MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 301 



It would be a tedious and an irksome task to give 

 even a list of all the religions, as they are called, 

 from the days of Paganism, down to the present 

 time. Truth long struggled with error, before sys- 

 tem after system passed away. Notwithstanding 

 the exertions of power to keep them up, they exist 

 now only in story. But do the laws of nature ever 

 alter ? Do the sun, moon, and stars shine in any 

 other way than they did to the votaries of Jupiter r 

 Do the human passions operate in any other man- 

 ner than they did thousands of years ago r No, 

 indeed ! Let us, then, rejoice that true religion is 

 independent of human caprice ; it is founded upon 

 the immutable principles of truth, reason, and com- 

 mon sense, and therefore must be durable as nature 

 itself. It is not vague and mutable : it is acquired 

 by experience, not merely the creature of chance, 

 habit, and prejudice: it is capable of demonstration 

 like the principles of mathematics, and its necessity 

 is evinced by the very nature of man in society. 

 There is a rational and an irrational belief, and 

 how can we distinguish the one from the other 

 without reference to the reason of the thing ? If 

 reason be abandoned, then sense and nonsense are 

 just the same : religion becomes a chaos, and faith 

 has no merit. I therefore believe that no faith can 

 be acceptable to God which is not grounded on 

 reason ; nothing but truth brings us lasting and 

 solid advantage. 



But it would appear that the teachers of mankind, 

 in this important concern, have too seldom been 

 actuated by these pure principles, and the " caring 

 for men's souls " has been made only a secondary 

 consideration. Their leading objects have been the 

 establishment of a system of revenue and aggran- 



