tions, and partly of such as have been already used, but now set in a stronger light.

"A believer may be excused by the most hardened atheist for endeavouring to make him a convert, because he does it with an eye to both their interests. The atheist is inexcusable who tries to gain over a believer, because he does not propose the doing himself or the believer any good by such a

conversion.

"The prospect of a future state is the secret comfort and refreshment of my soul; it is that which makes nature look gay about me; it doubles all my pleasures, and supports me under all my afflictions. I can look at disappointments and misfortunes, pain and sickness, death itself, and, what is worse than death, the loss of those who are dearest to me, with indifference, so long as I keep in view the pleasures of eternity, and the state of being in which there will be no fears nor apprehensions, pains nor sorrows, sickness nor separation. Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all this is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news? If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.

"I must confess I do not know how to trust a man who believes neither heaven nor hell, or, in other words, a future state of rewards and punishments. Not only natural self-love, but reason, directs us to promote our own interests above all things. It can never be for the interest of a believer to do me a mischief, because he is sure, upon the balance of accounts, to find himself a loser by it. On the contrary, if he considers his own welfare in his behaviour towards me, it will lead him to do me all the good he can, and at the same time restrain him from doing me an injury. An unbeliever docs

not act like a reasonable creature, if he favours me contrary to his present interest, or does not distress me when it turns to his present advantage. Honour and good-nature may indeed tie up his hands; but as these would be very much strengthened by reason and principle, so without them they are only instincts, or wavering unsettled notions, which rest on no foundation.

66

Infidelity has been attacked with so good success of late years, that it is driven out of all its outworks. The atheist has not found his post tenable, and is therefore retired into deism, and a disbelief of revealed religion only. But the truth of it is, the greatest number of this set of men are those who, for want of a virtuous education, or examining the grounds of religion, know so very little of the matter in question, that their infidelity is but another term for their ignorance.

"As folly and inconsiderateness are the foundations of infidelity, the great pillars and supports of it are either a vanity of appearing wiser than the rest of mankind, or an ostentation of courage in despising the terrors of another world, which have so great an influence on what they call weaker minds; or an aversion to a belief that must cut them off from many of those pleasures they propose to themselves, and fill them with remorse for many of those they have already tasted.

"The great received articles of the Christian religion have been so clearly proved, from the authority of that divine revelation in which they are delivered, that it is impossible for those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see, not to be convinced of them. But were it possible for any thing in the Christian faith to be erroneous, I can find no ill consequences in adhering to it. The great points of the incarnation and sufferings of our Saviour pro

duce naturally such habits of virtue in the mind of man, that, I say, supposing it were possible for us to be mistaken in them, the infidel himself must at least allow that no other system of religion could so effectually contribute to the heightening of morality. They give us great ideas of the dignity of human nature, and of the love which the Supreme Being bears to his creatures, and consequently engage us in the highest acts of duty towards our Creator, our neighbour, and ourselves. How many noble arguments has St. Paul raised from the chief articles of our religion, for the advancing of morality in its three great branches! To give a single example in each kind. What can be a stronger motive to a firm trust and reliance on the mercies of our Maker, than the giving us his Son to suffer for us? What can make us love and esteem even the most inconsiderable of mankind more than the thought that Christ died for him? Or what dispose us to set a stricter guard upon the purity of our own hearts, than our being members of Christ, and a part of the society of which that immaculate Person is the head? But these are only a specimen of those admirable enforcements of morality, which the apostle has drawn from the history of our blessed Saviour.

If our modern infidels considered these matters with that candour and seriousness which they deserve, we should not see them act with such a spirit of bitterness, arrogance, and malice. They would not be raising such insignificant cavils, doubts, and scruples, as may be started against every thing that is not capable of mathematical demonstration, in order to unsettle the minds of the ignorant, disturb the public peace, subvert morality, and throw all things into confusion and disorder. If none of these reflections can have any influence on them, there is one that perhaps may; because it is adapted to their

desirable in this life is so suddenly vanished from him, that the charmer of his soul should withdraw the vital heat from the heart which pants for her. He continues a mournful absence for some time, pining in secret, and out of humour with all things which he meets with. At length he takes a resolution to try his fate, and explain with her resolutely upon her unaccountable carriage. He walks up to her apartment, with a thousand inquietudes, and doubts in what manner he shall meet the first cast of her eye; when upon his first appearance she flies towards him, wonders where he has been, accuses him of his absence, and treats him with a familiarity as surprising as her former coldness. This good correspondence continues till the lady observes the lover grows happy in it, and then she interrupts it with some new inconsistency of behaviour. For, as I just now said, the happiness of a jilt consists only in the power of making others uneasy. But such is the folly of this sect of women, that they carry on this pretty skittish behaviour, till they have no charms left to render it supportable. Corinna, that used to torment all who conversed with her, with false glances and little heedless unguarded motions, that were to betray some inclination towards the man she would insnare, finds at present all she attempts that way unregarded; and is obliged to indulge the jilt in her constitution, by laying artificial plots, writing perplexing letters from unknown hands, and making all the young fellows in love with her, till they find out who she is. Thus, as before she gave torment by disguising her inclination, she now is obliged to do it by hiding her person.

"As for my own part, Mr. Spectator, it has been my unhappy fate to be jilted from my youth upward; and as my taste has been very much towards

intrigue, and having intelligence with women of wit, my whole life has passed away in a series of impositions. I shall, for the benefit of the present race of young men, give some account of my loves. I know not whether you have ever heard of the famous girl about town called Kitty. This creature, for I must take shame upon myself, was my mistress in the days when keeping was in fashion. Kitty, under the appearance of being wild, thoughtless, and irregular in all her words and actions, concealed the most accomplished jilt of her time. Her negligence had to me a charm in it like that of chastity, and want of desires seemed as great a merit, as the conquest of them. The air she gave herself was that of a romping girl, and whenever I talked to her with any turn of fondness, she would immediately snatch off my perriwig, try it upon herself in the glass, clap her arms a-kimbo, draw my sword, and make passes on the wall, take off my cravat, and seize it to make some other use of the lace, or run into some other unaccountable rompishness, till the time I had appointed to pass away with her was over. I went from her full of pleasure at the reflection that I had the keeping of so much beauty in a woman, who, as she was too heedless to please me, was also too unattentive to form a design to wrong me. Long did I divert every hour that hung heavy upon me in the company of this creature, whom I looked upon as neither guilty nor innocent, but could laugh at myself for my unaccountable pleasure in an expense upon her, till in the end it appeared my pretty insensible was with child by my footman.

"This accident roused me into a disdain against all libertine women, under what appearance soever they hid their insincerity, and I resolved after that time to converse with none but those who lived within the rules of decency and honour. To this