blood of those who dared to deny, or even to doubt, the abfurd and idle dogmas which the monks every where invented; and their horrid barbarities were attempted to be justified by propagating the notion, that severity with heretics. was the only mode of preserving the true faith. Oh, how blind is human folly! how obdurate are hearts vitiated by pride! How can that be the true faith, which tears asunder every focial tie, annihilates all the feelings of nature, places cruelty and horror on the throne of humanity and love, and scatters ferocious fury, and insatia ble hatred, through the paths of life? But we may now indulge a pleasing hope that the period is at hand, when the facred TEMPLE OF RELIGION, purified, by the labours of learned and truly pious men, from the foul stains with which fanaticifm and ambition have fo long defaced it, fhall be restored to its own divine fimplicity; and only the voice of gentleness, of love, of peace, of VIRTUE, and of godliness, be heard within its walls. Then will every Christian be truly taught the only means by which his days may be useful, and his life happy; and Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinifts, Proteftants, and every really religious clafs of men, will unite in acts of fincere benevolence and univerfal peace. No auftere, gloomy, and dispiriting duties, no irrational penances and unnatural mortifications, will

be enjoined; no intolerant cruelties be inflicted; no unfocial inftitutions eftablished; no rites of folitary selfishness be required; but REASON and RELIGION, in divine perfection, will reaffume their reigns; an unaffected and fincere devotion will occupy every mind; the Almighty will be worshipped in fpirit and in truth; and we shall be convinced that "The wicked are like the "troubled fea when it cannot reft; but that the "work of righteousness is peace; and the effect "of righteousness, quietude and affurance for "ever," To effect this, a rational retirement from the tumults of the world will be occafionally neceffary, in order to commune with our own hearts, and be still, and to dispose our minds to fuch a train of thinking, as fhall prepare us, when the giddy whirl of life is finished, for the fociety of more exalted spirits.

Oh! would mankind but make fair Truth their guide,
And force the helm from Prejudice and Pride,
Were once these maxims fix'd, that God's our friend,
VIRTUE Our good, and HAPPINESS our end,
How foon muft Reason o'er the world prevail,
And Error, Fraud, and Superftition fail!
None would hereafter, then, with groundless fear,
Defcribe THE ALMIGHTY, cruel and fevere ;
Predeftinating fome, without pretence,

To heaven; and fome to hell for no offence;
Inflicting endless pains for tranfient crimes,
And favouring fects or nations, men or times.

To please him, none would foolishly forbear
Or food or reft, or itch in fhirts of hair;
Or deem it merit to believe, or teach,
What Reafon contradicts, or cannot reach;
None would fierce ZEAL for PIETY mistake,
Or Malice, for whatever tenet's fake,
Or think falvation to one fect confin'd,
And heaven too narrow to contain mankind:
No more would brutal rage disturb our peace,
But, envy, hatred, war and difcord ceafe;
Our own and others' good each hour employ,
And all things fmile with univerfal joy.
Fair VIRTUE then, with pure RELIGION join'd,
Would regulate and blefs the human mind,
And man be what his Maker firft defign'd.

OF THE DANGER OF IDLENESS, &c. 295 +} 17 2 གcd3coqoT

CHAPTER THE SEVENTHIC

'DLENESS is truly faid to be the root of all

IDLE

evil and Solitude certainly encourages in the generality of its votaries, this baneful difpofition. Nature has fo framed the character of man, that his happiness effentially depends on his paffions being properly interested, his imagination bufied, and his faculties employed; but these engagements are feldom found in the vacant scenes and tedious hours of retirement from the world, except by those who have acquired the great and happy art of furnishing their own amusements: an art which, as we have already fhewn, can never be learnt in the irrational folitude of caves and cells.

The idleness which folitude is fo apt to induce, is dangerous in proportion to the natural ftrength, activity and spirit of the mind; for it is observed, that the highest characters are frequently goaded by that reftleffness which accompanies leifure, to acts of the wildeft outrage and greatest enormity. The ancient legislators were

}

fo confcious that indolence, whether indulged in Solitude or in Society, is the nurse of civil commotion, and the chief inftigator of moral turpitude, that they wifely framed their laws to prevent its existence. SOLON obferving that the city was filled with perfons who affembled from all parts on account of the great fecurity in which people lived in ATTICA, that the country withal was poor and barren, and being conscious that merchants, who traffic by fea, do not use to transport their goods where they can have nothing in exchange, turned the attention of the citizens to manufactures; and for this purpose made a law, that he who was three times convicted of idleness, fhould be deemed infamous; that no fon fhould be obliged to maintain his father, if he had not taught him a trade; that trades should be accounted bonourable; and that the council of the Areopagus fhould examine into every man's means of living, and chastise the idle with the greatest feverity. DRACO conceived it fo neceflary to prevent the prevalency of a vice to which man is by nature prone, and which is fo deftructive to his character, and ruinous to his manners, that he punifhed idleness with death. The tyrant PISISTRATUS, as THEOPHRASTUS relates, was fo convinced of the importance of preventing idleness among his fubjects, that he made a law against

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