CHAP. IV.

XI. If there has ever been a season in which it was proper to call upon the public instructors of the nation to exert themselves in the cause of Religion and Virtue, it is surely the present. It appears, from the tenor of the whole narration before the reader, that Religion and Virtue are considered as the great obstacles to the completion of this plan for overturning the governments of Europe—and I hope that I have made it evident that those conspirators have presupposed that there is deeply rooted in the heart of man a sincere veneration for unsophisticated virtue, and an affectionate propensity to Religion; that is, to consider this beautiful world as the production of wisdom and power, residing in a Being different from the world itself, and the natural object of admiration and of love—I do not speak of the truth of this principle at present, but only of its reality, as an impression on the heart of man. These principles must therefore be worked on,—and they are acknowledged to be strong, because much art is employed to eradicate them, or to overwhelm them by other powerful agents.—We also see that Religion and Virtue are considered by those corrupters as closely united, and as mutually