sentations of his expenditures. In London only, a very corrupt, but far from being the most corrupt, city in Europe, 115,000 human beings, among whom are 50,000 abandoned females, live according to the sagacious and upright Colquhoun, either partly or wholly, by customary fraud; and annually plunder their fellowmen of Two millions Sterling: while on the River Thames a more systematized robbery has yearly wrested from individuals no less than 500,000 pounds of the same currency; and from the Crown, during a century, ten millions.

Duelling and Suicide present to our view two other kindred testimonies of enormous corruption. On these, however, I cannot, and need not, dwell. Instead of expatiating on them, I will exhibit to you two official accounts of the moral state of the Capital of France. By a public return to the Government, of births, deaths, &c. in Paris, in the year 1801, it appears, that there

In the Republican year, ending Sept. 23, 1803, by the report of the Prefect of police to the Grand Judge for the district of Paris, the number of

Condemned to the gallies,

1626

64

Condemned to hard labour and imprisonment, .

Branded with hot irons,

Among the criminals executed were Seven Fathers, who had poisoned their children: Ten husbands, who had murdered their

wives: Six wives, who poisoned their husbands: and Fifteen children, who destroyed their parents.

During that year also 12,076 lewd women had been registered, and paid for the protection of the Police; 1552 kept mistresses were noted; and 308 public brothels licensed, by the Prefect of Police at Paris.

This tremendous recital admits no comment. The spectator shrinks from it with horror; and, forced to acknowledge those, comprised in the story, to be human beings, wishes to deny, that himself is a man.

2dly. The doctrine is dreadfully evinced in the Public Conduct of mankind.

On this part of the subject, copious and important as it is, I shall make a very few observations only, under the following heads.

1st. Their government.

Under a righteous administration of Government, the intense corruption of the human character is gloomily manifested by Subjects, in the violation of their allegiance, and their evasions or their transgressions of Law. God has made it our duty to render tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; and honour to whom honour. Nor has He permitted us to perform these duties with a less scrupulous exactness than any other. Compare with this precept the reluctant payment of reasonable taxes; the unceasing, and immense, smuggling; the innumerable frauds, practised on the Custom-house; the murmurings, the seditions, the revolts, the malignant factions, and the furious civil discords, which have blackened the annals even of the freest and happiest nations; and you cannot want evidence of the depravity of that spirit, which has given birth to these enormities.

On the other hand, how often is the Government itself no other than an administration of iniquity? The endless train of evils, however, which have flowed in upon mankind from this source, have been, here, so long the ruling theme both of conversation and writings; the oppression, fraud, plunder, baleful example, and deplorable corruption, of despotic princes, have been so thoroughly learned by heart; as to render a particular discussion of them, at the present time, unnecessary. But however fre

quently they have been repeated, they are not on that account less real, or dreadful, manifestations of human turpitude. I know, that it is a common refuge of the objectors to this doctrine to attribute both these kinds of evidence of human corruption to the form of the government, and not to the nature of Man. But this complaisance to human nature is out of place. Kings and princes are mere men; and differ from other men, only because they are surrounded by greater temptations. Their nature and propensities are precisely the same with yours and mine. Their opportunities of doing good are, at the same time, immensely greater; and, were they originally virtuous, would be seized, and employed, with an avidity, proportioned to their extent, for this great purpose only. Were human nature pure, as is professed; were it not dreadfully corrupted; kings would be the best of men; as possessing the greatest power, and the widest means of beneficence. How unlike this has been the fact, not with respect to kings only, but to almost all men invested with high authority. Republican Legislatures have been at least as oppressive to mankind as Monarchs; particularly to the dependencies of their empire. Rome and Sparta ground their provinces with a harder hand than the Persian Despot; and no human tyranny was ever marked with such horrors as the Republican tyranny of France.

2dly. The Wars of Mankind are a still more dreadful exhibition of wickedness than their Government.

Here, as if the momentary life of Man was too long, and his sufferings too few, and too small, men have professedly embarked in the design of cutting off life, and enhancing the number and degree of sufferings. War has prevailed through every age, and in every country; and in all has waded through human blood, trampled on human corpses, and laid waste the fields and the dwellings, the happiness and the hopes, of mankind. It has been employed to empty Earth, and people Hell; to make Angels weep, and Fiends triumph, over the deplorable guilt and debasement of the human character.

3dly. The doctrine is not less strongly evidenced by the Religion of Mankind.

With this subject I shall wind up the melancholy detail. JE

HOVAH created this world, stored it with the means of good, and filled it with rational and immortal beings. Instead of loving, serving, and adoring Him, they have worshipped Devils, the vilest of all beings, and alike his enemies and their own. They have worshipped each other; they have worshipped brutes; they have worshipped vegetables. The Smith has molten a god of gold; the Carpenter has hewn a god of wood; and millions have prostrated themselves to both in praise and prayer. To appease the anger of these gods, they have attempted to wash their sins away by ablutions, and to make atonement for them by penance. To these gods they have offered up countless Hecatombs ; and butchered, tortured, and burnt, their own children. Before these gods their religion has enjoined, and sanctioned, the unlimited prostitution of matrons and virgins to casual lust and systematized pollution. The same religion has also sanctioned war and slaughter, plunder and devastation, fraud and perjury, seduction and violation, without bounds. Its persecutions have reddened the world with blood, and changed its countries into catacombs. On the pale horse, seen in the Apocalyptic vision, Death has gone before it; and Hell, following after, has exulted in its deplorable follies, its crimes without number, and the miseries, which it has occasioned without end.