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any inclination to be vicious, as will appear from the following letter, which was fent by a young girl to her sweetheart, with whom she had begun to marry without the parson. I would have given it you in the original spelling, but was afraid half your readers would not understand it. The moft remarkable part of it I have preserved.

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"Dear Tammy my lofe

I

T is jost as I tould you I am with chile so pray mak hafte and com and marry me and mak me a oneft ❝ woman The parfon will be at home to morow and I fent to ax him to marry us and so he says he wooll fo befhure com in the mornin time enow Our Nan nofe ❝ont and calls me hore but fhe need not call me fo for "fhe'd ha' been a hore her self if so be she had not meskarid fo no more at present from

"Yor lofing wife tell death

Molly Roufe

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Thomas was now grown indifferent, very indifferent indeed! a common cafe, I am told, with young fellows, when accidents of this fort happen. But this fingular letter being shewn to my uncle Sir Richard, who takes pleasure in making every body happy, and he being also inform'd that they were to have been married the very day this flip was made, had the minister been at home, he fent for the young fellow, and talk'd him into a much better temper; and now they are married, live comfortably and honestly, and have every year fince ftrengthen'd the nation with a sturdy boy or girl. As a reward for Thomas's fingular honefty, my uncle has, at the birth of every child, prefented him with a good fat hog, agreeable to a promise made him before marriage, which is fuch encouragement, that all the young fellows in the neighbourhood have offer'd Sir Richard to marry on the fame terms.

My

My uncle, like a good commonwealth's man, highly honours the marriage-ftate, and has often express'd the utmoft diffatisfaction to me, at young gentlemen's deferring their nuptials 'till they are debauch'd and infirm, which, he fays, should be fome how confider'd and prevented by the legiflature. In the mean time he endeavours to couple his kinsfolks and acquaintance as faft as he can. And as all the people in the neighbourhood dine with him at Christmas, he takes care to place those who are married at the upper end of the table near himself, and to provide them each with a filver spoon to eat his plumb-porridge, which is generally very good, while the batchelors and maidens, at the lower end of the table, are furnished only with wooden spoons, and have their plumb-porridge ferv'd up in a wooden bowl. After dinner is over, and the good knight has faid grace, he himself fings a fong of his own compofing in praise of matrimony. This scheme, he affures me, has fo alter'd the difpofition of his neighbours, who, before he came among them, laugh'd at the marriage-ftate, that he has every year, before Christmas, been oblig'd to encrease the number of his filver spoons, people are so ambitious of getting to the upper end of the table. But then the good knight has the pleasure to find, that the expence he was at for wooden fpoons decreafes in an adequate proportion. He has alfo the fatisfaction to fee a great number of christenings at his church, and to be called godfather by all the children in the parish, for he piques himself on performing that friendly office.

I could add many more particulars of my uncle's oddities, which, as they all tend to fome good end he has constantly in view, may be confider'd as fo many virtues; but, I believe, your readers are by this time fufficiently tired, and glad that I conclude myself,

Dear brother, yours for ever, &c.

LETTER

LETTER VI. in defence of RELIGION.

[The fubject continued from Number VIII.]

UT the neceffity of religion appears no where greater,

BUT

nor indeed fo confpicuous, as in the feasonable and falutary influences it is feen by all to have upon a virtuous and vicious difpofition. Human laws, as we have already ob- ' ferv'd, were notoriously defective in those two points; they neither fuited the punishment to the tranfgreffion, nor could they, fuppofing them to have actually affigned and proportioned the penalty to the pernicious quality of each immoral act, be always indifferently and uprightly executed. Because the effects of juftice would frequently be fufpended, or, which is ftill worfe, its courfe diverted out of the proper channel; and diverted by those very persons, whose situation in fociety, at the fame time it gave them opportunities of doing this, laid them under the strongest and most preffing obligation to direct it equally, and to distribute it impartially. Now the inftances that daily occur, and which, if we will but open our eyes and look about, we cannot but take notice ̈ of, muft convince us, that fome have gone fuch amazing lengths in vice, and are become fo habituated, or (if I may thus speak) naturalized to it, that they seem to have spirits capable of undertaking any villany, tho' the effects thence emaining, be as fevere and horrible, as they are unavoidable. And nothing can effectually work a reformation in them that deride the magistrate's threats and defy his power, but the producing those awful and tremendous fentiments of another life, by placing the torments of it in fuch a light, or grounding the certainty of them upon fuch reafons, as will neceffarily ftrike terrour into those who have scornfully flighted, or audaciously and infolently oppugned the unchangeable laws of truth and righteousness. This conception of another state, and the apprehenfions of a being who will execute the

full

3

full severity of his wrath uph fuch harden'd difolutë wretches, may not mifs of a good effect. A ferious attention to the torments of hell, fuch as an unquenchable fire, the worm that never dieth, &c. has been sufficient to frighten and drive the most abandoned into the paths of duty and obedience, when axes, halters, and the like fcourges of an earthly tribunal were not able to lay hold on them. For in wholly taking up mens thoughts (which it must do, if it is once fuffered to feize and take poffeffion of their minds) it draws both their defires and pursuits from other objects to itfelf, and by degrees abforbs them all.

When, virtue, which fhould gain and fecure us the favour of others, particularly of those with whom we have any correfpondence and dealings, is, by the crafty and infidious (and fuch ever lie in wait to deceive) made the engine to work our own destruction by, it naturally produces great anxiety of mind, as well as a distrust of providence, and in room of the eafy good-natur'd principle, that keeps gradually lofing ftrength, fucceeds fretfulness of temper, or a certain suspicious captious turn of mind, that, if it ends not in an infuperable averfion, at least it does in a perfect indifferency, to every thing fubftantially good and commendable amongst men. But the only proper remedy to raise fuch low desponding spirits, is the sense of an infinitely intelligent and all-powerful governor, under whofe administration virtue and vice fhall be visibly diftinguished, and effentially differenced, or their respective tendencies to ripen into action fhall neither be fuperfeded nor obftructed by any of those lets, which (thro' the ignorance or perverfity of man) now lie in the way and retard their course of operation, or else entirely change it, that is, make them go against themselves. For when religion, which brings along with it the comfortable doctrine of a righteous adjustment of events to particular moral agents, either here or hereafter, appears seasonably in aid of morality; all the difficulties and embarrasments that attend the good and pious liver immediately ceafe, on the commencement of

the

the belief of fuch a principle. The mind can, with a fort of inflexible firmness, endure evils, tho', for the prefent, ever fo grievous and hard of digeftion, that fhe is assured will draw after them an happiness transcendently excellent in its kind, and of eternal duration. From all which we gather how neceffary the full perfuafion of another world is to the order and good government of this; to fupport and advance the interests of virtue, as alfo to excite and preferve a brifk, lively, and durable relish for moral performances in every ftate of perfecution, or approaching danger of fuffering for them. And this fhews the reasonableness of fuch inftitutions as are fitted to recall and disengage men from a too close attachment and devotion to the things of this life, and to raise their minds up to, and fix their affections on, an infinitely more interesting one, had they only human authority to enforce them.

From the intimate dependence which religion and human happiness have on each other arises the right civil governors are vested with to constrain all within their jurifdiction to refort to church, or fome other religious fociety founded on general confent, and tolerated by publick authority, there to give an open teftimony of their belief of the three great truths above-mentioned; and to hear their respective duties. to God, to their fellow-creatures, and to themselves, with the grounds of their obligation, or the reasons ordaining them, fully explained and affectionately recommended. Hence appears the abfurdity of such arguments as would deprive the supreme magiftrate of all power in religious matters, from a pretence that civil peace is the proper object and legitimate end of all his purfuits. Since his relation to fociety ties him to all fuch acts and appointments as tend to its greater fecurity and emolument; and how religion acquires this tendency, and improves it to the service of the ftate, has been largely fhewn above.

In the room of those kindly beneficient confequences deferib'd above, fome would fubftitute a principle of honour as Numb. IX.

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