It is presumed, that truth must at length, through the indefatigable exertions of intellect, become generally victorious; and that all vice, being the result of a mistaken judgment of the nature or the means of happiness, must therefore accompany the exit of error. By the same rule it is presumed of the present times also, or at least of those immediately approaching, that in every society and every mind where truth is clearly admitted, the reforms which it dictates must substantially follow. I have the most confident faith that the prevalence of truth, making its progress by a far mightier agency than mere philosophic inquiry, is appointed to irradiate the latter ages of a dark and troubled world; and, on the strength of prophetic intimations, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least a thousand ages, than a disciple of that philosophy which rejects revelation, as the first proud step toward the improvement of the world, is warranted, by a view of the past and present state of mankind, to predict. The assurance from the same oracle is the authority for believing that when truth shall have acquired the universal dominion over the understanding, it will evince a still nobler power in the general effect of conforming the heart and the life to its laws. But in the present state of the moral system, our expectations of the effect of truth on the far greater number of the persons who shall assent to its dictates, have no right to exceed such measures of probability as have been given by experience. It would be gratifying no doubt to believe, that the several powers in the human constitution are in such faithful combination, that to gain the judgment would be to secure the whole man. And if all history, and the memory of our own observation and experience, could be merged in Lethe, it might be believed-perhaps for two or three hours.

How could an attentive observer or reflector believe it longer? How long would it be that a keenly selfinspecting mind could detect no schism, none at all, between its convictions and inclinations? And as to others, is it not flagrantly evident that very many persons, with a most absolute conviction, by their own ingenuous avowal, that one certain course of action is virtue and happiness, and another, vice and misery, do yet habitually choose the latter? It is not improbable

that several millions of human beings are at this very hour thus acting in violation of the laws of rectitude, while those laws are acknowledged by them, not only as impositions of moral authority, but as vital principles of their own true self-interest.* And do not

even the best men confess a fierce discord between the tendencies of their imperfectly renovated nature, and the dictates of that truth which they revere? They say with St. Paul, "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do; to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not; the good that I would, that I do

The criminal himself has the clearest consciousness that he violates the dictates of his judgment. How trifling is the subtilty which affects to show that he does not violate them, by alleging, that every act of choice must be preceded by a determination of the judgment, and that therefore in choosing an evil, a man does at the time judge to be on some account preferable, though he may know it to be wrong. It is not to be denied that the choice does imply such a conclusion of the judgment. But this conclusion is made according to a narrow and subordinate scale of estimating good and evil, while the mind is conscious that, judging according to a larger scale, that is, the rightfully authoritative one, the opposite conclusion is true. It judges a thing better for immediate pleasure, which it knows to be worse for ultimate advantage. The criminal therefore may be correctly said to act according to his judgment, in choosing it for present pleasure. But since it is the great office of the judgment to decide what is wisest and best on the whole, the man may truly be said to act against his judgment, who acts in opposition to the conclusion which it forms on this greater scale.

not, and the evil which I would not, that I do." The serious self-observer recollects instances, (what a singularity of happiness if he cannot!) in which a temptation, exactly addressed to his passions or his habits, has prevailed in spite of the sternest interdict of his judgment, pronounced at the very crisis. Perhaps the most awful sanctions by which the judgment can ever enforce its authority, were distinctly brought to his view at the same moment with its dictates. In the subsequent hour he had to reflect, that the ideas of God, a future account, a world of retribution, could not prevent him from violating his conscience. That he did not at the critical moment dwell deliberately on these remonstrant ideas, in order to give them effect on his will, is nothing against my argument. It is of the very essence of the fatal disorder, that the passions will not let the mind strongly fix on the preventive considerations. And what greater power than this could they need to defeat the power of truth? If the passions can thus prevent the mind from strongly fixing on the most awful considerations when distinctly presented by truth in counteraction to temptation, they can destroy the efficacy of the truth which presents them. Truth can do no more than discriminate the good from the evil before us, enforce the inducements to choose right, and declare the consequences of our choice. When this is inefficacious, its power has failed. And no fact can be more evident than that perceptive truth, apprehended and acknowledged, often thus fails. Let even its teacher and advocate confess honestly whether he have not had to deplore numberless times the deficient efficacy of his own clearest convictions. And if we survey mankind as under an experiment relative to this point, it will be found, in instances innumerable, that to have informed and

convinced a man may be but little toward emancipating him from the habits which he sincerely acknowledges to be wrong. There is then no such inviolable connexion as some men have supposed between the admission of truth, and consequent action. And therefore, most important though it is that truth be exhibited and admitted, the expectations that presume its omnipotence, without extraordinary intervention, are romantic delusion.

You will observe that in this case of trying the efficacy of the truth on others, I have supposed the great previous difficulty, of presenting it to the understanding so luminously as to impress irresistible conviction, to be already overcome; though the experimental reformer will find this introductory work such an arduous undertaking, that he will be often tempted to abandon it as hopeless.

LETTER IV.

WHEN the gloomy estimate of means and of plans for the amendment of mankind does not make an exception of the actual human administration of the religion of Christ, I am anxious not to seem to fail in justice to that religion, by which I believe that every improvement of a sublime order yet awaiting our race must be effected. I trust I do not fail; since I keep in my mind a clear distinction between christianity itself as a thing of divine origin and nature, and the administration of it by a system of merely human powers and means. These means are indeed of divine appointment, and to a certain extent are accompanied by a special divine agency. But how far this agency accompanies them is seen in the measure and limit of their success. Where that stands arrested, the fact itself

is the proof that further than so the superior operation does not attend the human agents and means. There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they can, what remains. What is it that remains? If the general transformation of mankind into such persons as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, were regarded as the object of his religion, how mysteriously small a part of that object has the divine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish! And then, the awful and immense remainder evinces the inexpressible imbecility of the means, when left to be applied as a mere human administration. The manifestation of its incompetency is fearfully conspicuous in the vast majority, the numerous millions of Christendom, and the millions of even our own country, on whom this religion has no direct influence. I need not observe what numbers of these latter have heard or read the evangelic declaration thousands of times, nor how very many of them are fortified in an insensibility, on which its most momentous announcements strike as harmless as the slenderest arrows on the shield of Ajax. Probably each religious teacher can recollect, besides his general experience, very particular instances, in which he has set himself to exert the utmost force of his mind, in reasoning, illustration, and serious appeal, to impress some one important idea, on some one class of persons to whom it was most specifically applicable and needful; and has perceived the plainest indications, both at the instant and immediately afte, that it was an attempt of the same kind as that of demolishing a tower by assaulting it with pebbles. Nor do I need to observe how generally, if a momentary impression be made, it is forgotten the following hour.

A man convinced of the truth and excellence of christianity, yet entertaining a more flattering notion