they have imposed false ideas on the credulity of an inconsiderate multitude, they find it easy to seduce into a participation in their crimes, many a heart, in which had virtue been supported by principle, it would have resifted every assault. But, how extensive soever were the mischiefs which in former days proceeded from this source, it might have been hoped that time would long since have brought some remedy for the evil. It was easy to deceive men whose faculties were buried in that credulous ignorance which characterised the darker ages ; but now,-- when civilization has roused us from our savage state, and when the glorious light of the Gospel of Truth has spread the beams of the purest morality over our favoured hemisphere,—who could suppose it possible that Fallhood should not only maintain, but extend her empire ? Unhappily, as means of obtaining knowledge have increased, the subtilty of our deceivers has increased also; and it may be doubted whether the opinions of mankind respecting the true nature of virtue and vice, were ever more lost and confounded at any former period, than we now behold them in these latter our latter days, ' among those who most confidently boast the superior illumination of their minds. Our great progenitor, ADAM, could affert, of those objects of the visible creation which appeared in review before him, “ I nam'd them as they paso'd, and understood MILTON but who, “ of men since born, his fons,” can affirm that he understands the nature of any object in the moral world, if it be only known to him by the name assigned to it in the school of PHILOSOPHISM? The language of NIMROD himself would not be less intelligible to our ears, than the phraseology introduced by these modern teachers is become to our sense; and the state of society was not more completely changed by the confusion of tongues in his age, than we have already seen it in our own, by that universal confusion of ideas which prevails on the neighbouring continent; where every species of tyranny and impiety -- Vult libertas dici mera, veraque virtus," HOR. In this more fortunate country, indeed, whilst through the protection of a gracious Providence, the the valour of our fleets and armies has repelled all open ailuilants from our shores, maintaining us fill in the poffeffion of our independence and freedom, the machinations of those secret and more dangerous enemies, who have sought to undermine our religion, have been resisted hitherto with equal firmness; and we still retain unhaken the Church and the Constitution, transmitted to us by the wisdom of our ancestors. While other nations, therefore, vainly pride themselves in the fame they have acquired, by giving birth to those pernicious writers, who have diffeminated infidelity, and added new attractions to vice, let it be our more dignified boat, that, in this land, no foe to our holy faith has questioned the authority of any of her doctrines, which some champion of fuperior Arength has not arisen to defend ; thate among us, the weight of talents is thrown into the scale of truth. Conviction, however, will rarely reclaim the wilful pronoters of error; though confuted, they are not filenc d; though repulsed, they return with redoubled confidence to the assault; and while the teachers of false morality are employing in this island, to confound our principles, the same arts, arts, by which, in other European kingdoms, they have so fatally prevailed, it becomes the duty of every man, who is sensible of the importance of those religious and political truths, which united form the great palladium of our state, to exert his utmost efforts in refilling the attacks, and expofing the wiles, of our arch-enemy, PHILOSOPHISM. - Quanto ille magis formas se vertet in omnes, “ Tanto, nate, magis contende tenacia vincla ” VIRG. While, with the worst designs, the name of every moral virtue is assigned to its opposite vice, the unwary are led into danger, even by the goodness of their own intentions. Reflection on the arts thus used to impofe on their credulity, has suggested the idea of the following pages. Mr. John BUNYAN is an author so generally known, that it can scarcely be necessary to make any preliminary observations on the quaint allegory, which is taken as the ground-work of the present performance. The pilgrim CHRISTIAN, was the companion of our childhood, tiil the refinements of modern education banished him from our nurseries. He still retains his place on the shelves of our grandmothers ; from which high Itation |