CHAP. III.

This is all the direct information that I can pick up of the founder and the proceedings of the German Union. The project is coarse, and palpably mean, aiming at the dahlers of entry-money and of annual contribution, and at the publication and profitable sale of Dr. Bahrdt's books. This circumstance gives it strong features of its parentage—Philo speaks of Bahrdt in his Final Declaration in terms of contempt and abhorence. There is nothing ingenious, nothing new, nothing enticing, in the plans; and the immediate purpose of indulging the licentious taste of the public comes so frequently before the eye, that it bears all the marks of that grossness of mind, precipitancy, and impatient oversight that are to be found in all the voluminous writings of Dr. Bahrdt. Many in Germany, however, ascribe the Union to Weishaupt, and say that it is the Illuminati working in another form. There is no denying that the principles, and even the manner of proceeding, are the same in every essential circumstance. Many paragraphs of the declamations circulated through Germany with the plans, are transcribed verbatim from Weishaupt's Corrected system of Illuminatism. Much of the work On Instruction, and the Means for promoting it, is very nearly a copy of the same work, blended with slovenly extracts from some of his own writings—There is the same series of delusions from the beginning, as in Illuminatism—Free Masonry and Christianity are compounded—first with marks of respect—then Christianity is twisted to a purpose foreign from it, but the same with that aimed at by Weishaupt—then it is thrown away altogether, and Natural Religion and Atheism substituted for it—For no person will have a moment's hesitation in saying, that this is the creed of the author of the books On Instruction and On the Liberty of the Press. Nor can he doubt that the political principles are equally anarchical with those of the Illuminati.—The endeavours also to get possession of public offices—of places of education—of the public