Many nominal Christians have been and are as aristocratical as Herod and the chief priests and pharisees of Judea.

But the authority of Jesus Christ himself must, have more weight with Christians, than all the pomp and parade of the most absolute despots in Europe, at the head of the finest troops in the universe. He taught us, when we pray, to say, Our Father. This alone is sufficient to establish, on an immovable basis, the equality of human beings. All are bound to call upon and consider God as their Father, if they are Christians; and, as there are no rights of primogeniture in Heaven, all are equal brothers and sisters, coheirs, if they do not forfeit their hopes, of a blessed immortality. But these are doctrines which the great and proud cannot admit. This world is theirs, and they cannot bear that the beggar, the servant, the slave, should be their equal. We can hardly suppose, in imagination, the Empress of Russia, the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Germany, or any grandee with a riband, a garter, or a star, kneeling down, and from his heart acknowledging, in his prayer, a poor private in a marching regiment, a poor wretch in a workhouse, or the servant that rides behind his carriage, a brother. So void of reason and religion is a poor helpless mortal, when drest in a little brief authority by the folly of those who submit to be trampled under foot by their equal; a man born of a woman, like themselves, and, doomed, like themselves, after strutting on the stage a few years, to the grave. Our Saviour, with a wisdom far above all the refinement of philosophy, frequently inculcated the vanity of riches and power, and the real preeminence of virtue.

And what say the apostles? Do they favour those who usurp an unnatural and unreasonable power

over their fellow-mortals, for the sake of gratifying their own selfish vanity and avarice? Let us hear them.

St. Paul, in the first chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, says, "You see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, (worldly-wise men,) not many mighty, not many noble are called."

In the second chapter of the Epistle of St. James,

we read.

"Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be heirs of his kingdom?" To which is added, "The rich men blaspheme that worthy name by which ye are called."

These passages afford a very strong argument of the truth and divinity of the Christian religion, for they contain the very doctrines which were foretold several hundred years before the appearance of Christianity. Isaiah, in his twenty-ninth chapter, speaking of the gospel, and its doctrines and effects, expressly says,

"The meek shall increase their joy in the Lord; and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

The inference I would draw from all that has preceded, is, that the middle ranks and the poor, that is, the great majority of mankind, should place a due value on the gospel, not only for its religious, but also its civil and political advantages. It is the grand charter of their freedom, their independence, their equality. All the subtilty of lawyers, all the sophistry of ministerial orators, all the power of all the despots and aristocrats in the world, cannot annihilate rights, given, indeed, by Nature, but plainly confirmed by the Gospel. The words already cited are too clear and explicit to admit of misconstruction.

Jesus Christ came to put an end to unjust inequality in this world, while he revealed the prospect of another, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. O ye people, give not the tyrants such an advantage as to part with your gospel, Preserve it, watch over it, as the pearl of great price. It is your security for present and future felicity. Other Herods, other Neroes may arise, who will rejoice to see you voluntarily renounce a system which militates against their diabolical rule; rejoice to see you give up that which all the persecution of the ancient Herods and Neroes in vain attempted to abolish by shedding blood.

I think it may be depended on as indisputable, that men who endeavour to suppress all works in favour of truth,* liberty, and the happiness of the middle and poor classes of the people, would, if they had lived about one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five years ago, have joined with the high priests and rulers to crucify Jesus Christ. They would have prosecuted and persecuted him for sedition and high treason. They would have despised and rejected the friend of Lazarus; and taken the part of Dives, even in hell. The spirit of pride is of the devil, and those who are actuated by that spirit, in all their conduct, would have fallen down and worshipped him, if he would have put them on the pinnacle of the temple, and promised them the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.

*« That make a man an offender for a word.” Isaiah, xxix. 21.

SECTION XL.

The Pride which produces the Spirit of Despotism conspicuous even on the Tombstone. It might be treated with total Neglect, if it did not tend to the Oppression of the Poor, and to Bloodshed and Plunder.

DEATH is the great teacher and censor of human vanity; but even death cannot repress the pride of aristocracy, or the insolence of riches, endeavouring to make wealth and grandeur triumph over the law of nature, and outshine others even from the coffin and the grave. If we look into the churches and church-yards, we see the most insignificant of mankind honoured with the most magnificent monuments of marble, the proudest trophies, sculptured urns, a flattering inscription, and a gilded lie. The walls of the sanctuary are hung with banners, escutcheons, helmets, and spurs; which display the emptiness of that preeminence which they are intended to emblazon. The poor body, which all this paint and finery attends, lies mouldering in the vault; and give it but a tongue to speak, would exclaim, at the gaudy sight, "Vanity of vanities! Mock not my humiliated condition with the contemptible pageantry that misguided my feet from the path of reason and happiness, during my mortal existence." The only means of being honourably distinguished, is to promote most effectually the general happiness of human nature, and to seek private good in public beneficence.

The spirit of despotism is remarkably visible in the mausoleum. There are families who seem to think that their precious bones would be contaminated, even if deposited in the consecrated cemeteries of the church, where plebeians sleep; and therefore they erect proud temples in their private

domains, where their fathers may rot in state, unapproached by the vulgar. If they were illustrious inventors of arts and benefactors to mankind, the distinction might be a just compliment to their memory, and a useful incentive to emulation. But the persons thus magnificently interred, are usually the most insignificant of the human race; whose very names would not be known a year after their decease, if they were not deeply engraven on the marble.

Many a citizen, notorious for the meanest avarice, as little distinguished for beneficence as abilities, is decorated with the most sumptuous memorials which the stone-cutter can raise for money; while Milton, the glory of the nation, a man elevated above the rank of common humanity, had no monumental marble. But all that the herald's office can effect, all that can be done by painting, gilding, and marble, cannot ennoble the greatest favourite of a court, the most successful adventurer in the East Indies, or the most opulent contractor and money-lender, like a Paradise Lost. The nabobs find their influence cannot secure the esteem of a few contemporaries, though it may command their votes, much less of whole nations, and of late posterity. Money, the only god which worldlings worship, loses its omnipotence after the death of its possessor; and even the inheritor often despises the man who acquired it. The undertaker, the escutcheon painter, and the sculptor, are however employed to keep up the false pageantry of insignificant opulence; and a hearse, covered over with coats of arms, is used for the purpose of impressing the vulgar with a veneration for rank and riches, while, in the minds of men of sense, it excites ridicule, and converts a funeral into a farce.

Indeed the empty parade of pride, and the selfimportance of despotism itself, might furnish a laugh