means of deception. The same lectures, in this country, are become necessary against "serious "christianity," which is too often a mask, an upper garment. A man, a pagan, without having ever heard of the word christianity, or receiving a lecture on good breeding, and politeness so called, may, from the light enlightening every man that cometh into the world, along with the education of his country, be polite, be humane, and a worshipper of the God of the universe, and so, without knowing it, possess many of the graces of christianity. To be a christian and a good man, it is not necessary to be baptized, and be called a christian. Virtue and morality are taught in other countries, as well as in christian countries. And after all that is here said about christianity, God is as sincerely and purely worshipped, even in Asia, as in Europe, and may as justly be offended at the idolatry of the one as the other. A Mahomedan would be shocked at the idea of a triune God, and at the altar-pieces, as well of reformed as Popish churches. To pray to, or use the intercession of any intermediate beings, with God, to kneel before a wafer or an image, would be gross idolatry. It would be desirable if H. More had defined her system of christianity, that we might know it, and how much more it contains besides the graces and virtues recommended in the gospel, for the worship of one God ought and must be in every quarter of the globe the same, that idolatry and mysticism might be expelled, by ascertaining where

in virtue in Europe differs from virtue in Asia, Africa and America, and whether Jehovah be not the God of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews. With all her knowledge and talents, with all her profession and recommendation of the christian graces and virtues, the " discipline of "the affections," unintelligible "seriousness," and self-denial," which, could we suppose a whole people to adopt, would make England a grotesque nation indeed, there is undeniably in H. More's grand scheme some mystery, some secret Jesuitism, some dark-lanthorn illumination, she either cannot or will not disclose.

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The chief points insisted on in the Alcoran are the unity of God, the worship and reverence of the Supreme Being, and resignation to his will, and the practice of moral and divine virtues. The style is beautiful and fluent; and, particularly where the attributes of God are described, truly sublime. Will H. More dare say, that the Grand Signior, our great and faithful ally, a true worshipper of God, his Grand Mufti, and his Priests, who never read nor heard the Athanasian creed, "shall without doubt everlastingly perish."What in this case becomes of the justice of God. Has not a Mozlem Faquir as good a chance of entering the kingdom of heaven as an English non-descript; and can the fanaticism of the one be more acceptable to the Creator of all men than the ascetic devotion of the other. But it is characteristic of us, to insist that no nation should be, or are free, or happy, or rich, or should eat roast

beef, but Englishmen. Away with superstition, and artful and cunning fanaticism; they never did and never will contribute to the happiness of mankind. Oh! when will the day arrive, when reason shall be the characteristic attributes of all men, when the only true God shall by all nations be worshipped in spirit and in truth, without any machinery of human invention; man of whatever complexion, shall call man his brother; the missions of fanaticism become missions of righteousness and truth; and the opprobrious names of Papist, Protestant, Dissenter, Methodist, Jew, and Mahomedan, be forgot, and all men, in obedience to the "New commandment of love," adore HIM FIRST AND LAST, his knowledge filling the earth as the waters cover the sea, there being but one fold and shepherd! Then, and not till then, shall superstition and fanaticism cease to be necessary engines in the government of the world; simulation and dissimulation, with all the various modes of deception, whether of assumed sanctity in religious craft, or of temporal knavery and imposture in the commerce of mankind, become superfluous!

That" Self-abasement is inseparable from true "christianity," I apprehend is not a true proposition, if we take christianity as it is in the gospels. It is man, and not God, who pronounceth the world accursed. During his stay here, there is enough in the world to make him happy; employed in the cultivation of the earth, the improvement of his own mind, (being a creature of

education) in tracing the works of nature, and thereby the divine attributes; in the adoration of Him, "who giveth richly all things to enjoy," and in regulating his actions by the hope of a resurrection to a life of immortality. Man is an animal of high rank. It is superstition, evil policy, and tyranny, that have degraded him. The propagators of fanaticism, on one hand, have tyrannized over his mind, and politicians, on the other, have scourged him with scorpions. The angel is become a beast. Every man is made erect ("os sublime dedit") and need not be selfabased, unless under the conviction of great crimes; and then God is merciful. Let him be governed wisely, and a pure religion, christianity, be taught him, namely, his duty to God, mankind and himself, enforced by the denunciations, the hopes and promises of the gospel, and he will soon be a very different animal from what he has hitherto been, "a new creature." But if we view him as he is generally to be met with, imposed on by every empiric in religion, his mind paralyzed and benumbed by the horrors of superstition, his hopes desperate, and the father of all goodness and mercy represented as his enemy, who has prepared everlasting chains and penal fire for him, we need not wonder to see him submit himself so easy a victim to his tyrants, pains and penalties over his head, fire and faggot at his tail, ready to torment or consume him, and threatened as to his immortal spirit, over which their authority pretends to reach, with " adamantine

"chains and penal fire." On many occasions, indeed, he is a whimsical creature. The whole race may be well read in John Bull, who is easily gulled into a South-Sea bubble, to run in multitudes to see a full grown man go into a quart bottle, a horse with his head where his tail should be, a coal-heaver in a pulpit, stripped to his shirt, to fight with the devil, and to buy by hundreds Hannah More's strictures on female purity, and "female education."

The question that "there have been more men "of genius on the side of christianity than against "it," is not a fair argument, nor fairly stated Christianity will always, I trust, have not men of genius only, but all good men on its side; and were christianity not corrupted, but taught as it is contained in the scriptures, its enemies would be few indeed. But when every brain-shock fool, and every designing illiterate knave, start a new doctrine, which is pretended to be founded in the scriptures; when a Henry Young, a Harward, and a H. More, under the pretext of " serious"ness and vital christianity, disseminate strange "doctrines and absurd extravagancies," is it to be wondered that religion should to some appear less respectable, and its credit be " seriously" affected.

Since the time of Constantine, when christianity took the scat of paganism, and began to be established by decrees, and defended and propagated by the sword, the experiment could not have been tried. When, in what century since 500, durst an inhabitant of Europe write and