The smoke and vapour from them dimmed the Light of Heaven through all Europe, for Months; even at Cadiz, the Sun and Moon, for several weeks, seemed turned to Blood. What was the amount of the injury to the human Race? Sixty men were destroyed, and of these the greater part in consequence of their own imprudence. Natural Calamities that do indeed spread devastation wide (for instance the Marsh Fever), are almost without exception, voices of Nature in her all-intelligible language -do this! or Cease to do that! By the mere absence of one Superstition, and of the Sloth engendered by it, the Plague would cease to exist throughout Asia and Africa. Pronounce meditatively the name of Jenner, and ask what might we not hope, what need we deem unattainable, if all the time, the effort, the skill, which we waste in making ourselves miserable through vice, and vicious through misery, were embodied and marshalled to a systematic War against the existing Evils of Nature? No, "It is a wicked World!" this is so generally the Solution, that this very Wickedness is assigned by selfish men, as their excuse for doing nothing to render it better, and for opposing those who would make the attempt. What have not Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and the Society of the Friends, effected for the Honor, and, if we believe in a retributive Providence, for the continuance of the Prosperity of the English Nation, imper fectly as the intellectual and moral faculties of the People at large are developed at present? What may not be effected, if the recent discovery of the means of educating Nations (freed, however, from the vile sophistications and mutilations of ignorant Mountebanks), shall have been applied to its' full extent? Would I frame to myself the most inspirating representation of future Bliss, which my mind is capable of comprehending, it would be embodied to me in the idea of BELL receiving, at some distant period, the appropriate reward of his earthly Labours, when thousands and ten thousands of glorified Spirits, whose reason and conscience had, through his efforts, been unfolded, shall sing the song of their own Redemption, and pouring forth Praises to God and to their Saviour, shall repeat his "new Name" in Heaven, give thanks for his earthly Virtues, as the chosen Instruments of Divine Mercy to themselves, and not seldom perhaps, turn their eyes toward him, as from the Sun to its' image in the

Fountain, with secondary gratitude and the permitted utterance of a human love! Were but a hundred men to combine a deep conviction that virtuous Habits may be formed by the very means by which knowledge is communicated, that men may be made better, not only in consequence, but by the mode and in the process, of instruction: were but an hundred men to combine that clear conviction of this, which I myself at this moment feel, even as I feel the certainty of my being, with the perseverance of a CLARKSON or a BELL, the promises of ancient prophecy would disclose themselves to our Faith, even as when a noble Castle hidden from us by an intervening mist, discovers itself by its' reflection in the tran quil Lake, on the opposite shore of which we stand gazing. What an awful Duty, what a Nurse of all other, the fairest Virtues, does not HOPE become! We are bad ourselves, because we despair of the goodness of others.

If then it be a Truth, attested alike by common feeling and common sense, that the greater part of human Misery depends directly on human Vices and the remainder indirectly, by what means can we act on Men so as to remove or preclude these Vices and purify their principle of moral election? The question is not, by what means each man is to alter his own character-in order to this, all the means prescribed and all the aidances given by Religion, may be necessary for him. themselves, may be

-the sayings of the wise

In ancient and in modern books inroll'd

Unless he feel within

Some source of consolation from above,

Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.

Vain, of

SAMPSON AGONISTES.

This is not the question. Virtue would not be Virtue, could it be given by one fellow-creature to another. To make use of all the means and appliances in our power to the actual attainment of Rectitude, is the abstract of the Duty which we owe to ourselves: to supply those means as far as we can, comprizes our Duty to others. The question then is, what are these means? Can they be any other than the communication of Knowledge, and

the removal of those Evils and Impediments which prevent its' reception? It may not be in our power to combine both, but it is in the power of every man to contribute to the former, who is sufficiently informed to feel that it is his Duty. If it be said, that we should endeavour not so much to remove ignorance, as to make the Ignorant religious Religion herself, through her sacred Oracles, answers for me, that all effective Faith presupposes Knowledge and individual Conviction. If the mere acquiescence in Truth, uncomprehended and unfathomed, were sufficient, few indeed would be the vicious and the miserable, in this Country at least, where speculative Infidelity is, Heaven be praised, confined to a small number. Like bodily deformity, there is one instance here and another there; but three in one place are already an undue proportion. It is highly worthy of observation, that the inspired Writings received by Christians are distinguishable from all other Books pretending to Inspiration, from the Scriptures of the Bramins, and even from the Koran, in their strong and frequent recommendations of Truth. I do not here mean Veracity, which cannot but be enforced in every Code which appeals to the religious Principle of Man; but Knowledge. This is not only extolled as the Crown and Honor of a Man, but to seek after it is again and again commanded us as one of our most sacred Duties. Yea, the very perfection and final bliss of the glorified spirit is represented by the Apostle as a plain aspect, or intuitive beholding of Truth in its' eternal and immutable Source. Not that Knowledge can of itself do all! The Light of Religion is not that of the Moon, light without heat; but neither is its' warmth that of the Stove, warmth without light. Religion is the Sun, whose warmth indeed swells, and stirs, and actuates the Life of Nature, but who at the same time beholds all the growth of Life with a mastereye, makes all objects glorious on which he looks, and by that Glory visible to all others.

But though Knowledge be not the only, yet that it. is an indispensible and most effectual Agent in the direc tion of our actions, one consideration will convince us. It is an undoubted Fact of human nature, that the sense of impossibility quenches all will. Sense of utter inaptitude does the same. The man shuns the beautiful Flame, which is eagerly grasped at by the Infant. The sense of

a disproportion of certain after harm to present gratification, produces effects almost equally uniform: though almost perishing with thirst, we should dash to the earth a goblet of Wine in which we had seen a Poison infused, though the Poison were without taste or odour, or even added to the pleasures of both. Are not all our Vices equally inapt to the universal end of human actions, the Satisfaction of the agent? Are not their pleasures equally disproportionate to the after harm? Yet many a Maiden, who will not grasp at the fire, will yet purchase a wreath of Diamonds at the price of her health, her honor, nay (and she herself knows it at the moment of her choice), at the sacrifice of her Peace and Happiness. The Sot would reject the poisoned Cup, yet the trembling hand with which he raises his daily or hourly draught to his lips, has not left him ignorant that this too is altogether a Poison. I know, it will be objected, that the consequences foreseen are less immediate; that they are diffused over a larger space of time; and that the slave of Vice hopes where no hope is. This, however, only removes the question one step further: for why should the distance or diffusion of known consequences produce so great a difference? Why are men the dupes of the present moment? Evidently because the conceptions are indistinct in the one case, and vivid in the other, because all confused conceptions render us restless; and because Restlessness can drive us to Vices that promise no enjoyment, no not even the cessation of that Restlessness. This is indeed the dread Punishment attached by Nature to habitual Vice, that its' Impulses wax as its' Motives wane. No object, not even the light of a solitary Taper in the far distance, tempts the benighted Mind from before; but its' own restlessness dogs it from behind, as with the iron goad of Destiny. What then is or can be the preventive, the remedy, the counteraction, but the habituation of the Intellect to clear, distinct, and adequate conceptions concerning all things that are the possible objects of clear conception, and thus to reserve the deep feelings which belong, as by a natural right to those obscure

But the truth

I have not expressed myself as clearly as I could wish. of the assertion, that deep feeling has a tendency to combine with obscure ideas in preference to distinct and clear notions, is proved in every Methodist meeting, and by the history of religious sects in general. The odium theolo gicum, or hatred excited by difference of faith, is even proverbial: and it is the common complaint of philosophers and philosophic Historians, that the

Ideas that are necessary to the moral perfection of the human being, notwithstanding, yea, even in consequence, of their obscurity-to reserve these feelings, I repeat for objects, which their very sublimity renders indefinite, no less than their indefiniteness renders them sublime: Being, Form, Life, the Reason, the Law of Conscience, Freedom, Immortality, God! To connect with the objects of our senses the obscure notions and consequent vivid feelings, which are due only to our Ideas of immaterial and permanent Things, is profanation relatively to the heart, and superstition in the understanding. It is in this sense, that the philosophic Apostle calls Covetousness Idoltary. Could we emancipate ourselves from the bedimming influences of Custom, and the transforming witchcraft of early associations, we should see as numerous Tribes of FetishWorshippers in the streets of London and Paris, as we hear of on the Coasts of Africa.

I am fully aware, that what I am writing and have written (in these latter paragraphs at least) will expose me to the Censure of some, as bewildering myself and Readers with Metaphysics; to the Ridicule of others as a School-boy declaimer on old and worn-out Truisms or exploded Fancies; and to the Objection of most as obscure. The last real or supposed defect requires and will receive a particular answer in a following Number, preparatory to the disquisition on the elements of our moral and intellectual faculties. Of the two former, I shall take the present opportunity of declaring my sentiments: especially as I have already received a hint that my "idol, MILTON, has represented Metaphysics as the subjects which the bad Spirits in Hell delight in discussing." And truly, if I had exerted my subtlety and invention in persuading myself and others that we are but living machines, and that (as one of the late followers of Hobbes and Hartley has expressed the system) the Assassin and his Dagger are equally fit objects of moral esteem and abhorrence; or if with a Writer of wider influence and higher authority, I had reduced all Virtue to a selfish prudence eked out by Superstition (for assuredly, a creed

passions of the Disputants are commonly violent in proportion to the subtlety and obscurity of the Questions in Dispute. Nor is this fact confined to professional Thelogians: for whole nations have displayed the same agitations, and have sacrificed national policy to the more powerful Interest of a controverted Obscurity.