even more fearful-" Mortels! cessez de trembler devant les fondres impuissans d'un Dieu creé par vos terreurs." Is it to be wondered at, that authority in such a nation, should find her seat so tottering, that mere Policy, stained with every crime, should feel the wisdom of passing a decree:-"La nation reconnait l'existence de l'Etre suprême et l'immortalité de l'âme." But a mere political religion is but an ineffectual mockery, and only hastened the vengeance which it was beginning to dread. Look yet once again into the state of the same people. "Ce ne sont pas seulement les sciences, les arts consolateurs, les arts utils qui vont perir: ce sont les premiers liens de la société, les plus saintes affections qui sont rompus avec fureur. L'Imagination ne peut concevoir une plus affreuse pensée qu'un tel peuple exerçant ses fureurs au centre de l'Europe." And when this absence of a ruling principle was begun to be felt by those who were at the same time suffering and inflicting misery, was the attempt of a Theophilanthropist to raise a new Religion, not based on old authority, successful? or, shall the

restoration of Superstition, for the purpose of serving the interests and gratifying the pride of tyranny, be at all more permanent?

Can there be a doubt in the mind of any person who is satisfied of the reality of God's Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, and is convinced that Divine Obligations result from these-can there be a doubt in that mind about the eventual establishing of Religion? Shall then a pious regard for antiquity, and a deep conviction of the truths of primeval tradition, be blended with as pious a reverence for those great practical truths respecting Human Nature, and the Divine Government, which belong not to the groves of Philosophy, but to the temples of Religion? It is important to observe, that there is nothing sound in Philosophy which is not pious in Religion, though timid persons dare not, and dishonest ones will not forward the acknowledgment of this great and safe truth. Such, we may well suppose, were the words of Socrates to the Meliti of his time. They were vouched by the authority of an unstained character. But had they been urged by errors of conduct and imperfections of character, fairly

referrible to the broken and despised bonds of obligations discovered to be blended with false

hoods, even in this case, whatever would be lost in authority would be more than gained in example. But there is no dearth of examples to convince us, that the necessity of submitting our appetites and passions to Religion, is not more sure than is the impossibility of submitting them to Superstition. Knowledge must prove Power, and Truth will prevail; and the only question is whether Truth shall so prevail, that the temple shall be more honoured, and the priest more respected; or whether we will ourselves burn down that temple with the vanity of the mad Ephesian; or whether we will preserve errors with which it is dishonoured, untouched, till the Iconoclasts are on foot, and the work of destruction has commenced.

Socrates' power over the minds of his hearers consisted in the depth and heartiness of his Sincerity, and in the soundness and importance of the Truths he taught. In order that the Advocate of Good may have a like power, he must, out of the farrago which every system

requires him to teach, be able to seize upon important truths, without allowing his mind to be perplexed by falsehoods, and then throw the whole strength of his sincerity into these. He must have the power, which I believe some men possess, of withdrawing his attention altogether from subjects for scepticism, and to rest his full conviction on solid truths. But whilst he is conscientiously doing this, it will behove the Guardians of Speculation to be equally earnest in freeing Religion from falsehoods, not only in order to preserve the power of sincerity to the conscientious Advocate of Good, but lest even his sincerity become ineffective, if that which he believes and sets forth as truth be discovered to be falsehood. The Guardians of Speculation have indeed a heavy burden to sustain; heavy in its present difficulty and its future dangers. If they do not devote their whole power to secure to their advocates sincerity and truth, I do not know a word which may suffice to describe the enormity of their guilt: Impiety and Profanation are terms too weak to express its atrocity.

If the God of Truth be only a Priest's falsehood, and a Poet's fable, and a Philosopher's abstraction, then they may be safe here and hereafter, and there is no trouble in conscience, and no peril in events, for them to feel and anticipate. But if the exact reverse of this is the reality and the truth, then the Divine Being will not be mocked with impunity, and a Divine Obligation will not be neglected with safety. And, as a right-minded man would scruple to suggest or to encourage a single doubt in the Advocate of Good, lest his beneficent task be rendered one jot more difficult; so the very same right-mindedness would cause him to urge the Guardians of Speculation to open their eyes to all this difficulty and danger, in order that it may be removed. Let them bring home to their conscience the impiety of allowing, which in their case is the same as causing, the highest truths to be blended with falsehoods. Let them bring home to their feelings the sufferings of those who have to advocate falsehoods mixed with truths. But, above all, let them bring home to their reason the evidence of this awful fact