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gleams of light and instruction, by some unhappy fa tality have fallen from my station, am robbed of my glory, and driven from the haunts of men, while the constellations before me preserve the undiminished glories of their nature-The moon, mistress of the group, sheds a mild lustre on my apartment, which well suits the feeble and disordered state I am in the whole creation observes a profound silence-the beasts have crept to covert, and the inhabitants of the grove cease to sing. The broken fragments of my understanding are composed for a moment by the solemn aspect of things, and now before my recollection is destroyed by the din of men, or the rays of a vertical sun beat upon my head-I will prostrate myself before Thee.-Oh thou Enlightener of the human race!-thou Sun of the intellectual and moral world; I will sit down and reason with thee as did thy servant Job. Is it for the sin of my father or for my own sin that I thus suffer? or is it for thy glory that a creature of thy power, should thus become a spectacle to Angels and to men? I have sinned and my father. has sinned, oh thou Preserver of men, and thou art just; but art thou not good also?, yea, thou art good also, for ́thou feedest me even here-perhaps therefore, it was to preserve me from moral, that thou inflictedst upon me physical evil-perhaps thou saw that in eternity the abuse of my freedom might sink me lower than the grave, and hence thy goodness appointed for my habitation this solitary prison, as an instrument to save me from the blackness of eternal night!

Oh, my God! covered as I am with contempt, sunk in

solitude, and subject to the ebbing and flowing of a dis ordered mind; the view which thou has given me of thy goodness, even in this dispensation, has caused my heart to melt within me, and my eyes to overflow with tears of contrition- "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"—Can he be less good when I suffer, than when I rejoice?Pardon the imbecility of thy workmanship-thou art eternally the same-and however I may feel, I may depend upon it that thou art good- -Save me, oh God, in the hour of nature's conflict, from blaspheming thy holy name, and from attempting the destruction of that life which is thy gift!-And if it be thy will restore to me those composed and orderly faculties, which constitute the glory of a rational being, that in a sense of thy goodness I may adore thee, and conscious that thou hast power to destroy, may bless thee for the goodness which chooseth to cherish-but if this cup may not pass from me, unless I drink it-Thy will, O Father, be done.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

MODERN Reformers MODE OF ADDRESSING

A CORRESPONDENT.

SUNDRY RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL REFLECTIONS

ADMIRAL TYRRELL'S CONVERSATION WITH SAMUEL

FOTHERGILL.

Several of our countrymen who have latterly distinguished themselves as reformers of, or innovators upon the Quaker system; (together with divers of their former friends) having adapted a remarkably honest, or frigid mode of epistolary address—and it having fallen to my lot to meet with several letters thus introduced-I am inclined to pen down a train of reflections which have been produced in my mind, by this singularity I will do the authors of these improvements or innovations the justice to say, that I believe a reform of the moral and political world was the original object of their proceedings-several of their sentiments upon these subjects appear correct-but upon the still more important subject of religion, I fear a vacuity exists the very foundation-and yet true religion is the only foundation, upon which moral and social happiness can be built with security-but more of this hereafter.

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The moral beauty of true expression, did not escape the attention of these reformers- -hence if they

are writing to an ordinary correspondent; we shall say for example, to Jack Dickson or Bill Wilkinson; they will not in their usual address, stile the former honest, nor the latter worthy, if they have not internal consciousness that these are appropriate titles-and as I believe their love of truth, is also accompanied with a sense of the possibly evil consequences of panegyric; they may probably conceive, that it is the part of wisdom, to suspend the full expression even of true sentiment, when that sentiment is peculiarly favourable to the partyThe same love of truth, or coldness of affection, I cannot say which; or whether there may not in many instances be a compound of both; has led them in general to discontinue their former epithets of esteemed, respected &c. in addition to the name and surname of their correspondentA person totally unacquainted with the sentiments of these gentlemen; might suppose from this change in their mode of address; that they had latterly become impressed with a deep sense of the depravity of human nature; and that from their black prospect of the fall of Adam, and its effects upon his posterity, they did not conceive that one in a hundred of the wretched tribe, possessed the qualities requisite to command the respect or esteem of any moral philosopher-If any of my readers should fall into this error, they will permit me to assure them, that modern luminaries entertain no such view of the subject; but are of opinion one and all, that every mother's son of Adam and Eve, have a nature as sound, as whole, and as well braced, as ever the honest couple could boast of in the most perfect joys

of Paradise

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That the Quakers were literally, and

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in the proper sense of the word, Reformers; when bearing their testimony against the overgrown titles, with which servile flattery had complimented human' power, is a reasonable conclusion (hence the titles of holiness, most reverend, and several others, which in their su preme sense, are properly applicable only to God, have been improperly applied to posts of honor and autho-' rity in the world) yet an error on the other extreme" is equally dangerous to the human soul and to society; because it is equally the offspring of pride and presumption; and in this the christian religion again steps forth to view as the parent of social order, for while it rejects every species of falsehood; and will accept of nothing but truth in the inward parts," it commandeth us to give honor where honor is due; intimating that there is a medium to be observed, between the application of false titles on the one hand; and the rejection of those which are true and proper on the other. Persons placed in posts of authority; are placed there by the appointment or permission of Providence for the public good; and as such, are to be recognized as its agents-A contumelious disregard of their authority; or

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In a subordinate sense, the human soul may be called holy, when grace has made it so many things of an inferior nature, may also be denominated good, when they are so such as good fruit-excellent wine, &c. but to apply this to any person or thing which we believe is not so, is not only a mean and despicable sacrifice of our reason and conscience to the customs of society-but it is also robbing that which is worthy of its just praise, by confounding it with that which is not so.

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