say, in favour of our gratitude or philanthropy, our national rectitude, justice or morality, while there are at least one million of our fellow worms, in the most ignoble and tormenting slavery, in the bowels of our country, though we at the same time profess to be the votaries of liberty. What unaccountable hypocrisy! what unparalleled tyranny! what systematical duplicity, to which the most barbarous of the heathen nation were utter strangers. It is a stubborn fact, that the human family are getting more and more corrupted every generation, as it was previous to the flood, by which the antediluvian world was destroyed. Thus the Jews were better informed, and also more impious than the Babylonians. The Romans were still more cultivated in the fine arts, polite literature, and the most equitable jurisprudence; but still they accumulated more crimes, and if possible exceeded the Jews in wickedness and ingratitude. In the same manner, but alas! with more lengthy strides, the Christians have at least

eighteen hundred years been adding wrong to wrong, iniquity to transgres sion, hypocrisy to the most unparalleled villany; and, what is worse than all the rest, under the cloak of religion, they have perpetrated the most unnatural, the most diabolical, the most savage, I should rather have said the most devilish crimes: nay, the devil himself would blush at the recital of their enormous cruelty! If we at present cast our intellectual eyes around us, we will at once recognize, that the sufferings of the human family in general, as also their guilt, is much greater than it has ever been since the creation of the world. In one word, the earth is filled with oppression and violence: and could we see the inhumanity of man against man, as God sees it, we should be petrified with horror, and swoon with astonishment and regret. Few crimes which were perpetrated by the ancients, but what are refined upon by the nations of moderu times. It is true, the inhabitants of Christendom, do not bow down and worship gods of wood,

of brass or stone; but it is also true, that millions and billions of them worship their own pretty faces, and majestic forms, as well as their gold and silver, more than the true God. Both gentlemen and ladies of fashion, have in their dressing rooms, individually, an image which they worship every day, a perishing and putrifying image: it is represented to them through the medium of a looking-glass. Surely, this is idolatry with a witness; and it is, in my opinion, as foolish and ridicu lous idolatry as that practised by the ancients.

God has, for a number of centuries, been calling upon the children of Christendom, by unparalleled mercies and favours, to repent and reform; but alas! instead of obeying the call, they have been growing in wickedness every year. Now he is calling by the most terrible judgments, but still no attention is paid to the gracious call: it seems to me, that the Christian powers, like the Jews, are judicially infatuated, and seeking their own destruction with

greediness. Indeed, it is my opinion, that the awful period has arrived, when God is determined, as all other meanshave proved fruitless, to purge his church by unparalleled persecution, and Scourge the Christian nations with terrible severity; and if that will not reform them, extirpate them from the face of the earth. This he has done to unenlightened nations, for their pride und perverseness; and surely, we cannot suppose he will let enlightened nations prosper in their villany, without punishment! However, any candid entelligent man, who will seriously consider the antecedent severity of God to the foregoing celebrated nations, will be clearly convinced, that the people of Christendom have cause to tremble on the brink of fate. From the ruins of Babylon and Jerusalem, as well as from the many vacant spots where the most mighty cities once stood, a voice may be heard as loud as elaps of thunder, crying in the ears of all the inhabitants of Christendom, especially the people of England, in language like

this: "Learn wisdom from our premature fate impose not too much on the long-forbearing mercy of a gracious God; for, remember, and let the thought sink deep, he is as just as he is good, he is as impartial as he is patient; be afforded us many opportunities for repentance, but we unhappily rejected them all; hence, his justice, though slow, was sure; and we stand living monuments to prove, that he will not be trifled with by angels or men, in their national or individual capacity. A general dissoluteness of national manners was the harbinger of our ruin; beware, therefore, of this prelude of our annihilation."

I do not wish to particularize the prevalent and popular crimes of this degenerate age; it would shock the ear of delicacy if I did, it would cause the philanthropist to weep and tremble by turns. I do not, I dare not estimate the turpitude of our national delinquency, or fix the mode, the manner, or the magnitude of the punishment due to it. But may I not deplore the infatuation