GLEIG’S SERMONS. 159 
before he rise, break an impious jest on the 
object of his adoration. 
The presence of a clergyman is still 
some restraint, in this respect, on the tongue 
good manners : and yet, within these two 
months, I heard one of the greatest orna- 
ments* of this, or any other country, pro- 
nounced a party man, because some of the 
company had observed that he was a Chris- 
tian! Men of lay-professions meet much 
more frequently with instances of this kind 
than clergymen can be supposed to do. A 
friend of mine, whose veracity cannot be 
doubted, assured me, that of thirty young 
men coniposing a literary society, of which 
he was a member, there were but three 
who had the courage to profess themselves 
Christians. A few more declared their be- 
lief in the existence of God: but a very 
great majority were avowed atheists. 
“© Whence, now, can we suppose such 
extreme depravity of principle to have ari- 
sen? From calm inquiry and from the pur- 
suits of science? No! Calm inquiry, on 
scientific principles, always leads to truth ; 
and het who possessed perhaps the pro- 
- 
_ foundest mind that ever actuated a human 
e, and made greater progress in the pur- 
suits of science than any man had ever done 
before him, was likewise one of the firmest 
believers in the doctrines of the gospel. 
« The young men whom I have mention- 
ed as calling themselves atheists, had never 
thought seriously on the subject of religion: 
they had iprobably seen their parents and 
gil who professed Christianity, neg- 
| its ordinances, disregard many of its 
precepts, and show a perfect apathy with 
| respect to all its threats and all its promises. 
| It was, therefore, not unnatural, for youth- 
fal minds to infer that the faith of such per- 
sons, if they had any faith, fell short even of 
that which the apostle attributes to those 
| beings, of whom he declares, that « they be- 
lieve and tremble.’ But, from thinking thus 
of the religion of patents and guardians, per- 
sons to whom every one is accustomed to 
look up with reverence—it is a very short 
step fora young man, ardent in the pursuits 
of pleasure, to conclude, without inquiry, 
that all pretensions to revelation are impos- 
tutes upon mankind; and that the Old and 
New Testaments are a collection of fables.” 
In a sermon preached on the fast- 
day, 1797, both the higher and the 
lower orders of our community are thus 
heavily charged. 
r 
¥ 
Py Ag * Locke. 
«« In the last century the natives of this 
island, after piously recommending them- 
selves and their country to the God of bat- 
tles, united with ardour under an usurped 
overnment, which most of them justly ab- 
orred, to repel the threatened invasion of 
an insulting foe: but at the present awful 
crisis, when all the powers of Europe, that 
have it much in their power to annoy us, 
seem leagued for the destruction of every 
thing dear to us as men and as Christians, 
some individuals of the higher orders of so- 
ciety are exerting all their influence, and all 
their power, to distract the attention of go- 
vernment, to rend in pieces the force of the 
empire, and to deliver up their countrymen 
—nay, themselves, their wives, and their 
children—gagged and bound, to a host of 
murdering atheists. Others again, though 
not so far lost as this, to all sense of what 
the world calls honour ; yet ‘* forgetting the 
God of their salyation, and the rock of their 
strength,” plunge heedlessly into the excess 
of dissipation, and trust the defence of every 
thing which ought to be dear to them to the 
arm of flesh. 
«© Nor are the principles and practices of 
the lower orders among us more consonant 
to our holy religion than those.of the higher. 
Our peasants and mechanics, instead of look- 
ing to persons of the same station in other 
countries, and comparing their own happi- 
ness with theirs’, which would fill their 
breasts with gratitude to God, and with a 
chearful submission to the laws of their coun- 
try, turn their eyes upwards with stupid male- 
volence to the splendour of their landlords, 
and such other persons as occupy stations 
superior to their own; and, being stung 
with envy, are eager to pull them from those 
elevations which, in the present state of 
things, they cannot themselves hope to reach. 
Hence that impatience of government, and 
those wild clamours for political reformation, 
which pervade all the lower orders of society, 
may be traced to the single source of en- 
vy engrafted on ignorance ; envy of the ima, 
ginary happiness of their superiors, and ig- 
norance of this obvious truth, that had they 
no superior in the state, they couid never 
have acquired the wealth which they now 
enjoy.” 
We must, however, do our author the 
justice to observe, that when his mind is 
not heated by the contemplation of the 
speedy destruction of all social order, 
he frequently reasons with precision, 
calmness, and effect. 
+ Newton. 
