a shower of tears; a cordial was administered, and he revived in a degree; when turning to the physician, who had his fingers upon his pulse, he eagerly demanded of him, if he did not see that blood upon the feet-cartains of his bed. There was none to be seen; the physician assured him, it was nothing but a vapour of his fancy.-I see it plainly, said ANTITHEUS, in the shape of a human hand: I have been visited with a tremendous apparition. As I was lying sleepless in my bed this night, I took up a letter of a deceased friend to dissipate certain thoughts that made me uneasy: I believed him to be a great philosopher, and was converted to his opinions: persuaded by his arguments and my own experience, that the disorderly affairs of this evil world could not be administered by any wise, just, or provident being, I had brought myself to think no such being could exist, and that a life, produced by chance, must terminate in annihilation: this is the reasoning of that letter, and such were the thoughts I was revolving in my mind when the apparition of my dear friend presented itself before me; and unfolding the curtains of my bed, stood at my feet, looking earnestly upon me for a considerable space of time. My heart sunk within me; for his face was ghastly, full of horror, with an expression of such anguish as I can never describe: his eyes were fixed upon me, and at length, with a mournful motion of his head-Alas, alus! he cried, we are in a fatal error !and taking hold of the curtains with his hand, shook them violently and disappeared.-This, I protest to you, } both saw and heard; and look! where the print of his hand is left in blood upon the curtains !” ANTITHEUS survived the relation of this vision few hours, and died delirious in great agonies. very What a forsaken and disconsolate creature is man without his GoD and SAVIOUR? 12. ROUSSEAU has the honour of the second place in the French Pantheon. He was born at Geneva; and, at a proper age, was bound an apprentice to an artist. · During his apprenticeship he frequently robbed his master as well as other persons. Before his time was expired he decamped, fled into the dominions of the king of Surdinia, where he changed his religion and became a Catholic. By an unexpected turn of fortune he became a footman; in which capacity he forgot not his old habit of stealing. He is detected with the stolen goods; swears they were given him by a maid servant of the house; the girl is confronted with him; she denies the fact, and, weeping, presses him to confess the truth; but the young philosopher still persists in the lie, and the poor girl is driven from her place in disgrace. Tired of being a serving man, he went to throw himself on the protection of a lady, whom he had seen once before, and who, he protests, was the most virtuous creature of her sex. The lady had so great a regard for him, that she called him her little darling, and he called her mamma. Mamma had a footman, who served her besides, in another capacity, very much resembling that of a husband; but she had a most tender affection for her adopted son ROUSSEAU; and, as she feared he was forming connections with a certain lady that might spoil his morals, she herself, out of pure virtue, took him—to bed with her!--This virtuous effort to preserve the purity of ROUSSEAU's heart, had a dreadful effect upon the poor footman, and so he poisoned himself.-ROUSSEAU fell sick, and mamma was obliged to part with little darling, while he performed a journey to the south of France, for the recovery of his health. On the road he dines with a gentleman, and lies with his wife. As he was returning back, he debated with himself whether he should pay his lady a second visit or not; but, fearing he might be tempted to seduce her daughter also, virtue got the better, and determined the little darling to fly home into the arms of his mamma; but, alas! those arms were filled with another. Mamma's virtue had prompted her to take a substitute, whom she liked too well to part with, and our philosopher was obliged to shift for himself. The reader should be told, that the little darling, while he resided with his mamma, went to make a tour with a young musician, Their friendship was warm, like that of most young men, and they were, besides, enjoined to take particular care of each other during their travels. They 1 They went on for some time together, agreed perfectly well, and vowed an everlasting friendship for each other. But the musician, being one day taken in a fit, fell down in the street, which furnished the faithful ROUSSEAU with an opportunity of slipping off with some of his things, and leaving him to the mercy of the people, in a town where he was a total stranger. We seldom meet with so much villainy as this in a youth. His manhood was, however, worthy of it. He turned apostate a second time, was driven from within the walls of his native city of GENEVA, as an incendiary, and an apostle of anarchy and infidelity; nor did he forget how to thieve.--At last the philosopher marries; but like a philosopher; that is, without going to church. He has a family of children, and like a kind philosophical father, for fear they should want after his death, he sends them to the poor-house during his life-time !—To conclude, the philosopher dies, and leaves the philosopheress, his wife, to the protection of a friend; she marries a footman, and gets turned into the street. This vile wretch has the impudence to say, in the work written by himself, which contains a confession of these his crimes, that no man can come to the throne of GOD, and say, I am a better man than ROUSSEAU*. Notwithstanding the above unworthy circumstances, it must be owned that ROUSSEAU'S writings have great literary merit, but then they contain principles which might be expected from such a person. He has exhausted all the powers of reasoning, and all the charms of eloquence in the cause of anarchy and irreligion. And his writings are so much the more dangerous, as he winds himself into favour with the unwary, by an eternal cant about virtue and liberty. He seems to have assumed the mask of virtue, for no other purpose than that of propagating, with more certain success, the blackest and most incorrigible vice. *The above account of this strange man is taken from his own Confessions, PETER PORCUPINE'S Bloody Buoy, and the accounts published of his death. This was the man and the writer that the Constituent Assembly held up to the imitation and even adoration of the poor deluded French populace: He and VOLTAIRE, who never could agree in life, are placed by each other's side in death, and made the standard of French principles and religion to all future generations. We have seen how VOLTAIRE terminated his earthly career, we shall find ROUSSEAU expiring with a lie in his mouth, and the most impious appeal to the DIVINE BEING, that was ever made by mortal man. "Ah! my dear," said he to his wife, or mistress, just before he expired, "how happy a thing is it to die, when "one has no reason for remorse, or self-reproach!"And then, addressing himself to the ALMIGHTY, he said, "ETERNAL BEING! the soul that I am going to give thee back, is as pure at this moment, as it was when it pro"ceeded from thee: render it partaker of thy felicity!" THESE twelve examples are such as to give but little encouragement to any person, who has a proper concern for his own welfare, to embark, either in the atheistic or deistic schemes. In those cases where conscience was. awake, the unhappy men were filled with anguish and amazement inexpressible. And in those cases where conscience seemed to be asleep, there appears nothing enviable in their situation, even upon their own supposition, that there is no after-reckoning. If to die like an ass is a privilege, I give them joy of it! much good may it do them! May I die like a Christian, having a hope blooming with immortal expectations! Let us turn from these horrible instances of perverted reason, and take a view of some more promising scenes. II. EXAMPLES of Persons recovered from their "If, sick of folly, I relent, he writes 13. CHARLES GILDON, author of a book called the Oracles of Reason, was convinced of the fallacy of his own arguments against religion, and the danger of his situation, by reading LESLIE's Short Method with a Deist. He afterwards wrote a defence of Revealed Religion, entitled, The Deist's Manual, and died in the Christian faith. 14. The late Lord LITTLETON, author of the History of Henry the Second, and his friend GILBERTWEST, Esq. had both imbibed the principles of Unbelief, and had agreed together to write something in favour of Infidelity. To do this more effectually, they judged it necessary, first to acquaint themselves pretty well with the contents of the Bible. By the perusal of that book, however, they were both convinced of their error; both became converts to the religion of CHRIST JESUS; both took up their pens and wrote in favour of it *; the former, his Observations * ATHENAGORAS, a famous Athenian philosopher in the second century, had entertained so unfavourable an opinion of the Christian religion, that he was determined to write against it; but upon an intimate inquiry into the facts on which it was supported, in the course of his collecting materials for his intended publication, he was convinced by the blaze of evidence in its favour, and turned his designed invective into an elaborate Apology, which is still in being. The above Mr. WEST, writing to Dr. DODDRIDGE on the publication of his Memoirs of Colonel GARDINER, ascribes his own conversion from a state of Infidelity, into which he had been seduced, to the care his mother had taken in his education. "I cannot help taking notice," says he," of your remarks upon the advantage of an early education in "the principles of religion, because I have myself most happily ex perienced it; since I owe, to the early care of a most excellent wo66 man, my mother, that bent and bias to religion, which, with the co"operating grace of GoD, hath at length brought me back to those paths "of peace from whence I might have otherwise been in danger of de. "viating for ever!” Dr. JOHNSON tells us, that "Lord LITTLETON, in the pride of "juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained doubts of the truth of Christianity; but he thought afterwards it was "no longer fit to doubt, or believe by chance; he therefore applied himself seriously to the great question. His studies being honest, ended "in conviction. He found that Religion was true, and, what he had "learned, he endeavoured to teach, by Observations on the Conversion of « St. PAUL; a treatise to which Infidelity has never been able to fabri"cate a specious answer." Two days previous to his dissolution, this 66 great and goed man addressed his Physician in these memorable words: "Doctor, you shall be my confessor. When I first set out in the world, “I had friends who endeavoured to shake my belief in the Christian "religion. |