fuite who imported the fashions, inculcated the charms, and practifed the feductions of London, an insensible change was wrought in the farmers' fons, and communicated to the whole parish. The tenants' daughters afpired at a London life, and, in pursuit of pleafure and vanity, fell into the fnare laid for their virtue and integrity In the abfence of the landlord only the lofs of his company and good influence was felt; but in his prodigality and diffipation was involved the intereft and profperity of his tenantry. Rack-rented and ruined, they loft the comfortable profpect of providing for their families. The Pharo-table and the rapacious flew ard concurred to aggravate their diftrefs, and drained the vitals of an exhaufted eftate. To darken the profpect ftill more, the refidence of the good old landlord is itfelf pulled down, the materials fold to pay off modern incumbrances, and the parish left without a head. It were well if the evil had stopped there. The spirit of faction invaded the retirement of the ruftick; he was duped to fet his hand to remonstrances against imaginary evils which he never heard of; he was wrought upon by a fancied independence of the human mind to think for himself, but really, under this fpecious delufion, became the dupe of others, and only thought with them, without thinking at all. The minifters of that meek and pure religion, who fhould have inculcated fubmiffion and fimplicity, inftilled into their religious fervices an equal independence both of God and the King, of religion and good government. Contented and happy in the established religion of his country, the poor man was feduced, by the example of his fuperi. ors, to queftion and quarrel with it: refigned to his fate in the comfortable affurance of a happy immortality, he was perfuaded to think that his foul was material, that falvation was in his power without divine affiftance, that his Saviour had been a stalking horfe to the minifters of his Gofpel for 1700 years. Satisfied both with the conftitution of his country and with his governors, he is now taught that his country has no conftitution, and that he is felf-governed. In thus unfettling the minds of our humbler fellow-citi-, zens, can we wonder at the total want of principle which multiplies criminals to fuch a degree that receptacles can hardly keep pace with them, and we 1 are fhocked with the frequency of our executions? I have now before me three trials for murder in the county of Lincoln, 1769, 1788, and 1791, where the crime, tho' fully proved, was to the laft pertinaci oufly denied by the criminals. I do not fay fuch denials have not happened be fore; but fcarcely in the fhort space of thirty years, and in the fame county. But the fame want of principle which hurries the upper ranks into the prefence of their Creator and Judge by f1icide, makes the lower ranks alike carelefs how they meet him from the hands of the executioner. In vain do philofophers obviate the crime, as the coroner's jury the ignominy, by charging it on lunacy. Let us beware how we make fuch an apology for guilt, which will fuperfede the neceffity of human judicature, and lead us to think the Almighty Sovereign of the Universe “altogether fuch an one as ourfelves." I might add the recent inftances of wilful murder, infpired by revenge, in men of education fuperior to the vulgar. Another grand fource of the corrup tion of the ruftic mind, is the introduction of theatres into almost every market-town, either by authority of Parliament, or in defiance of it. Men, fay the advocates for this increafing evil, must be amufed. Be it fo: but let not the amufement be a vehicle of corruption of morals. Sports and paftimes have always obtained among our peafantry, but they are of a different and an innocent nature. The Book of Sports raised the indignation of the graver minds of the last century as well as of the Puritans. It is enough if the capital be the fcene of theatrical diffipation, which was originally confidered by our laws as an appendage to the Court, and a privilege of royalty, but can now eftablish itfelf, in defiance of law, in the fmalleft village within the limits of the Penny-poft, and almost of the bills of mortality. When amufements of every kind gain rapidly on the country, what but folly and extravagance can follow it and when Lords and Efquires turn actors, what must be expected from their example? The mountebank and zany of former ages were innocent empirics; thofe of the prefent are fwindlers and pickpockets, and the deftructive fyftem of lotteries is multiplied by them into every market-town. Stage-coaches and turnpike-roads, however however they may furnish a temporary maintenance to a few of the lower clafs, import a return of vice and corruption, that ill compensate the pittance earned by honeft industry, and serve as a more ready conveyance of fimple men and women to ruin in a corrupted and depraved capital. a The groupeing together of the poor in workhoufes, houfes of induftry, and houfs of manufacture, may relieve their prefent wants, and exercife their talents for a time; but if it be confidered how little of religion or morality is taught there, and that it is an avowed maxim with one of our greatest manufacturers on the Trent to pay no regard to the morals of the poor children whom he employs, can it be to the advantage of the rifing generation to be put by hundreds under fuch tuition I could men tion a tambour-worker who took number of parish girls apprentices, and, after a fhort time, ran away, and left them on the town; a sphere of life for which it is not a breach of charity to fuppofe he had trained them. The inadequacy of the public provifion for the poor to their virtue and happiness is but too apparent; and every contrivance or plan that breaks up the community of the village, and the comforts of the ruftic firefide, debauches, enervates, and ruins the mafs of people. The freeschool established foon after the Reformation, as a fuccedaneum to the monafteries, is now neglected from the infufficiency of the mafter's maintenance in the increased price of living, or fuperfeded by the infinity of private fchools, which every ignorant ecclefiaftic or idle layman is ready to fet up. Would you believe it, Mr. Urban, that a parish of twenty miles in circuit at this moment contains no le's than feven fchools for boys and three for girls, befides the free-fchool and the petty fchools where children are taught for three-pence or a groat a week, and no Sunday-fchool? Taking the average number of fcholars in pretty conftant refidence in these ten houtes of learning at the moderate number of thiny, there is an influx of between three and four hundred perfons, boys and girls, to elbow the regular inhabitants out of their feats at church or meeting, and to be taught by every pretender to fcience lefs than what half of them, at leaft, would learn at home from their parents, if they would stay at home and take the parenl charge upon them. But we must rush to watering-places and every scene of diffipation, and give to the aggrandizations of every bathing creek the fruits of our farms and shops, which should be divided between the care of the tenants and manufacturers offspring and our own. Thus reflexion must be buried in the din and hurry of pleasure, and every call of duty and affection facrificed to the tranfports of gaiety. If I include the multiplication of private banks among the fources of public corruption, I fhall perhaps be told, they are the only means of keeping ready money in the country. They favour too much of that exceffive increase of private credit, which ruins the unwary, and adminifters to the avarice and prodigality of individuals. It will be anfwered, there are laws of fufficient force to check the growing evils above defcanted on. But what are laws uninforced by example? The wretched father or mafter, who has encouraged his children or fervants in bad courfes, may hang them all when ripe for execution; but are the miferable culprits fo guilty as their feducer? It is an old and an allowed adage, Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur. But what fort of an apology is it for perjury, venality, and debauchery, that, for the fake of a fhortlived feat in the fenate, men are folicited and bribed to proftitute their honour, and confciences, and lives, and become the victims of ambition and intrigue? - If to this evil influence we add the lunchriftianizing of Chriftianity, that religion which the poor man embraces as beft adapted to his capacity and wants; if he is to be told that neither Chrift nor his Apostles meant what they faid, or that they were not understood till the 18th century; what has he left to animate his hopes, to reward his piety, to invigorate his patience, and to crown his faith? But it is the finishing stroke of the whole mifchief. Deprived of the fincere milk of the Word, the rustic, who was bred up in the firm perfuafion that the Bible was adapted to his poor capacity, must be thunder-struck at hearing that nobody has rightly underflood it till now. His plain broth being thus poifoned, or rendered unpalatable, what wonder if he is driven to the ftrong drink which thofe, who fancy themfelves of full age in the knowledge of divinity, would force down his throat, in a perfuafion that they alone know the TRUTH, and that the TRUTH must be fpoken at all times? This truth, which 1791.] Simplicity of Manners by what means totally loft. which they will not allow others to find in opinions different from their own, is the high-road to Infidelity for there are as many kinds of truth as there are fects, every man being firmly convinced of his own opinion. The truth as it is in Jefus, and as the bulk of the nation have received it, is not the truth as it is in Priestley and our modern Apoftles. The former is intended to make men free from the power of fin in general; the latter fets them above every kind of controul, obliging them to circulate every thing which they deem true and right, and fo giving birth to as many bewildering fchemes as ever difgraced the last century among us. If the Christianity that has obtained in this moft reformed country ever fince the Reformation be proved to be idolatry and immorality, what are become of the first principles of the popular mind? The common people are not profeffed reafoners; they take their religion as they find it delivered down for the laft 200 years in the vernacular language of their country: the best book in the plaineft and moft old-fashioned drefs. It is only within the last thirty years that doubts have been diffeminated about the effentials of their faith.) If once you can perfuade them these effentials are doubtful, to what new doctrines must they recur?[If you attempt to make them believe their Bibles are fo ill-tranflated that the very fundamentals of Chriftianity are not to be found in them, on what foundation muft they reft? They must either defend them on the authority whereon they received them; or, if the authority fails, they must fall into infidelity, and then farewell to morals.] If a common man is once led to think that his foul dies with his body, or lies in an infenfible ftate for millions of years, he will be indifferent whether it ever wakes again, and will act accordingly. If he is taught that his Saviour is a mere man, and very wifeft of mortals, he will give up the little fuperior to the efficacy of his doctrine, and the influence of his example. But as the Methodists have trained the cord too tight, thefe new teachers have broken it. While a nobleman of learning and judgement makes a doctrinal and metaphyfical creed the fource of every immorality in a Chriftian congregation, and a minifter of the Gofpel writes down public and focial worship; what must be the impreffion made on the 989 minds of those who listen to them, or of thofe who defpife them? Between the zeal of the Methodist, the lukewarmthe chilling coldness of the rational and nefs of the Establishment minister, and liberal Diffenter, what must become of the poor man's religion? 7 peasant feels the happiness of the goIt is the fame in politics. While the nothing within him to prompt difconvernment under which he lives, he has Charta and Bill of Rights are founded tent and remonftrance. His Magna more in experience than in argument. luxurious and diffipated mafter and If the weight of taxes affects him, his landlord redoubles the burden by his unbounded cravings, and no remedy remains from the hofpitality and plenty of a Christmas paffed in the manfion-house. fcribed the unequal divifion of farms, To the fame principle are to be athe great influx of wealth, which lef that of provifion, and the wanton wafte fens the value of money, and increases of the neceffaries of life. The ambiti the difcontents of another clafs. In the ous and giddy rich thus furnish_fuel to rapid change of landed property on the extinction of a family in whom long poffeffion had riveted antient manners, fome exhaufted heir throws the eftate gamefter, a public defaulter, a boroughinto the hands of a state-peculator, a look for virtue or morality here. The hunter, or a nabob. In vain do we land, under this curse, must bring forth the thorns and briars of immorality and vice. 7 If my fubject were not confined to a here the fources of corruption within remoter diftance, I might introduce twenty miles of the capital. I might notice the daily additions made to fuch well, and, for the honourable difcharge fources. When a young heir, who sets out of his father's debts, fubmits to reduce his own eftate, fo that the first tenor of fuch a man's conduct afforded the fairest not merely in the expence of horses and profpects; when he involves himself hounds, but fuffers himself to be made of the loweft fpecies, to revive, at an the tool of alehouse keepers and jockies improper diftance from the metropolis, diverfions which had worn themfelves out, and, but for fuch inftigators, would may be expected, brings together a renever have been refumed, and thus, as fort of the vileft rabble; in vain does the law proscribe such races, which a sol. fubfcription-plate can revive at any time; |