121. Czar Peter the First, merited the title of Great, not only for his extraordinary political and military abilities, always displayed for the real happiness of his subjects; but for many incidents in his private character, any one of which should set him above Sesostris and Alexander. He saw at the house of one of his nobility a beautiful servant-maid, and there heard an excellent character of her virtue and understanding. Taking her into his own service, he soon perceived that her beauty, brilliant as it was above that of other women, was lost in the superior lustre of her wit and understanding. I will not say, he condescended, but rather, that he soared above other kings, when he married, and raised to his throne this daughter of a peasant, this glory of her sex, and never had reason to repent the deed. His raising Menzicof from the condition of a ballad-singer and a poor basket-boy, as high as the wealth and honours of the empire could carry him, is a similar proof of goodness and greatness in the soul of this extraordinary man. Menzicof was the orphan of a broken gentleman, and had no better way of supporting himself, than that of singing ballads, and selling fruit about the streets, in which occupation the czar happened one day to see him as he was going to a grand dinner with one of his Russian lords. In the kitchen of this very lord young Menzicof served as a scullion, and got his dinner every day, but was allowed, at vacant hours, to make out the remainder of his subsistence by his double employment in the streets. The czar having been struck with somewhat of dignity in the pretty boy's appearance, and seeing him at the door when he stopped, desired he might attend that day at table. Among the many dishes provided for so splendid an entertainment, there was one seasoned up to the czar's particular liking, placed just before his chair, and strongly recommended by the master of the house. Just as the emperor was going to help himself to a plate of this dish, Menzicof forbade him to touch it. Being asked, why? he frankly and boldly declared, that as he was serving in the kitchen, he saw the lord of the house throw somewhat secretly into the mess, while it stood on the fire, and the cook's face was turned away. The czar, observing some confusion in the countenance of his entertainer, ordered a dog to be brought in, and fed on a plate of stuff, taken from the dish in question, which almost instantly threw the poor animal into convulsions, and killed him. A worse animal in the room quickly lost his head, and that of Menzicof was so exalted, as to sit next his sovereign, and to be heard

of all the world over. The Atheist, after saying, the world was made, and is governed by chance, may say too, that this father of the Russian empire was saved by chance, because God did not ocularly appear in the transaction. But the man who sees through his reason, an organ which penetrates deeper and farther than his eye, will trace God from the death of Menzicof's father, through all the streets, and into the kitchen, and into the parlour of the wicked lord; and will see him there, through the genius of Peter, conducting one of the most extensive empires of the world from absolute barbarism into a happy state of culture and civilization. Is a rational creature to believe nothing, but upon the immediate testimony of his senses? Did he see the Almighty actually employed in the work of creation? Or can he see the invisible in that of Providence?

thousand Greeks?

Did man see Him in the ascent of the ten Did man see Him in the expulsion of the English out of France by a poor country girl? Did he see Him in the restoration of Charles the Second, and of the British constitution by an army, furiously imbittered against both? Or did he see Him, working out the eternal salvation of mankind, on the cross of Christ, even by the malice of the devil and his instruments? If the world was worth his making, why is it not worth his superintendence?

122. That which is now a man, was once nothing; and man as he is, can do nothing but on the strength of the powers, committed to him, whether naturally, or otherwise, by the Author of his being, and committed in a very limited manner. If somewhat more is given to one man than to another, he should not boast of his little talent, as if he had not received it. After all, between the greatest genius that ever lived, and the capacity of the most stupid mortal, that could be called rational, the difference was more minute, than between a cat and a mouse. I know nothing that ought so thoroughly to humble the vanity of him, who values himself on his understanding, as philosophy. Undoubtedly the leaders in philosophy, were among the foremost genii of our species. And yet, what was the atomical concourse of the Epicureans, the fatalism of the Stoics, the scepticism of the Pyrrhonists, the plenum of the Cartesians, the atheism of the Materialists, and the circular polygon of the Newtonians, but madness, and the drivel of dotage? Yet this humiliating reflection may be carried a great deal farther; for, notwithstanding the enjoyment of more than natural and human lights, the tergiversation of Balaam, the

idolatry of Solomon, the treachery of Iscariot, and the prevari. cation of Peter, should throw down our pride on the dust, out of which we were taken. But have I no pride myself in thus censuring others of much greater abilities than I can boast of? This question of my own, I confess, frightens me, and leaves me not other answer but this, that I acknowledge the great superiority, in point of understanding, above mine, of the persons I have censured; that I have summoned their extravagancies to the test of common sense; and that my impeachment of them is before the tribunal of God himself, the King and guardian of us simple oues, whom they have laboured to distract and pervert. If my vanity hath, in some degree, prompted me to fall foul on theirs, I beseech God to extirpate that vanity from my heart, and to forgive it. The Holy Spirit, speaking to me by St. Paul, and the petulance of men calling themselves philosophers, in their attempts on Christianity, have excited in me a jealousy, for which I will not ask their pardon, lest, if I did, I should remain unpardonable in the sight of God.

123. The distinction of sexes in the human species, as to the ordinary carriage and mien of each, is so exceedingly characteristic, that even after they have been polished to the utmost, the marble of the man ought to be known from the diamond of the woman. To say a man looks like a woman, or a woman like a man, is still expressively opprobrious. The manly character prevails among a brave and warlike people; the female among the polite. Peace, commerce, wealth, and the fine arts, together with luxury, the constant attendant of these, soften the men by degrees into the latter character; and, at first, that character hath an amiable appearance in the rougher sex ; but, in its farther progress, degenerates into a despicable vice. This change became notable in the Roman people quickly after the conquest of Carthage, and the influx of wealth from Asia. The debauchery of manners into which it had run, at the time when Juvenal wrote his sixth satire, gave him occasion to chastise it with the two finest lines in all the classical authors.

Nos patimur longæ pacis mala; sævior armis
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.
Now all the mischiefs of a lasting peace
We Romans feel, and dread the dire increase;
Now luxury more cruel than our wars,
And more destructive than our civil jars,
With gilded ruin in contagious hands,

Just vengeance for a conquer'd world demands.

Here, in two lines, the decline of the Roman empire is truly and elegantly accounted for by a Roman then living in Rome. Mr. Gibbon, as it seems, affects to forget that wealth and luxury were the real causes of the decline, and would need insinuate a charge on Christianity as productive of that effect, which, in truth, for some centuries it helped to prevent, by stemming the growth of luxury, and its horrible brood of vices. But had it actually destroyed the Roman empire, could any thing have been more to its honour? for what had the Romans, from first to last been, but the cut-throats, robbers, and oppressors of mankind? Having swept into their own rapacious hands all the wealth of the nations they subdued, and continuing still to fleece them to the last farthing, nothing surely could have been so meritorious, in regard to the rest of mankind, as the ruin of this band of robbers and murderers, in whom the worst sort of superstition coinciding, as is natural, with a thirst of blood and plunder, had given them an extensive dominion over nations more pacific than themselves. How successfully afterward was their example followed by the Arab Mahomed! Such were the Romans, maugre all the daubings of their historians and poets, in the judgment of every candid antiquarian. Yet, it seems Gibbon would rather all religion were banished out of this world, than that this iron kingdom,' which broke to pieces and subdued all things,' should have itself been broken. The fall however of antichrist approaches, when the stone, cut out of the mountain without hands,' shall roll down upon its remains, still subsisting, on seven hills,' and grind them to powder.' These Romans were the people who formerly bruised, and have since bewitched the nations.' They had no sooner got rid of all their rivals in power, and accumulated, through oceans of blood, the riches of almost all mankind, than they gave themselves up to the most enormous excesses of luxury, and vices of all kinds. By these the once hardy robbers were, in process of time, so enervated and enslaved, that the northern nations found them an easy prey. Thus fell the Roman empire. But long before its fall, on the introduction of Christianity, it found a new occasion to exercise its superstition, and its cruelty, on the professors of that religion. On these, who aimed at no other character than that of innocent and patient sufferers, it gave a loose to its fury in more than ten bloody persecutions, continued for three hundred years. Cowardly Romans! And all this in support of the most despicable and abominable gods. Stupid, barbarous Romans! They murdered the Christians

by thousands, for no other reason, but because they were rationally pious and good men. Infernal Romans! Gibbon would insinuate, that Christianity corrupted the Roman empire; whereas all men know, that it was the empire that corrupted the church, by imparting a share of its ill-gotten wealth, and with it its own luxurious degeneracy. Then it may be said with truth,

Christe, tuis misere ditatis, sævior uncis,

Ignibus et crucibus, minitanteque dente lonis,
Luxuria incubuit, victamque est ulta gehennam.

Now luxury the church of Christ attacks,
With worse than crosses, gibbets, lions, racks;
With a bewitching and infernal spell

She vengeance takes for lately conquer'd hell.

But, it is objected that the primitive Christians would not fight. Fight! For what? For a band of cut-throats? For their bitter enemies and persecutors? Of all the systems of virtue ever published, that of Christianity is indisputably the most pacific, the most perfect and powerful. Gibbon himself (no thanks to him for it) hath applauded the Christians of the two first centuries as, by far, the best people the world had ever known. But he takes care to intimate, that they chose to suffer rather than to fight, insinuating a want of courage in these best of men. Did their martyrs betray any symptom of this want? Or did Scipio, Cæsar, Pompey, ever exhibit such genuine proofs of heroism? And if they did not fight, it should be remembered they were not called to it. But they would not fight. Granted, for their master's kingdom was not of this world.' What indeed, I repeat it, should such men fight for? Was it for the support of a political system, originally founded by robbers, and carried up, all along, by plunder, murder, devastation, and tyranny? Or to maintain the cause of gods, as wicked as their worshippers? If in after times, when they came to share the wealth, and fell into the luxury and effeminacy of a body grown unwieldy and consumptive, it cannot be ascribed to their religion, which by all its principles disowned and condemned them as, at once, professors and apostates. The reflections of this enemy upon our religion, if rightly understood, are rather panegyrical than invective, howsoever he intended them. But his account of Rome, plundered by the Huns, ought to be carefully read and noted by a people debauched by wealth, in principle and practice, as we are, and almost as ripe for divine vengeance, as the Romans then were.