LETTER III.

The Effects of the Principles, avowed by the Leaders of the French Revolution, counteracted and destroyed, in a great measure, by their Cruelties and Impiety, and by the Miseries they brought on other Nations. These Ef fects likewise lessened by the Efforts of the Clergy, and of many other respectable Inhabitants, but principally by an extensive Revival of Religion. Comparison of the Religious and Moral Character of the First Settlers with that of the present Inhabitants.

DEAR SIR;

WHEN these numerous and fruitful sources of depravation have passed in review before you, it will seem wonderful, that religion and morals have not bidden this country a final adieu. That they have not absolutely forsaken us, nay, that they extensively prevail, and that there are even more religious persons in New-England than at any former period, is, however, undoubtedly true. The causes of this fact I will briefly explain.

Before I enter upon this part of my design, I ought, however, to apologise to you for so extended a discussion of the subject, particularly for the historical detail which I have given you concerning the causes, which have heretofore contributed to the deflections of our moral character. Among my reasons are the following: The subject is unquestionably of considerable importance in the philosophy of man. No account of it has been published by others; and those, who have been eyewitnesses of its progress, and who alone could exhibit it truly, are either gone, or will soon go, to the grave. The proba bility, therefore, is great, that it will never be communicated to the public by any other hand. To my own countrymen, at

least, it must be interesting, and may be useful. Yet most of them are chiefly unacquainted with the particulars which I have recited. The resistance, which the inhabitants of my native country have made to this mass of evil, is honourable to their character; and from this account of their difficulties, and the example which they have furnished of opposing them successfully, succeeding generations may derive both instruction, and motives for future resistance.

I have heretofore mentioned the efficacy of the New-England institutions. These, operating everywhere and every moment, and although silently and insensibly yet powerfully operating, have, with a constant accumulation of energy, greatly contributed to wear away this formidable combination of mischiefs. Habits are proverbially the only important sources of permanent good. From steady, national habits only can great national good, in the ordinary course of things, be derived. From the New-England institutions such habits have long since sprung, and from a very early period have constituted a stable, national character. Such a character can hardly be materially changed, unless by the ravaging hand of conquest, or the slow progress of time. It becomes the common nature, and

"Si Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret."

There is a constant renitency of the mind against all those innovations which sensibly affect this character, an elastic tendency towards the recovery of its original position. To such habits, under God, New-England owes in no small measure its escape from that degeneracy, which has so miserably affected many other countries.

The influence of the French revolution, which for a time threatened us with moral ruin, was to a great extent counteracted by the evils of the revolution itself; by the character of the men who successively conducted it; and by the evils which flowed from it as consequences. I need not tell you, that the calamities of this revolution outran all expectation, example, and belief. When the Americans began to read and believe the successive massacres of Paris, a considerable number of them were startled. Blood, here, has rarely been shed, but under the solemn decision of a jury. Nay, it has been rarely shed at all, except in a period of war. The ferocity of the

Parisian women, those fiends in a female dress, filled the minds of the whole sex in this country with horror. The guillotine curdled the blood even of coarse and unfeeling men, and the death of Louis XVI awakened general detestation. The ravages of La Vendee, Nantz, Toulon, and Lyons, completed the picture of woe.

Nor was the impiety of France, and its violation of all other moral principles, much less impressive than the tales of its cruelty. There was a grossness of immorality, a brutal Atheism, in the speeches and measures of the national legislature; a disregard of evidence, truth, and justice, in the proceedings of its judicial tribunals; a ferocity in the conduct of its judges and juries; and a savageness in the behaviour of its executive officers; which, if reported by others, would have been considered as an outrage upon credulity itself. Happily for us, they were their own historians, and the truth of their recitals could not be questioned.

Nor were the minds of my countrymen less advantageously affected by the treatment exhibited to the successive leaders in this revolution by those who followed them. The hero of yesterday was regularly murdered by the hero of to-day; and the possession of the supreme control was only a regular introduction to the guillotine. There was something amazingly solemn in seeing these Goths and Vandals, these Alarics, Attilas, and Genserics, successively led up by the hand of Divine justice to the block, to make a feeble expiation of their crimes by their blood. About one hundred of them perished in this manner. These facts taught my countrymen, that the attachment, professed by these men to the liberty of their country, was nothing but a pretence to help themselves into place and wealth, and this hypocrisy they naturally, as well as justly, transferred in the end to all their coadjutors.

At the same time, the wide-spread calamities, brought upon other nations by France, particularly upon such as had enjoyed a free government, contributed to the same general effect. My countrymen saw with astonishment, as well as with regret, one republic after another blotted out from under heaven, and this by the hands of the very men, who had solemnly announced to the world, that France would make no conquests.

Finally, the termination of this convulsion established the

views, which had been thus formed, beyond the possibility of any material alteration. Every wise and dispassionate man saw with conviction, that infidelity is hostile to all public and personal happiness; that without the influence of religion, political freedom can never be long enjoyed; and that a connection with the leaders, and disciples, of this revolution would only be baleful to his own country. Even the French nation itself, by quietly settling down under the military despotism of a single man, as an asylum from the tremendous oppression of their directory, proved beyond debate, that no government of mere force is equally terrible with that of infidel philosophy.

Another great truth of no less importance was impressed on a contemplative mind by these events. It is this; that infidelity naturally, and necessarily, becomes, when possessed of the control of national interests, a source of evils, so numerous, and so intense, as to compel mankind to prefer any state to these evils. No fact of a political nature was ever more instructive to thinking men, than the torpid submission of France to the rod of the Emperor Napoleon. Even the infidels of this country, particularly the intelligent ones, saw in this fact, and in those which preceded it, the efficacy of their own principles, and the danger which they threatened to mankind. Alarmed by the prospect, they first ceased from their endeavours to make proselytes; then began to speak favourably of the Christian religion, and finally insisted that it was absolutely necessary to good government, liberty, and safety.

For a considerable time the clergy of New-England generally were plainly unaware of the extent to which this degeneracy of principle and practice prevailed. With the propagators of infidelity and vice they naturally had very little intercourse; and the evil proceeded for a considerable time with so much silence and decency, as to be unobserved by men, who were either employed in their studies, or in their active business were chiefly conversant with persons of a better character. Some of them, however, from a peculiarity of circumstances, discovered the danger at an early period. These gave the alarm; and although scarcely credited at first, because the change was too great to be easily admitted in such a country as New-England, yet gradually gained the ear, not only

of their brethren in the ministry, but of all the sober inhabitants. From that period, men of wisdom and piety, in considerable numbers, made vigorous efforts against this invasion of human happiness. A great multitude of judicious discourses were preached throughout the country; and not a small number published on the various branches of the Deistical controversy. These, the enemies of religion were never able to answer. The subject became at the same time generally the theme of conversation, and was handled with an efficacy which was both extensive and powerful. Nor was personal influence less exerted or less successful. The danger was so obvious, and so great, as to alarm all men of consideration. Even many infidels, terrified as they were by the events mentioned above, united heartily with others in repelling evils which they saw daily thickening, and threatening every thing which they held dear. Nay, in considerable numbers they openly renounced their principles, and became professed adherents to the cause of Christianity.

At the same time also, a series of efforts made by men of talents and worth in Great Britain, formed a strong mound against the tide of iniquity. Several writers, to whose labours all succeeding generations will be deeply indebted, exposed the weakness of the arguments, the base designs, and the contemptible character of the principal agents in this system of corruption. Of those by whom their writings were read, most were convinced and the rest put to silence.

You will easily believe, that when infidels became thus interested to oppose their own principles, all sober men, who believed in the divine origin of the Scriptures, but had not hitherto made a public profession of Christianity, felt the subject still more deeply. These with a single voice united in strengthening the government and religion of their country. Accordingly they conversed in favour of both, with new earnestness; exhibited a more marked reverence for the constituted authorities of their country; frequented more punctually the house of God; regarded and treated its ministers with enhanced respect; and appeared openly, and everywhere, as the determined supporters of religion. From these exertions, made by a body of men so numerous and influential, society may be said to have assumed a new aspect.