THE HUMANITY OF MODERN TIMES DERIVED FROM CHRISTIANITY.

It is incumbent on the philosophers of the present day to show from whence they derive that humanity to which they now lay claim, and which it seems has produced such beneficial consequences. If they say from the cultivation of their minds, the improvement of their understanding, and the extent of their knowledge and erudition, it is then obvious to ask, how it comes to pass that, before the appearance of the Gospel, philosophy and humanity were perfect strangers to each other, though they are now it seems such close and intimate friends? If we should only say that the philosophers of Greece and Italy were at least equal, both in natural sagacity and acquired learning to the philosophers of modern Europe, we should not be thought to do the latter any great injustice. Yet not one of those great, and wise, and enlightened men of antiquity seems to have had any apprehension that there was the least cruelty in a husband repudiating an irreproachable and affectionate wife from a mere humour or caprice; in a father destroying his new-born infant, or putting his adult son to death; in a master torturing or murdering his servant for a trivial offence, or for none at all; in wretches being trained up to kill each other for the amusement of the spectators; in a victorious prince oppressing and enslaving a whole country from mere avarice or ambition; in putting a great part of his prisoners to the sword, and enslaving all the

rest; nor, lastly, when the magnitude of the occasion seemed to require it, in offering up human sacrifices to the gods. So far from expressing (as far as I am able to recollect) a just detestation of these horrid practices, there were several of the most eminent philosophers that expressly approved and recommended some of the worst of them. Aristotle particularly, and Plato, both give a decided opinion in favour of destroying deformed or sickly infants. We have already seen that this execrable practice was even enjoined by Lycurgus, yet the humane Plutarch sees nothing unjust in any of his laws, and considers him as a completely perfect character. Thucydides relates the massacre of two thousand Helots, by the Lacedæmonians, in cold blood, and a multitude of other shocking barbarities, committed during the Peloponnesian war, without one word of censure or disapprobation; and Livy describes innumerable scenes of a similar nature, with the most perfect indifference and unconcern. Homer goes still further. He expressly approves and applauds the deliberate murder of all captives without distinction, even infants at the breast, and pronounces it to be perfectly right and just. And even Virgil, the tender, the elegant, the pathetic Virgil, he who, on other occasions, shows such exquisite feeling and sensibility, represents his hero as offering human sacrifices, without the smallest mark of horror or disgust; and has not only selected the shocking punishment of the Alban Dictator as a proper and graceful ornament of the shield of Eneas, but has dwelt on the dreadful circum

stances of it with an appearance of complacency and satisfaction, and seems even to exult in it as a just retribution for the crime of the wretched sufferer. At tu Dictis Albane Maneres, Æn. viii. 642. It would be endless to enumerate instances of the same kind, which occur perpetually in the most distinguished writers of antiquity, and which incontestably prove that neither the brightest talents, nor the most successful cultivation of philosophy, of history, of eloquence, of poetry, of all those branches of literature which are properly called the literæ humaniores, and which are supposed to soften and humanize and meliorate the heart, could in any degree subdue the unyielding stubborness of Pagan cruelty. On the contrary, it would be no difficult task to show that the more the ancients advanced in letters and the fine arts, and the more their communication and commerce with the different parts of the then known world was extended and enlarged, the more savage, oppressive, and tyrannical they became. And it is a fact no less remarkable, as well as a proof no less decisive of the doctrine I have been endeavouring to establish, that, on the discovery of the new world, the same astonishing phenomenon presented itself, that we have just been noticing in the old. In the very heart of South America an empire appeared which had made advances in government, in policy, in many useful and many ornamental arts, far beyond what could have been expected without the use of letters, and infinitely beyond all the surrounding nations of that country. And it appeared, also, that these polished Mexicans (for it is to

those I allude) exceeded their neighbours the Peruvians, and all the other Indian kingdoms, in fierceness and in cruelty, as much as they surpassed them in all the conveniences and improvements of social and civilized life.

What shall we now say to the philosophy of the present age, which assumes to itself the exclusive merit of all the humanity and benevolence which are to be found in the world; and how shall we account for the striking contrast between the insensibility and hardheartedness of the ancient philosophers and those professions of gentleness and philanthropy which their brethren in our own times so ostentatiously display in their writings and in their discourses? The only adequate and assignable reason of the difference is, that the latter have a source to draw from which was unknown to the former; that to the Gospel they are indebted for all their fine sentiments and declamations on the subject of benevolence; which, however, seem never to reach their hearts, or influence their conduct; for (as fatal experience has shown) the moment they are possessed of power, they become the most inhuman of tyrants.

BISHOP PORTEUS.

AN ADDRESS TO DEISTS.

SUPPOSE the mighty work accomplished, the cross trampled upon, Christianity every where proscribed, and the religion of nature once more become the religion of Europe; what advantage will you have derived for your country, or to

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yourselves, from the exchange? I know your answer-you will have freed the world from the hypocrisy of priests and the tyranny of superstition.-No; you forget that Lycurgus, and Numa, and Odin, and Manco Capac, and all the great legislators of ancient and modern story, have been of opinion that the affairs of civil society could not be well conducted without some religion; you must of necessity introduce a priesthood, with probably as much hypocrisy; a religion, with assuredly more superstition than that which you now reprobate with such indecent and ill grounded contempt. But I will tell you from what you will have freed the world: you will have freed it from its abhorrence of vice, and from every powerful incentive to virtue; you will, with the religion, have brought back the depraved morality of Paganism; you will have robbed mankind of their firm assurance of another life; and thereby you will have despoiled them of their patience, of their humility, of their charity, of their chastity, of all those mild and silent virtues which, (however despicable they may appear in your eyes), are the only ones which meliorate and sublime our nature; which Paganism never knew, which spring from Christianity alone, which do or might constitute our comfort in this life, and without the possession of which, another life, if after all there should happen to be one, must, (unless a miracle be exerted in the alteration of our disposition), be more vicious and more miserable than this is.

Perhaps you will contend that the universal light of reason, that the truth and fitness of things