of virtue, and to read the pages of religion. Without a discriminating and investigating mind, how are we, amidst the conflicting religious notions of the world, to tell truth from falsehood? It requires the refiner's furnace to separate the precious metal from the dross. The virgin ore lies buried beneath heaps of rubbish. Without skill and labor it is lost. Are we to have masters, whose business it shall be to instruct us in the way in which we should walk? Ah! the world has known enough of this sort of bondage. The mind has been chained, and the thoughts have been fettered. And where is the good that resulted? Can we find its history in legend, or in song? Where can you find one single trophy that it achieved for virtue, humanity, or religion, amidst its thousand bloody and cruel triumphs over the exertions of the patriot, and the aspirations of hope? Intellectual bondage never gathered one green tered error, superstition, and bigotry, and given a powerful sway to men who have dishonored the cause of morality, who have thrown a foul stain upon the pages which record the history of the human heart, and have given a desolating impulse to the wave of licentiousness. Nor does ignorance teach humility. None are so presumptuous as the ignorant. It is the narrow contracted mind that is unable to soar above the clods which surround it, or to comprehend the great bearing of truth, and that seizes hold of false notions and dangerous doctrines, becomes elated and arrogant, and scorns to be taught, and thus never comes under that gentle and soothing influence of knowledge, which would expand the thoughts, refine the feeelings, and inculcate senti in all their annals. And the only token they have left, | self-approving deeds of superstition and error-and by which future times were to know that they have countenance for a single moment the belief, that the been, were the traces of enormous crimes. No mark light of knowledge would not greatly stay the mad of intellectual or moral worth is to be seen in all their career of crime? Every where, among ignorant and borders. To what cemetery of the nations of anti-unlettered nations, we can find examples of the same quity do you go to drop a tear over illustrious merit? | torch lighting the altar, and firing the stake of persecuOnly to that of the people who cultivated knowledge. tion. Knowledge enables us to understand the precepts It is there that you find the peaceful tomb of the patriot and the philanthropist. We look to the birth-places of the arts and sciences, and philosophy-to the lands of Socrates and Plato, of Solon and Aristides-to the country of Seneca, Brutus and of Tully, not only for the monuments of learning and intellectual achievements, but also for those of moral greatness. The literature of these countries constitutes the greenest spot that can be found in the dreary history of the past. It teaches many an instructive lesson, and gives a right direction to many a wandering thought. The spirit it breathes infuses vigor and life into many a desponding feeling, and inspires many languid imaginations. Precepts of virtue and morality are clothed in the divinest beauties of poesy, nursing those resplendent visions and sublime aspirings, that are so fit to lift us from sense and clay. If the disciples of Roman and Grecian philosophy did not carry their labors far enough to pre-laurel to weave in the chaplet of religion, but has fosserve them from the follies of life, they were greatly deterred from its vices. If their speculations did not enable them always to arrive at truth, they imparted much wholesome instruction, and inculcated many an excellent moral. If the feeble glimmerings of human reason have been unable to scatter all the mists of error and prejudice, they have been an important guide to adventurous man. And where now would be many a proud and glorious memento of human greatness and worth, of which humanity has often boasted, if all the nations, that have flourished and decayed, had acted upon the humiliating maxim, that it was unsafe for our moral character and condition to impart strength and vigor to the intellect? What other incentive, than the improvement of our rational and intellectual enjoyments of liberality. ments, could ever have aroused the little spark of virtue Untutored men have often been blessed with transwhich remained unsmothered in our ignorant and bar-cendent virtues. Around the cottage of the poor and barous state into a bright flame, that will cast its light unlearned, have bloomed the sweet and pure flowers of down to the remotest ages, and be forever the admiration of the world? Where would be the memory of Greece and Rome, if they had despised the cultivation of the reasoning faculties? There would be nought to tell that they had been. Nay! no song would ever have been sung of the blessings of these ancient republics. Why this declamation against reason? It is no enemy of humane and liberal institutions. It is not a dangerous instrument to truth. It is no corrupter of good morals. It is the only means of unlocking the treasures of religion. Without it, we can never reap the rich harvests of true virtue. What tongue can recount the dark and hideous crimes which are now perpetrated by many nations of the earth under the false and delusive hope, that they are rendering acceptable homage to virtue. Ignorance is the cause; and it has ever been the handmaid of vice. Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. One is light, the other is darkness. Error is the twin-sister of bigotry. Who can stand on the bloody banks of the Ganges, amidst the human bones which whiten on its shores-now witness ing the cries of innocent sufferers, then appalled by the morality. David's harp breathed soft and heavenly melodies. It was strung by the finger of heaven, and the holiest inspiration swept over every chord. The peasant king was blessed above common mortals. And the circumstances of his life reflect not the smallest disparagement upon the importance of education. And where do you find so many examples of ignorant men being virtuous and useful citizens, as amongst enlightened and refined nations? Although they do not experience the direct, they do the indirect influences of knowledge. Here is its power. Here is one grand secret of that mighty charm which it possesses, and exerts over the happiness of the world. One exalted and enlightened intellect is clothed with power that can tell upon the fortunes and destinies of myriads; and is capable of wielding a sceptre over error and all of its evil attendants, and of laying those wholesome restraints upon the thoughts of men, which will save them from wandering amidst the creations of an impure and uncultivated imagination, where all is ignorance, where there is no landmark to guide to the pure waters of virtue and useful instruction, and where the thirsty and craving appetites of mortals can only be allayed by tasting of may excite the passions of those who have loose and the muddy and putrid streams of vice and licentious ness. unsettled principles, and who are ever eager to find out something that will administer gratification to their Many have converted knowledge into an instrument unhallowed lusts. For awhile, much evil may be proof evil. They have cultivated their faculties merely duced by such perversions of talents. But, in free and that they might be invested with power. They have enlightened communities, the triumph will only be mosought only for the means of gratifying a wild and mentary. And its ultimate tendency will be, to call ruinous ambition. Self-aggrandizement was the sole into exercise energies that will wipe the foul stain from object of all their labors. Their feelings were hardened the character of literature, blot out the very rememagainst all the gentler influences of mental improve-brance of it, and that will vindicate from all aspersions ment, and they appear upon the pages of history as notable conquerors, or as vile and usurping despots. A corrupt heart urges them on in despite of every motive which is addressed to it. Virtue, religion, humanity, pleads in vain. The holy precepts of christianity are scorned. Nothing that is regarded as worthy of the admiration of intelligent beings, gives gratification to their corrupt and depraved propensities. the cause of outraged morals, and that will deck the holy sentiments of virtue in all the fascinating beauties of literature, in all those heavenly charms, which a pure and enlightened imagination can throw around a subject of such vital and intrinsic importance. Profligate writers are generally encouraged in their attacks upon the valuable institutions of society, by the corrupt manners and vitiated taste of the age in which they live. The evil is not to be attributed to the culture of the This gives them being and activity. And they take reasoning powers of man. The air we breathe often literature as the channel, through which the long concarries disease and death concealed in its bosom. There fined and smothered up streams of corruption and vice is no good that may not be perverted, no blessing that may flow out. Not till then is the nature of the dismay not become an engine of incalculable mischief and ease, which affects the morals of society, properly evil. If the refinements and advantages of education understood. All the symptoms are seen in the literawere entirely unknown, the bad effects which flow from ture of the times. And has not the same channel the conduct of wicked men would be the same as they always been effectually used to restore health, and to are now. Nay, the power of shrewd and mischievous root out the very seeds of the evil? Literature reflects men, though unrefined and uncultivated, in communi- the moral sentiments of the age. It is a bright mirror ties as ignorant as themselves, is far greater in sway in which are imaged forth, not merely the mighty efforts ing the multitude to their purposes, than the power of of some exalted intellects, but also the workings of the any set of men can possibly be in enlightened commu- feelings of the mass of men. There is a secret yet nities. The cultivation of letters makes a thinking and powerful sympathy between an author, and every reflecting people. It creates a spirit of investigation. emotion that stirs in the hearts of that class of men, Every action is scanned. The motives which produced whose plaudits and admiration he is ambitious to gain. it are analized. And the consequences which will Every sentiment which is inculcated, that has any pracflow from them are seen and estimated; and, if neces- tical bearing on the moral conduct, is in unison with sary, guarded against, long before the danger is inevi- theirs, though the beauties of composition, the bold and table. An ignorant people are almost sure to invest vigorous flights of the imagination, and the soul-stirring their heroes or aspiring men with the qualities of en- eloquence are his. A licentious author meets with chantment-with supernatural gifts-with the wand of approbation from those, whose corrupt morals and disa magician-or with any dangerous power which they solute principles prompted his genius. And most of the may claim as belonging to their character. Let their evil which results from his works, is felt by those who object be the gratification of a wanton ambition, or the seek for them, that fuel may be added to the unholy subversion of the liberties of their country, still they flame of their passions. This exposition of the feelings are looked upon as the great champions of human hap- and taste of society, enables the advocates of virtue to piness; as beings commissioned by heaven to give order direct all their energies against the attempts which are to our moral chaos, and to restore man to his long lost made to undermine it. It points out how the remedy is rights. It is thus that the most profligate wretches to be applied, and where the evil is greatest. And have been deified, and monuments have arisen to per- unless every spark of true morality and patriotism is petuate their names and their deeds to future times, extinguished, by the same causes which called these and to call forth the pious act of devotion from poor, works into being, the evil will be promptly and efficadeluded human sufferers. Men who have been mighty ciously opposed. So far then from literature's being only for evil, whose only triumphs have been bloody an engine which bad men can convert into an instruones over the sacred cause of humanity, have been ment of incalculable harm and injury, it gives the clue remembered as the stern and uncompromising friends to the dark and dangerous labyrinths of error and vice, of virtue, and human improvement. So strong have in which the ignorant, the deluded, and the abandoned, been the effects of such sentiments with some nations, may have been locked up for ages. It is the mutterthat it has required ages of improvement and intellec-ings of the volcano, giving timely warning to all to flee tual cultivation, entirely to shake them off. The his- for safety, before the long repressed and smothered fires tory of oppression sustains us in our position. Does knowledge become an evil by the power which it gives bad men of staining and corrupting the literature of a country, and thereby polluting the fountain of pure morals? A Voltaire may propagate doctrines, alike subversive of morals and religion. A Bulwer shall break out, and the frightful wave of desolation shall sweep over the land, destroying every thing that is valuable in society, and leaving nothing but a barren waste behind. In England, until the commencement of the revolution, which ended in the beheading of Charles I., there had been very little freedom of thought or of conscience. The sudden overthrow of established customs, and the sudden breaking of restraints, which had long fettered the soarings of genius, and prevented the consciences of men from exercising their proper offices, naturally led mankind into the opposite extreme, where the wholesome boundaries erected around virtue to guard it from licentiousness, were overleaped. After the restoration of the monarchy, the character of Charles II. served greatly to corrupt the literature of his time. From these concurrent circumstances, most of the celebrated writers of this age remain monuments of genius, perverted by indecency and bad taste. But this wretched state of literature soon called into exercise the chaste and splendid talents of Addison, Steele, Rowe, Prior, Akenside, Thomson, Pope, and of a number of others, who, in every department of literature, manifested a strong leaning towards whatever could conduce to purity of sentiment and delicacy of feeling, and whose works have rendered essential service to the cause of virtue and religion, and gained for themselves and their country imperishable renown. increase in reputation and usefulness, as time rolls on; gathering fresh laurels in each successive generation; throwing around virtue a bright halo of glory; gaining for true and undefiled religion that honor and admiration which is so justly its due; and weaving, for the cause of oppressed humanity, a chaplet of never-fading reputation. Woman is no less improved by the advancement of knowledge and letters, than man. The ignorance of barbarism must have yielded to the refinements of education, before she can be elevated to her proper station in society. To calculate the immense value of the progress of education to woman, we have merely to look at the history of her sufferings in all those countries where freedom of thought and inquiry have been prohibited. Wherever the dark and gloomy spirits of despotism and ignorance have brooded, there the record of her trials and hardships has been written in tears and blood. Wherever you can trace the footsteps of oppression, there you can find the vestiges of her wrongs and her crimes. Mental cultivation and the progress of literature have always refined the character of woman, and thrown around it those graces and ornaments, which have never failed to command respect and homage. The high and excellent qualities which recommend her to the admiration of every rational being, which qualify her to adorn and bless society, and countenance every virtuous sentiment that can tend to raise human nature above the lowering effects of vice, which enable her to smooth the rugged path of life, and to sooth all its sor Social man owes much of his dignity and happiness to a refined and chaste literature. Its power is more wonderful, than that of kings. Its achievements are mightier, than those of the warrior. The tokens of its blessings will be remembered, when the pyramids which stand as memorials of despotic oppression, shall have crumbled into dust. The green laurels, which wave over the tombs of Homer and Virgil, will ever be cultivated by an admiring world. The effects of a conqueror's triumph may be soon effaced-the blessings it dis-rows, and which eminently fit her to encourage man to pensed soon cease to be enjoyed; whilst the immortal cling to every hope which will inspire the best emotions efforts of Newton and Locke, to elevate the reasoning of fortitude, patriotism and religion, can only have their faculties of man, to give a right direction to human proper influence by the expansion of her faculties. thoughts, and to increase the sources of rational enjoy- From her very condition, when her mind is neglected, ment, will be seen shaping the characters of thousands, her energies are crippled, and the only power she has as long as letters or knowledge shall endure. The of winning esteem and affection becomes almost impoworks of corrupt men may last, until the excited pas-tent. The achievements of Hannah More, Felicia sions which produced them shall have been counter-Hemans, Maria Edgeworth, Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. acted in their evil tendencies, and shall have subsided. Sigourney, in the great causes of virtue and religion, If mankind are allowed to think, and reflect, and to read would never have been performed, had it not been for for themselves, the literature of any age will be properly the estimation in which literature is held by the good sifted; and all that is not calculated to improve the and reflecting portion of mankind; and the incalculable condition of humanity, and to contribute to the triumphs | benefits, which these immortal spirits have done for the of truth over error, and of knowledge over ignorance world, would never have been enjoyed. The works of and all its hurtful consequences, will be marked with these exalted women have not only gained for them a the seal of reprobation. No work tending to corrupt rich and precious reputation, and names that will be public morals-to debase virtue, and to trample upon held in faithful remembrance as long as the memory human nature no matter how it may have flourished shall perform its duty, but have also given a tone to the in the times when it was produced, and no matter what feelings of the female part of society, which will arge amount of mischief it may have effected, will meet with them on in a course of usefulness and honor, and opeadmiration in after ages, if the mind is left unfettered. rate as a beneficial check upon the licentious opinions of No man, no matter how prone he is to taste the filthy men, and as an encouragement to whatever can adorn waters of the streams of licentiousness, if he is left with the moral character. It may be, that the tendency of a judgment unshackled, and capable of estimating the many literary efforts has been to lower our estimate of value of morals and social institutions, to the prosperity female virtue and dignity. If every instance of this and happiness of his country, but will aid in consigning sort, that can possibly be produced, were thoroughly to oblivion every attempt to unsettle the foundations of investigated, we would perceive, that the literature of a society, and of human enjoyment. Virtue and religion country which had thus stooped from its high vocation, are clothed in a thousand charms, which will challenge to injure and insult woman, had first been corrupted the respect and homage of every enlightened man, al- and polluted itself, by the powerful operation of causes though the promptings of a vitiated taste and depraved which had extended their baneful influences to every moral feelings may have urged him into the whirlpool of human institution, poisoning every fountain of happivice. The waters of Lethe are not thus sprinkled on ness, blasting every blossom of hope, leaving nothing the works of Milton, or Locke, or Newton. They untouched and unwithered. This opinion is strongly injury to the wrong cause, to contend that literature has passions. any of supported by the events of the French revolution. For imagination, the mischievous results. It is tracing the a long period the people of France had suffered the greatest civil and ecclesiastical oppression. The arm of civil power crushed the budding of liberty, and the minions of the pope smothered all those sacred feelings which would render homage to religion. All those who dared to think and act for themselves, suffered from the sword of persecution. The principles of morality and virtue were prostituted to vice, by the church of Rome. The civil power, instead of being the shield to protect, was the sword to destroy. Religion, instead of refining the moral feelings, was made to pamper the passions of If female character has not always been exalted, as a profligate priesthood. The torments of the inquisi- it should be amongst cultivated nations, it has been tion were followed by the most horrid massacres, until, much less so where ignorance prevailed. And if even finally Louis XIV. revoked the sacred edict of Nantes, knowledge has not secured to her the enjoyment of her in consequence of which the protestant churches were just rights and privileges, the cruel precepts of dark destroyed throughout France; the soldiery committed and barbarous ages have taken them all away. And the most scandalous excesses, and after the loss of an the history of letters records not a single triumph that almost innumerable number, 50,000 of the most valua- they ever gained over the gentler feelings of our nature, ble and industrious of her citizens were forced into but forms one vast and splendid monument of the vicexile. These bloody and disastrous occurrences redu-tories of morality and virtue over the most hurtful ced nearly to nothing the number of those who inclined to the support of virtue and undefiled religion. Those The warmest admirers of the expansion of our menwho remained and who did not bow submissively to the tal capacities never claimed, for knowledge and human wicked mandates of the catholic clergy, imbibed the letters, all those blessings and prerogatives which it is deadliest prejudice and hatred towards religion, seeing the province of religion only to bestow. They would what a wretched and corrupt thing it was, under the not, for all the treasures of the world, supplant it in control and management of a vast and powerful estab- the affections of the people. Its heavenly principles lishment, that pretended to be the infallible guardian only are adequate to raise man to his primitive condiand keeper of the consciences and souls of men. The tion, to root out those jarring and conflicting lusts which putrid condition of the political and religious atmos- have hurled him down into the gloomy abysses of pheres drove men into the gloomy labyrinths of anar- crime, filled the world with sufferings, and placed virchy and of skepticism. The contagion was not slow in tue and happiness far from the path of his sinful pilgri spreading. It soon commenced heaving asunder the mage. Pure christianity is the greatest blessing that foundations of society. Rousseau, sickened with the could have been granted to mortals. It is the pathway thraldom of ancient prejudices, inveterate abuses, and from earth to heaven. It leads from error to truth, the worst of slaveries, conceived the absurd notion of from bondage to freedom, from crime to virtue, from bettering the condition of man by throwing off the despair to hope. Before its triumphant march the restraints of civilized society. The depraved heart of works of iniquity must crumble into dust, and the Voltaire, rendered outrageously wicked by the evils of raging of human passions will become still. Religion a perverted religion, lauded the errors of infidelity. And can pour the healing balm into the corrupted heart, the policy of the government and of the catholic church and administer the sweetest consolations. No! learnhad been such, as to prevent any bold efforts being made ing does not seek to usurp the place of true devotion. to rescue the rising generation from the contagion of It bows reverently before the Bible and cries, "thou bad examples, and the influence of false principles. art worthy to receive all homage and adoration." Even France felt the loss of those valuable citizens, who had human wisdom does not teach infidelity. Whilst nabeen driven away by the tyranny of Louis XIV; and ture and all her wonders and beauties, her green valdeism and infidelity, though weak against the plain lies and her rugged mountains, the gentle ripples of doctrines of the cross and the evidences of christianity, her streamlets and the roaring of her cataracts, the were strong against the fanaticism of a bigoted, and the soft zephyr of evening and the whirling tornado, all, superstition of a corrupted church. The defence of all point to the ruling hand of infinite goodness, and religion and of social institutions fell into hands little sing the praises of their Creator, knowledge decked in capable of reaping laurels in a contest for the preserva- a thousand fascinating charms joins in the universal tion of good morals or pure christianity. They were chorus. All the power that we contend for as belongutterly unfit to contribute to such virtuous and intellec-ing to human learning is, that by giving employment tual triumphs, as had cast a bright and never-fading lus- to our restless mental faculties, it will preserve us in a tre on the names of Saurin and Massillon. In these unhallowed conflicts of infidelity and superstition, of fanaticism and bigotry, of anarchy and despotism, it was impossible for the character of woman to remain unassailed and uninjured. It would not have been otherwise, if knowledge and letters had been neglected; but the evils of ignorance superadded to the frightful workings of the worst passions of our nature, would have increased, beyond the conception of the boldest great measure from the follies and vices of life, restraining many an evil prompting, and preparing us better to appreciate the blessings of pure religion to make us more valuable citizens. Ignorance may be favorable for the growth of bigotry, superstition and fanaticism, but piety grows better in the sunshine of knowledge. And if the annals of the world are impartially examined, we will find, that the dear and costly experience of a thousand ages will teach, that it is the duty VOL. IV.-98 Considering man as an intellectual being, as the work of a great Creator who had bestowed upon him facul himself happiness, and to render himself useful to society, we, far removed from the prejudices and passions which accompanied the breaking out of the reformation, rejoice in the blessings which have flowed from that remarkable occurrence. Amongst the thousand other blessings which it has dispensed, it has given a sure footing to freedom of thought and opinion, and thus greatly aided the cause of human improvement. If truth be the aliment of the soul, to teach it error is to deny it the proper nourishment. Error is the great enemy of man, and the malignant destroyer of all the excellences of his nature. It withers up the intellect, and man, whom it was sent to enlighten, sinks down to his kindred dust. For ages did the Catholic hierarchy dictate what the people were to believe, and how they were to act; confining the speculations of phi of every patriot and good man, and especially of every | the request of Solomon, did not thus slightly value the christian, to use all his powers in disseminating useful gifts which were granted him. information among the people, and to oppose every thing that would encourage ignorance. The "native of Petersburg" can find nothing but poi-ties, which he must develope and exercise to secure for son in the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He points to the corruption of the antediluvian world as a signal proof of the unhallowed effects of a high degree of intelligence, and of the diffusion of knowledge. We in vain look for the evidences of his positions. Where are the facts from which his conclusions are drawn? If the race of men before the flood were more corrupt than the generations since, why attribute it to their superior understanding? Where are the monuments of their exalted wisdom? Swept from remembrance? Or did they only exist in the visions of a heated imagination? The inspired writer tells us, "there were giants in those days; mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The learned Thomas Scott supposes they were men of great stature, and celebrated for their deeds of wickedness, and their exploits as warriors. There are many causes which might have con-losophy within the limits of vulgar theory, and chaintributed to their unparalleled depravity. Yet, we are at a loss to conceive the reason why they should be considered superior in the powers of the intellect, to any of the other nations that have flourished on our earth; and even admitting that they were, there is no rational ground for us to believe, that knowledge increased the wickedness of their hearts. It was a depraved heart, and not an enlightened understanding, which imbrued the hands of Cain in his brother's blood. No voice of warning comes to us from the experience of the ages beyond the flood, teaching us to shun the consequences of education. The wreck of the antediluvian world was a lasting memorial of the dreadful evils of ignorance and crime. Man had tasted of the forbidden fruit which had rendered his will perverse, and had poisoned his moral constitution: and though the same act which had brought disease and vice into the world, had given to man, by the exercise of his reasoning and investigating powers, the means of acquiring knowledge, and of forming just conclusions of the tendency of actions, yet the effects of his fallen state were such as to obscure his high intellectual illumination, and to render nerveless all the energies of his character, the development of which is absolutely necessary for the attainment of any noble or exalted purpose. Perverse moral feelings bewildered and stupified his mental qualities, and made them useless to the purposes of his being, until he was taught by the sad lessons of experience, by sufferings and by trials, to regard the admonitions of his judgments and the dictates of a sound understanding. And in the primi- | tive ages the history of man proves, that, through the perversity of his will, he disregarded the warning voice of his own reason, as well as the revelation of heaven. ing the human mind down from its noble flights; attempting to raise an altar to God upon the ruins of the temple of science; and to veil in deeper mystery the wonderful works of creation. The inquisition, the pretended guardian of the christian faith, denounced the immortal Galileo as the abettor of irreligious opinions, and compelled the old astronomer to abjure the heresy of the earth's motion. What a mortifying picture of atrocious and unpardonable presumption! A venerable philosopher, with his head silvered over by the study of nature, forced to disavow, against reason and conscience, the great truths which he had published to the world, and which shone forth in every part of those heavens to which he appealed! An assembly of reverend cardinals, encircling the old man upon his knees, fixing the laws and arrangements of nature, repressing the great truths which she unfolds, and condemning to punishment, the mighty sage who first disclosed to man the unexplored regions of boundless space. We hope that such attempts to check the progress of the human intellect were the efforts of expiring bigotry. The progress of religious and civil freedom, since the reformation, has erected a strong barrier against such humiliating oppression. Religion and knowledge can now advance side by side, dispensing their blessings, elevating and exalting the condition of humanity. Are we to be told by a Virginian, by a native of the land of Washington and Henry, the great champions of civil and religious freedom, that the reformers would have done more essential service for religion and mankind, by merely correcting the glaring abuses of the "ancient establishment," and by perpetuating its dominion, than by breaking the sceptre of its power, and leaving the mind free to exercise its faculties in finding out truth, and in detecting vice? Is it probable that it would be to the advantage of religion, liberty and hu The writer, whose sentiments we have been opposing, thinks he perceives in the history of the son of David, to whom God had given "a wise and under-manity, if the guardian care and protection of his hostanding heart, so that before him there was none like unto him, neither after him was there to arise any like unto him," the utter worthlessness of an enlightened understanding in exerting a salutary influence over the will. The giver of all good, who was well pleased at liness, the pope, were extended to us? The struggles of the last three hundred years cannot have been in vain. The triumphs of freemen have not been bloody victories over virtue and religion. Hampden and Sidney, Washington and Lafayette, did not reap their rich |