ly, in his left hand, raised something above his stomach, and detached a little from his breast; -his right arm falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity ordered it,but with the palm of it open, and turned towards his audience, ready to aid the sentiment, in case it stood in need.

Corporal Trim's eyes, and the muscles of his face, were in full harmony with the other parts of him; he looked frank,-unconstrained, --something assured,—but not bordering upon

assurance.

Let not the critic ask, how Corporal Trim could come by all this ;-I have told him it should be explained ;—but so he stood before my father, my uncle Toby, and Dr Slop,-so swayed his body, so contrasted his limbs, and with such an oratorical sweep throughout the whole figure, a statuary might have modelled from it ;-nay, I doubt whether the oldest Fellow of a College, or the Hebrew Professor himself, could have much mended it.

Trim made a bow, and read as follows:

THE SERMON.

HEBREWS xiii. 18.

-For we trust we have a good Conscience. "TRUST!—Trust we have a good Con

science!"

[Certainly, Trim, quoth my father, interrupting him, you give that sentence a very improper accent; for you curl up your nose, man, and read it with such a sneering tone, as if the Parson was going to abuse the Apostle.

He is, an' please your Honour, replied Trim. -Pugh! said my father, smiling.

Sir, quoth Dr Slop, Trim is certainly in the right; for the writer (who, I perceive, is a Protestant,) by the snappish manner in which he takes up the Apostle, is certainly going to abuse him, if this treatment of him has not done it already. But from whence, replied my father, have you concluded so soon, Dr Slop, that the writer is of our church ?-for aught I can see yet, he may be of any church.-Because, answered Dr Slop, if he was of ours, he durst no more take such a license,-than a bear by his beard:-If, in our communion, sir, a man was to insult an apostle,a saint,or even the paring of a saint's nail, he would have his eyes scratched out.What, by the saint? quoth my uncle Toby. No, replied Dr Slop, he would have an old house over his head.- -Pray, is the Inquisition an ancient building, answered my uncle Toby, or is it a modern one?- -I know nothing of architecture, replied Dr Slop.-An' please your Honours, quoth Trim, the Inquisition is the vilest

-Pri'thee spare thy description, Trim; I hate the very name of it, said my father.-No

matter for that, answered Dr Slop,-it has its uses; for, though I am no great advocate for it, yet in such a case as this, he would soon be taught better manners; and I can tell him, if he went on at that rate, would be flung into the Inquisition for his pains. God help him then! quoth my uncle Toby-Amen, added Trim; for Heaven above knows, I have a poor brother, who has been fourteen years a captive in it. I never heard one word of it before, said my uncle Toby, hastily:-How came he there, Trim?―0, sir, the story will make your heart bleed, as it has made mine a thousand times;-but it is too long to be told now;your Honour shall hear it from first to last, some day when I am working beside you in our fortifications;-but the short of the story is this:-That my brother Tom went over a ser vant to Lisbon,-and then married a Jew's widow, who kept a small shop, and sold sausages, which, somehow or other, was the cause of his being taken in the middle of the night out of his bed, where he was lying with his wife and two small children, and carried directly to the Inquisition; where, God help him, continued Trim, fetching a deep sigh from the bottom of his heart,-the poor honest lad lies confined at this hour; he was as honest a soul, added Trim (pulling out his handkerchief,) as ever blood

warmed.

The tears trickled down Trim's cheeks faster than he could well wipe them away :-A dead silence in the room ensued for some minutes.~ Certain proof of pity!

Come, Trim, quoth my father, after he saw the poor fellow's grief had got a little vent,read on, and put this melancholy story out of thy head:-I grieve that I interrupted thee; but pri'thee begin the sermon again ;-for if the first sentence in it is matter of abuse, as thou sayest, I have a great desire to know what kind of provocation the Apostle has given.

Corporal Trim wiped his face, and returned his handkerchief into his pocket, and making a bow as he did it,—he began again.]

sires; he must remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true springs and motives which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.

[I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr Slop.

"In other matters, we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the Wise Man complains, hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But here, the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;is conscious of the web she has wove; knows its texture and fineness, and the exact share which every passion has had in working upon the several designs which virtue or vice has planned before her."

[The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my father.]

"Now, as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives; it is plain, you will say, from the very terms of the proposition,-whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man. And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not;that it is not a matter of trust, as the Apostle intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also."

[Then the Apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr Slop, and the Protestant divine is in the right.-Sir, have patience, replied my father, for I think it will presently appear, that St Paul and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.-As nearly so, quoth Dr Slop, as east is to west;-but this, continued he, lifting both hands, comes from the liberty

of the press.

It is no more, at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be.

Go on, Trim, quoth my father.] "At first sight, this may seem to be a true state of the case; and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man,-that, did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the Scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard-and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress, and continual hard usage, lose, by degrees, that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it:-Did this never happen ;-or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment; or that the little interests below, could

rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness-Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court:Did WIT disdain to take a bribe in it ;-or was ashamed to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment:-Or, lastly, were we assured, that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing, and that Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case: -Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose ;— -no doubt, then, the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it;and the guilt or innocence of every man's life, could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and censure.

"I own, in one case, whenever a man's conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side,) that he is guilty; and, unless in melancholy and hypochondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there are always sufficient grounds for the accusation.

"But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;-namely, that whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent.――This is not fact:So that the common consolation, which some good Christian or other is hourly administering to himself,-that he thanks God his mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he has a quiet one,-is fallacious;—and, as current as the inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet, when you look nearer to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,-you see it liable to so much error from a false application;-the principle upon which it goes so often perverted; the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life which confirm the account.

"A man shall be vicious, and utterly debauched in his principles;-exceptionable in his conduct to the world;-shall live shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify;-a sin, by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;

-and not on

rob her of her best dowry ;ly cover her own head with dishonour, but involve a whole virtuous family in shame and sorrow for her sake. Surely, you will think, conscience must lead such a man a troublesome life:he can have no rest night or day from its reproaches.

"Alas! CONSCIENCE had something else to do, all this time, than break in upon him; as Elijah reproached the God Baal,-this domestic

God was either talking, or pursuing, or was on a journey, or peradventure he slept, and could not be awoke.

Perhaps He was gone out in company with HONOUR to fight a duel ;- -to pay off some debt at play, -or dirty annuity, the bargain of his lust: Perhaps CONSCIENCE, all this time, was engaged at home, talking aloud against petty-larceny, and executing vengeance upon some such puny crimes as his fortune and rank of life secured him against all temptation of committing; so that he lives as merrily,"-[If he was of our church, though, quoth Dr Slop, he could not sleeps as soundly in his bed, -and at last meets death as unconcernedly, perhaps much more so, than a much better

man.

[All this is impossible with us, quoth Dr Slop, turning to my father,-the case could not happen in our church. It happens in ours, however, replied my father, but too often. I own, quoth Dr Slop (struck a little with my father's frank acknowledgment,) that a man in the Romish church may live as badly;-but then he cannot easily die so. -'Tis little matter, replied my father, with an air of indifference, how a rascal dies.-I mean, answered Dr Slop, he would be denied the benefits of the last sacraments.-Pray, how many have you in all, said my uncle Toby,- -for I always forget? -Seven, answered Dr Slop.-Humph! said my uncle Toby,-though not accented as a note of acquiescence,-but as an interjection of that particular species of surprise, when a man, in looking into a drawer, finds more of a thing than he expected.-Humph! replied my uncle Toby. Dr Slop, who had an ear, understood my uncle Toby as well as if he had wrote a whole volume against the seven sacraments.――Humph! replied Dr Slop, (stating my uncle Toby's argument over again to him) Why, sir, are there not seven cardinal virtues? -Seven mortal sins?- -Seven golden candlesticks?- -Seven heavens?—'Tis more than I know, replied my uncle Toby.Are there not seven wonders of the world?Se ven days of the creation?--Seven planets? -Seven plagues?- -That there are, quoth my father, with a most affected gravity. But pri'thee, continued he, go on with the rest of thy characters, Trim.

"Another is sordid, unmerciful (here Trim waved his right hand,) a strait-hearted, selfish wretch, incapable either of private friendship or of public spirit. Take notice how he passes by the widow and orphan in their distress, and sees all the miseries incident to human life without a sigh or a prayer." [An' please your Honours, cried Trim, I think this a viler man than the others.]

"Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?---No; thank God, there

is no occasion: I pay every man his own;-1 have no fornication to answer to my conscience; -no faithless vows, or promises to make up ;I have debauched no man's wife or child: thank God, I am not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who stands before me.

"A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life; 'tis nothing but a cunning contexture of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws, plain dealing, and the safe enjoyment of our several properties.You will see such an one working out a frame of little designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man;-shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life.

"When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, and state it over again with his conscience,CONSCIENCE looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE- -finds no express law broken by what he has done ;- -perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred; sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening its gates upon him :—What is there to affright his conscience?-Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law; sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports so strongly on all sides,—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold."

[Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.-Ay, ay, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head, -these are but sorry fortifications, Trim.O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your honour and I make of it.--The character of this last man, said Dr Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest; and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging Lawyer amongst you.--Amongst us, a man's conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded,--three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession.-Will that restore it to sight, quoth my uncle Toby?Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon.'Tis a very short one, replied Trim.

-Go on,

-I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle To by, for I like it hugely.-Trim went on.]

"A fourth man shall want even this refuge; shall break through all the ceremony of slow chicane;- -scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose.- -See the bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders!-Horrid!-But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the present case ;-the poor man was in the dark!--his priest had got the keeping of his conscience; and all he would let him know of it, was, That he must believe in

the Pope;--go to mass;-cross himself;-tell his beads;-be a good catholic; and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry him to heaven. What-if he perjures !—Why,he had a mental reservation in it. But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;-If he robs,-if he stabs, will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? Ay,--but the man has carried it to confession;the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery! what hast thou to answer for?--when, not content with the too many natural and fatal ways, through which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to itself above all things; -thou hast wilfully set open the wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself, and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.

"Of this, the common instances, which I have drawn out of life, are too notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,-I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.

"Let him consider, in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there: though equally bad and vicious in their own natures, he will soon find, that such of them, as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dressed out and painted with all the false beauties which a soft and a flattering hand can give them ;-and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, appear at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true circumstances of folly and dishonour.

"When David surprised Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe, we read, that his heart smote him for what he had done: -But in the matter of Uriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust, where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed, from the first commission of that crime, to the time Nathan was sent to reprove him; and we read not once of the least sorrow or compunction of heart which he testified, during all that time, for what he had done.

"Thus conscience, this once able monitor,placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our Maker as a just and equitable one too, -by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what

passes,does its office so negligently, sometimes so corruptly, that it is not to be trusted alone; and therefore, we find there is a

necessity, an absolute necessity, of joining another principle with it, to aid, if not govern, its determinations.

"So that, if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,-namely, in what degree of real merit you stand, either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your King, or a good servant to your God,-call in religion and morality. Look: What is written in the law of God?- -How readest thou?-Consult calm reason, and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth ;-what say they?

"Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports ;—and then, if thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the Apostle supposes, the rule will be infallible ;"-Here Dr Slop fell asleep" thou wilt have confidence towards God; that is, have just grounds to believe the judgment thou hast passed upon thyself, is the judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous sentence, which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter, by that Being, to whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions.

"Blessed is the man, indeed, then, as the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus expresses it, who is not pricked with the multitude of his sins: Blessed is the man whose heart hath not condemned him; whether he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart (a heart thus guided and informed,) he shall at all times rejoice in a cheerful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above upon a tower on high."-A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle Toby, unless it is flanked. "In the darkest doubts, it shall conduct him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in a better security for his behaviour, than all the causes and restrictions put together, which law-makers are forced to multiply: forced, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a matter of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well intending, by the many provisions made,—that in all such corrupt and misguided cases, where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us upright,―to supply their force, and, by the terrors of gaols and halters, oblige us to it.'

[I see, plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be preached at the Temple, or at some Assize. I like the reasoning, and am sorry that Dr Slop has fallen asleep before the time of his conviction ;-for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at first, never insulted St Paul in the least; nor has there been, brother, the least difference be tween them.A great matter, if they had differed, replied my uncle Toby,-the best friends in the world may differ sometimes. True,-brother Toby, quoth my father, shaking

hands with him,-we'll fill our pipes, brother, and then Trim shall go on.

Well, what dost thou think of it? said my father, speaking to Corporal Trim, as he reached his tobacco-box.

I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watchmen upon the tower, who, I suppose, are all sentinels there,-are more, an' please your Honour, than were necessary;-and, to go on at that rate, would harass a regiment all to pieces; which a commanding officer, who loves his men, will never do, if he can help it; because two sentinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty. I have been a commanding officer myself, in the Corps de Garde, an hundred times, continued Trim (rising an inch higher in his figure, as he spoke ;)- and all the time I had the honour to serve his Majesty King William, in relieving the most considerable posts, I never left more than two in my lifeVery right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby,-but you do not consider, Trim, that the towers, in Solomon's days, were not such things as our bastions, flank ed and defended by other works. This, Trim, was an invention since Solomon's death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before the curtain, in his time;-or such a fossé as we make, with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps palisadoed along it, to guard against a coup de main :-So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the Corps de Garde, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.They could be no more, an' please your Honour, than a Corporal's guard.- -My father smiled inwardly, but not outwardly;-the subject between my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim being rather too serious, considering what had happened, to make a jest of:-So putting his pipe into his mouth, which he had just lighted, he contented himself with ordering Trim to read on. He read on as follows:

"To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:-The first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;-the second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables, even in imagination (though the attempt is often made in practice,) without break ing, and mutually destroying, them both.

"I said, the attempt is often made; and so it is; there being nothing more common, than to see a man, who has no sense at all of religion,and indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral character,—or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous to the utter most mite.

"When there is some appearance that it is so, though one is unwilling even to suspect the

appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of his motive.

"Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion, as will give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress.

"I will illustrate this by an example. "I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in,"-[There is no need, cried Dr Slop, waking, to call in any physician in this case]" to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well:-notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one ;-and, what is still dearer to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other.

"Now, let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage ;-I consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life:-I know their success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters.--In a word, I'm persuaded that they cannot hurt me, without hurting themselves more.

"But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the world ;-or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate, by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art:-In this case, what hold have I of either of them?-Religion, the strongest of all motives, is out of the question;-interest, the next most powerful motive in the world, is strongly against me:-What have I left to cast into the opposite scale, to balance this temptation?

-Alas! I have nothing,-nothing but what is lighter than a bubble :- -I must lie at the mercy of Honour, or some such capricious principle.--Strait security for two of the most valuable blessings, of my property and my life!

"As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;-so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without morality; nevertheless, it is no prodigy to see a man, whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself, in the light of a religious man.

"He shall not only be covetous, revengeful, implacable,--but even wanting in points of common honesty; yet, inasmuch as he talks loudly