in some, have promoted the evils which it was their object to repress. But their most defective laws for the regulation or sanction of the marriage union, are unequivocally of a less pernicious character, than the most applauded ordinances, for the same purpose, of Greece and Italy; and they have abundantly testified by their regulations how fully they were convinced of the wisdom with which the union of marriage has been guarded, and sanctioned, and sanctified, in the pages of the Gospel.

If that wisdom, in its influence, may not yet have accomplished every thing, it has accomplished much. There are still examples enough of dissolute conduct; and there may yet be some to decry or to sneer at the institution of Christian marriage. But a revolution has taken place evidently favourable to human improvement. The philosopher and the statesman no longer utter the degrading theories, on the intercourse of the sexes, which were so often and so publicly heard at Athens, at Sparta, and at Rome; and the scandals of libertinism and of divorce, which were so unblushingly avowed by the highest characters of former days, are now neither vindicated nor acknowledged by any man who, in the slightest degree, respects society and himself. On the contrary, a reserve and decency favourable to virtue are every where required. The indignation or contempt of all the respectable classes of life would be excited by the open utterance of an impurity either in speech or writing; and Solon, and Socrates, and Plato, as well as many of the sages and poets of Rome, frequently addressed their age, accomplished as it was, with a grossness and licence of language which would now be scarcely

attempted or tolerated by the last and lowest of mankind.

That the purity of Christian doctrines has thus contributed to the reformation of public manners, and, wherever it has reached, introduced into public and private life a reserve and delicacy unknown in former times, will scarcely be denied. But let us trace this spirit of the gospel to the scene in which it more especially operates. Let us proceed to the respectable household of the husband and the wife who are conscious of their duty, and have learned to value as they ought what may be termed the new covenant of marriage, and examine its effects in the picture which is there exhibited. Instead of the suspicions and degradations which, under other laws, mingled with and tainted the enjoyments of domestic intercourse, we discover peace, order, harmony, and love. Instead of the tyrant in the exercise of despotism, or the drudge in the degradation of dependence, we behold the husband cherishing and rejoicing in the virtues of his wife; and the wife paying the merited tribute of respect and affection to her husband, resting in happiness and honour among her family, administering the morality of her example to those around her, and circling her happy hearth with all the blessings of the domestic charities. We seem to dwell in the abiding place of pleasures "more refined and sweet" than the best of those which can be found in the train of fashion and of the world. And a higher and nobler friendship, a more contented and more cordial union; an esteem confirming love; a love heightening esteem; a reciprocity of aid and trust which augments the joys of prosperous life, and gilds

munity of heart which finds its highest happiness in a community of blessings, attest to us the influence and the power of those precepts which have limited the authority of one sex to restore its dignity to the other, and, by the wholesome interposition of a just and equal restraint, have augmented at once the virtue and the felicity of both.

CHAPTER X.

THE FUTURE STATE.

SECT. I.

All nations have acknowledged a future state-Views of the GreeksThe realms of the shades visited by the Grecian heroes-Details of the poets-Homer's evocation of the ghosts-Their appetite for blood-Earthly passions and discontents-Reward scantily confer red-Retribution abundant, but not always equitable-No felicity for the good-Fabulous punishment of the wicked-VirgilInimitable description of the entrance into hell—Various regions— Their inhabitants-Tartarus-The surrounding and fiery deluge of Phlegethon-Terrific punishments-Elysium-Poetical embellishments-Meads, groves, streams-Insipid enjoyments-Continued predominance of earthly passions and desires-Moral estimate-Violation of all probability and justice by the poet-The terrors of his ghosts-Their cold and languid silence—Their mangled or mutilated limbs - Their unspiritual character-Their unimproved existence-Philosophy of Virgil in his views of hell— Ambiguous and obscure-Purgation preparatory to Elysium-Elysium to be succeeded, after a thousand years, by a state of transmigration-The change unaccounted for-Philosophers of Greece and Rome-Various and contradictory opinions on the nature of the soul-Doctrine of Pythagoras and of Plato-Their metempsychosis-The three-fold nature of the soul—The soul an emanation` from God, and to return, after due purifications in its earthly state, to its original source-Contradiction and absurdity of these tenets -Socrates-His uncertainty and doubts-General scepticism of the learned avowed and diffused.

T

HE tenet of a future state has been embraced by every nation of the earth. It remained not to be diffused by the reasonings of the philosopher,

and the wise, the rude and the civilized, have here agreed; and the hopes and fears of men, taking the same direction, have universally anticipated in futurity the rewards and punishments due to the good and evil deeds of the virtuous and of the wicked.

But, though these anticipations were every where felt, they were various and vague. The persuasion was the same in principle, but the heaven and the hell to which it looked forward were of no uniform character. Folly and inconsistency were mingled in every creed, varying the modes, while they affirmed the reality, of a future existence; and the faith which clung to the doctrine remained unshaken, while the conjectures to which the doctrine gave rise were, generally, as discordant, as they were numerous and absurd.

Nations yet uncivilized and untaught, are proportionally governed by the demands and pleasures of sense. They, therefore, look to hereafter, but as to a region in which sensuality is to enjoy unbounded gratification; and the objects most ardently pursued and passionately desired in this world, are to be the great objects of pursuit and desire in the next. The warrior shall have the glory of his battles renewed. The hunter shall be accompanied by his dog, and occupied in the chace. The conqueror

* In the Gothic paradise, the Shades, after they have caparisoned themselves in the morning, resume their arms, enter the lists, proceed to combat, and inflict and endure innumerable wounds. But the hour of repast is that of peace. As it approaches, the combatants relax in their ferocity, and return, safe and sound, to enjoy their cups in the hall of Odin. There they renew the revels of earth, till the morning again arrives, and they are called to renew the achievements of their wonted battles. See the Edda Northern Antiq. vol. ii. p. 109. Keysler. Antiq. Septent. et Celt. p. 127.