continued, says his sister, advancing daily in perfection and spiritual health, as his bodily constitution declined, till at length, in a fit of convulsion, which was miraculously suspended for a few minutes, while he received the viaticum and extreme unction, in the thirty-ninth year of his age, he died. On this picture, and the contrast which it forms to that contained in my former letter, it is not necessary to make many reflections. Two very opposite characters are delineated in these letters; yet both acting upon the same principle, a desire of regulating their life according to what they believe to be the will of their Creator. See the country clergyman, a man of plain common sense, without pretension to talents or to superiority of intellect, instilling into his flock the love of the Supreme Being, as the Father of mercies, delighted with the happiness of his creatures. Behold him, with heartfelt delight, discharging the duties which he owes to society, as a husband, a father, and a friend. The innocent enjoyment of life he represents as a duty of religion. Happy in himself, he diffuses happiness on all around him.-View next the celebrated Pascal.-Endowed by nature with a genius to enlighten and improve mankind, to advance the glory of God, by contributing to the good of society-he conceives that mortification is necessary for his soul's welfare. He believes it an act of piety to extinguish in the breast of a sister the voice of nature urging to the blissful duties of a wife and of a mother, and exults in the thought that the austerities which shortened her life were the price of her eternal salvation.Pursuing for himself the same course, he solicits pain and affliction, becomes the voluntary victim of incurable disease, and dies, for the glory of God, a premature death. Who can hesitate a moment to determine which of these men entertains the most worthy ideas of the Divine Being?-Who will hesitate to exclaim, "If religion is amiable, what a hideous monster is fanaticism !" E. C. EUSEBIUS. [This subject was continued in the two following Letters, in answer to EUSEBIUS.] LETTER FIRST. SIR, I PERCEIVE the communication I lately sent you has occasioned two very well written and well intended letters from Eusebius. The sentiments I gave you, under the accidental signature of Pascal, on the moral tendency of the strict observance of Sunday, were from the hand-writing of the late ingenious Lord Kames. I thought they did great honour to his memory, and I was happy to have the opportunity of making them known to the public, although I only mentioned him, by the way, as a philosopher, a critic, and a friend to society. No man will deny him the character; for the public spirit which animated all his researches, his various erudition, and the persevering industry he exerted for the instruction of the age, amidst the duties of an important function, and the multiplied occupations of an active private life, entitle his memory to the most honourable applause. I said, that the reflections of such men, in the calm hours of retirement, are always to be regarded as precious; for from them we may look for observation, truth, and good sense. But it has been reserved for Eusebius to term the serious sensible sentiments of Lord Kames fanatical. Could his Lordship raise his head from the grave, what would his astonishment be, and how would his contemporaries stare, at the quick transition of opinions in the world which they lately left! Lord Kames says, "Sunday is a day of rest from worldly concerns, in order to be more usefully employed upon those that are internal."He condemns diversion or merriment, or whatever tends to dissipate or distract the thoughts on that day, which ought to be passed in moral improvement and self-examination. And will not every person practising this, find themselves better men and better Christians? Yet this rational and solidly sensible opinion is, by Eusebius, thought to be fanaticism. From this one is naturally led to inquire what fanaticism means? and, upon examination, it will be found to resemble Pope's description of the north. Ask where's the north ?-At York, 'tis on the Tweed ;- At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. Every person, according to his own system of indulgence, terms the person observing a purer system of conduct a fanatic. The gross voluptuary, indulging in lawless sensuality, terms the man of moderation and morality, who scruples at acts of intemperance, a fanatic. The person who observes the external forms of religion, to quiet a stupid conscience, although secretly practising the grossest vices, terms the man who openly endeavours at purity of heart and con duct, a fanatic. In short, every person whọ rises above another in moral rectitude, is (now-adays), by the inferior, termed a fanatic; and fanaticism is applied, from the lowest degree of brutal debasement, to each superior class, as they rise towards moral perfection, Eusebius contrasts Lord Kames's opinion of the tendency of the strict observance of Sunday with a Sunday he passed (as he says) in Westmoreland.-Eusebius tells us of a parson, the very picture of fat contented ignorance smiling on the earth (who probably never existed but in his own brain), that enjoyed a smoking sirloin on Sundays, and drank good ale; whose doctrine to his flock was, "See the inferior animals, not blessed with reason; they frisk and play, devour their pas ture, and follow their instincts, and are happy; therefore, why should man, who is of a superior nature, not enjoy what is set before him?"-that is,-why should not man, endued with reason, enlightened by revelation, accountable for every thought, word, and action, and whose highest moral attainments fall short of his duty, not be a beast, or indulge as much as they? - After the account of this edifying sermon, and the comfortable dinner, we are told of the parson's walking out to distribute the picked bones of the sirloin, and of his parishioners' |