the fiery ordeal of the most fearful and bloody convulsions; tearing up by the roots all the little remains of civil government, and scattering piecemeal those potentates, princedoms, thrones, and dominations, which have hitherto appeared to withstand the pitiless pelting of the revolutionary tempest. Into what forms of polity; whether of vague, weak, unpurposed democracy; of well-poised, energetic, permanent aristocracy; or of unrelenting, military despotism, these disorders and conflicts shall subside; into how many and how great principalities and powers the European continent shall be ultimately divided and subdivided, is not given to human wisdom to foresee.

In Britain, however, has taken place a process far different from that which has long laid waste, and is still desolating the continent of Europe. She early embraced the Reformation in name and in effect; in England and in Scotland popery gradually gave way to the light of evangelical truth; and civilization, order and morality followed, as invariable effects from a producing cause. And long after the era of the reformation, the people of Scotland under John Knox, in opposition to Mary of Guise and her French faction, and the people of England in the expulsion of James the Second, made a national appeal to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then declared in the face of the whole world, that they preferred for themselves and for their children, unto the latest generations, the pure light of protestantism to the thick darkness of popery. Ireland indeed never purged herself from the lees and dregs of the Romish church; she is still deeply tainted; and what has been the inevitable consequence to her?-For several centuries past down to this present moment, she has been, and is now, far inferior to her neighbors, England and Scotland, in civilization.

For an accurate and comprehensive account of the state of religion in Ireland, see "Papers relating to

the Established Church in Ireland, presented to the Honorable the House of Commons, pursuant to address of 6th July, 1807."-Ordered to be printed, 29th July 1807. - pp. 380, close print. And also the "Report of a deputation from the Hibernian Society, respecting the religious state of Ireland," published in London in 1807. And likewise the "State of the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth;" from papers printed by order of the House of Commons, 30th March and 6th April, 1808.

The state of Ireland as to morals may be inferred from the following remarks made by the honorable Justice Day in his charge to the grand jury of Tipperary, in the spring of 1808, "If the calendar be the criminal barometer of the bailiwick; if the state of the jail be no unfaithful epitome of the country at large; then is the state of civil society in your county deplorable in the extreme. I hold in my hand a paper which for its size and quantity of matter resembles more the chart of a county than a calendar of its jail; an affecting catalogue of a hundred and forty-one of our unfortunate fellow-creatures incarcerated since the last assizes, under charges of the deepest atrocity! In truth, it is a downright misnomer, a gross abuse and perversion of language, to say that civil society exists in a country so inundated with crime." To this may be added the fact, that in the summer of 1808, the high sheriff, magistrates, and gentlemen of the county of Kilkenny entered into resolutions, and subscribed large sums of money, to be at the disposal of their committee, for the purpose" of bringing the guilty to punishment, and protecting and indemnifying the innocent who may be objects of revenge on account of giving evidence against the abandoned perpetrators of crimes and enormities so disgraceful to the order and regulation of civilized beings." See also" Three Reports by the Commissioners for inquiring into the state of all schools

on public or charitable foundations in Ireland." Presented to the Honorable House of Commons, and ordered to be printed, April 4th, 1809.

Yet even in despite of the awful state of Ireland, pure, reformed, evangelical religion has been, during the whole reign of George the Third, and is now, gaining ground in every part of the British dominions. And it has been attended uniformly by an increase of industry, social order, sound morals, intelligence, and civil liberty. But at no time, not even during the reigns of the pedantic James the First, the hypocritical Charles the First, the profligate Charles the Second, and the bigoted James the Second, amidst the most grievous declensions of serious religion, have the fundamental doctrines of the gospel suffered in Britain those impious and destructive perversions which they invariably underwent on the continent of Europe. This great benefit has arisen, partly from there having always been a remnant of evangelical teachers and professors in the national churches of England and of Scotland, and in the various other christian sects which are spread out over the British empire; and partly from the orthodox articles and creeds of the English and Scottish national churches maintaining strong and perpetual bulwarks against all the innovations and corruptions of heresy.

A decisive testimony of the social benefits derived to a nation from the prevalence of christianity, is borne by Frederic the Second of Prussia, who was himself a most incorrigible infidel. A clergyman in Prussian Poland, one of the many myriads of continental ecclesiastics who had reasoned themselves, and preached their flocks into deism, sent Frederic an absurd letter, stating that he, the Polish pastor, had discovered fifty new arguments against the authenticity and credibility of the Old and New Testa ments. The king returned for answer, that the parson was doubtless very ingenions and very philo

sophical in having discovered fifty new arguments against the Bible; and probably that by hard labor, spare diet, and deep study he might be able to invent a hundred and fifty more; but that if he dared to disorder the community by publishing one of them, he should be hanged up (tout suite) forthwith.

That the pre-existing state of society in France produced the revolution in that country, may also be inferred from this fact; namely, that the same experiment was made to introduce jacobin-atheism into Britain; but failed, owing to the superior energy of the government; the pure religion of a great portion of the people; the sound sense, good morals, steady and manly habits of the nation at large; creating no effectual demand for the universal diffusion of impiety, and the total destruction of all social order, virtue, prosperity and happiness.

The same experiment was also made in these United States, where it has to a certain extent succeeded. In this country jacobin-atheism has taken too wide and deep root; and has produced the very same effects here, as it engendered in France; allowing for the different physical and moral condition and circumstances of the two countries. Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" was so industriously circulated throughout the Union, as very materially to lessen, for some time, the annual average sale of Bibles in America. In the "Temple of Truth," second edition, published in London, in 1807, at pp. 13—9— 140, there is an excellent note stating that in consequence of the appearance of the " Age of Reason" in Britain, the clergy of all denominations in that country exerted themselves most zealously in the discharge of their all-important professional duties, and by their earnest preaching of the gospel most materially promoted the cause which Paine's book was published to destroy.

And nearly the same religious reaction after awhile

took place in the Union, as in Britain; and in consequence, the condition of christianity in this country is perhaps now more florishing than ever. But great numbers of truly religious people in this country have been and are now seduced into revolutionary and anarchical sentiments and actions; as many religious people were at one time so seduced in Britain by the jacobins of that country. In fact, the wisdom and energy of the British government were the all-effec tual means of stopping the progress of jacobinism in that country; and after it had been checked, when the whole nefarious plots of the real jacobins ; namely, to destroy religion and civil liberty; had been gradually disclosed, the sober, serious part of the community shrunk back with horror from the jacobinical scheme altogether. But if the British government had not kept the monster at bay, and exposed its deformity, many thousands of the best-intentioned people in England would have continued, as they had begun, to help forward the designs of ja cobinism, until the whole mischief had been effected; when they could only have wept over their own shortsighted folly on their way to the guillotine. In the north of Ireland also many plain, serious christians were duped into the ranks of United Irishmen. Had our American government possessed sufficient strength to wring the neck of this Gallic serpent, the United States would now have been comparatively sound from the taint of jacobinism.

Jacobinism in the United States produces precisely the same effects that it does every where else; it sours all the charities of life; it divides father against son, and son against father; and produces the most deadly and lasting feuds among kindred. Accordingly, there are very many families in the Union the peace and harmony of which are cut up by the roots, in consequence of some of its members having