, the animal spirits strong, and the habits of virtue feeble and unsettled, the man who has cast aside the higher motives offered by religion, while he floats without anchor or compass on the sea of temptation, has little chance of escaping the vortex of vice.

Instances, indeed, there are of the associations fixed by religious principle in early life remaining permanent after the principle that gave them birth, has been denied or forgotten. Where the passions are moderate, and the temper amiable and serene,

* Dr. Priestley.

a man of good understanding, who has contracted early habits of sobriety and decorum, may so well perform the relative duties of life, as to leave us nothing to regret, but that such a man should have deprived himself of that hope which rejoiceth the

heart.

There are yet people of another cast of temper, to whom the loss of religious principle is a misfortune truly deplorable. Persons addicted to melancholy, whose low and timid spirits stand particularly in need of the consolation and support which Christianity so peculiarly affords.

Where gloomy associations have been early united with the first ideas of religion, such minds will gladly throw off its yoke. But what is the consequence? Can the whole world present a spectacle so worthy of commiseration, as that of a timid and dejected soul divested of all support from the invigorating hope of heavenly protection and eternal happiness? To such a mind the prospects of this life are veiled in eternal clouds, and no enlivening ray darts from another to cheer the gloom. Without a regard to God, as the maker and governor of all things, this world affords but an uncomfortable prospect: without a reliance on his superintending care, the anxiety concerning future events must, to a naturally desponding temper, be a source of incessant misery. In vain does fortune smile. In vain are his wishes fulfilled. In vain does happiness seem to solicit his acceptance. The gnawing worm of discontent preys upon his bosom, a morbid irratibility of temper adds its cruel stings; and if the loss of reason does not fill up the measure of his calamity, the want of energy which is consequent upon despondency, will in the ruin of his

worldly affairs, probable justify the most gloomy forebodings of despair.

How different would have been the situation of such a person as has been now described, had the first conceptions of the Deity and of revealed religion been associated with cheerful, exhilarating, and agreeable impressions? He would not then have so easily been led to relinquish principles which had been made to him a source of hope and consolation, for a blank and joyless scepticism. Had religious sentiment been blended with all that touches the heart and charms the imagination, the beauties of nature, and the still superior beauties of moral truth, it would not so readily have yielded to the attacks of the witty, or the arguments of the plausible; but have remained to solace and invigorate the mind in every event, and through every period of life.

Here fact comes in to the support of theory; and I can assert the observations I have presumed to make, to be amply justified by experience.

One gentleman it has been my happiness to know, who entered upon life at the age of sixteen, without guide but his own principle, without monitor but the precepts of education, and the dictates of his own heart. Unsullied by the temptations of a capital, he was plunged into the temptations of a camp. Fond of society, where his cheerful temper and easy manners formed him to shine, but still fonder of improvement, neither the inducements of camp or city interrupted his unwearied pursuits of literature and science. Surrounded by companions who had caught the contagion of scepticism, he, at this early period of life, listened to their arguments; weighed, examined, detected, their futility; and rejected them! In prosperity and adversity, in public

and in private life, the sentiments of religion retained their influence on his heart. Through life they were his guide, in death his consolation. When sinking by painful steps into an early grave, "with what gratitude," he exclaimed, "with what delightful gratitude do I now look back to the period of my infancy, and to the judicious conduct of my mother, who made religion appear to me in colours so engaging and so congenial! Had I been taught as other boys are taught, my passions would have made me an easy prey to vice; my love of inquiry would have led me to infidelity. She prepared me for the trial of faith and virtue, and, thanks to God, I have come off victorious. Had religion been made to me a gloomy task in infancy, where would now have been my consolation ?"

I find this subject is still too much for me.

Adieu.

LETTER VI.

Same Subject continued.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

If the establishment of religious principle in the minds of our pupils, on a firm and lasting foundation, appear to us an object of importance, we shall not be satisfied with a slight and hasty survey of the means of accomplishing it. I shall therefore, make no apology for resuming a subject which, in the light I view it, as the only never-failing source of joy and consolation, is worthy of the highest degree of attention.