in a crowd and in a solitude: the mind is stunned and dazzled amidst that variety of objects which press upon her in a great city: she cannot apply herself to the consideration of those things, which are of the utmost concern to her. The cares or pleasures of the world strive in with every thought, and a multitude of vicious examples give a kind of justification to our folly. In our retirements every thing disposes us to be serious. In courts and cities we are entertained with the works of men; in the country with those of God. One is the province of art, the other of nature. Faith and devotion naturally grow in the mind of every reasonable man, who sees the impressions of Divine power and wisdom in every object, on which he casts his eye. The Supreme Being has made the best arguments for his own existence, in the formation of the heavens and the earth; and these are arguments, which a man of sense cannot forbear attending to, who is out of the noise and hurry of human affairs. Aristotle says, that should a man live under ground, and there converse with works of art and mechanism, and should afterwards be brought up into the open day, and see the several glories of the heaven and earth, he would immediately pronounce them the works of such a Being as we define God to be. The Psalmist has very beautiful strokes of poetry to this purpose, in that exalted strain, "The heavens "declare the glory of God; and the firma"ment sheweth his handy-work. One day "telleth another; and one night certifieth "another. There is neither speech nor language: but their voices are heard 66 among them. Their sound is gone out "into all lands; and their words into the "ends of the world.' As such a bold and sublime manner of thinking furnishes very noble matter for an ode, the reader may see it wrought into the following one. I. The spacious firmament on high, And spangled heav'ns, a shining frame, Their great original proclaim : Th' unwearied sun, from day to day, And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand. 256 AGAINST ATHEISM AND INFIDELITY. II. Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon' takes up the wondrous tale, Whilst all the stars that round her burn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. III. What though, in solemn silence, all "The Hand that made us is Divine." C. 66 SECTION IX. AGAINST THE MODERN FREETHINKERS. SIR, "THERE arrived in this neighbourhood "two days ago one of your gay gentlemen "of the town, who being attended at his entry with a servant of his own, besides "a countryman he had taken up for a guide, excited the curiosity of the village "to learn whence and what he might be. "The countryman (to whom they applied "as the most easy of access) knew little 66 66 more than that the gentleman came from "London to travel and see fashions, and "was, as he heard say, a Freethinker: "what religion that might be, he could "not tell; and for his own part, if they "had not told him the man was a Free"thinker, he should have guessed, by his "way of talking, he was little better than "a heathen; excepting only that he had "been a good gentleman to him, and "made him drunk twice in one day, over "and above what they had bargained for. S "I do not look upon the simplicity of "this, and several odd inquiries, with which "I shall trouble you, to be wondered at; "much less can I think that our youths "of fine wit and enlarged understandings "have any reason to laugh. There is no "necessity that every squire in Great Bri"tain should know what the word free"thinker stands for: but it were much to "be wished, that they, who valued them"selves upon that conceited title, were a "little better instructed in what it ought "to stand for; and that they would not 66 persuade themselves a man is really and truly a Freethinker in any tolerable sense, "merely by virtue of his being an atheist, or an infidel of any other distinction. It 66 66 66 may be doubted with good reason, whe"ther there ever was in nature a more "abject, slavish, and bigoted generation "than the tribe of beaux esprits, at pre"sent so prevailing in this island. Their "pretension to be Freethinkers is no other "than rakes have to be free-livers, and savages to be free-men; that is, they can "think whatever they have a mind to, and 66 |