The National Register.
London, England, 1818-01-04 00:00:00

IT has been well observed, that during the reign of
Charles the Second, the follies, the vices and impiety
of the continent had so iuuno-aated this country, that pie-
ty and morality began to pass fbr marks of disaffection •
towards the government. Now, however, the very
reverse of this is the case, the impiety of republican
France has tainted us deeply, and those who have in
any degree escaped the contagion, are stigmatized by
their infe.oel countrymeas us slaves of a tyrannical go-
veramoot. According to theta, there is no political
virtue, but in those who have learnt to rise superior
to the slavish notions of religion :—there is no spirit
but in those who have courage to render religion redicu-
lous, in the estimation of the unthinking. If this ir-
religious spirit were unconnected with politics, we
should he little alarmed about the consequences, for
there is such a commanding sanctity in true religion, that
men only of the must callous natures, can long with-
stand the daily and hourly appeals which it makes to
their reason. In the moment of earthly triumph, in
the hour.of exuberant health, in the hey-day of youth
and thenglalcssness, they may treat the sacred truths of
religion with levity, and even with scorn, but when dis-
ease, or want, or any of the many calamities %hat flesh
is heir to" press uptm them, reason comes towtheir aid,
•and with a power which the cailliot resist, points to
that source from whence only rruts.tinnfort and conso-
lation can flow. But when to scepticism in religion,
are joined principles in Aics, hostile to every set-
tled system, when nothing elislied but what is new,
when the same foot that, in scorn, treads down the
word of God, would -also tread down the political con- •
stitution of the country, we may well be alarmed, and
inquire, Vt-hy is this? Does a want of religion neces-
sarily make men enemies to the tranquillity of their
country, or does their political hostility lead them to
reject the most solemn religious truths? We confess
our belief that in modern times irreligious opinions have
engendered politital hostility. • The writings of those
whom we class in the school of Voltaire, by sapping
the foundations of their countrymen's religious faith,
brought on them all the horrors cf sauguinary revolu-
tion, :old, what generally succeeds to such an event,
o,fintling and pitiless tyranny.
Acqusinted, as we all arc, with the calamities which
these unholy scoffers produced, is it not surprising that
we who have always been accounted a sober, thinking
people, should give in to all the foppery of their infi-
delity. We have not even the merit of originality in
our mode of sinning, for we copy the example of our
neighbours, to the very letter. We insinuate our free
ilouglits, as they did, into the most unlikely materials;
a chemical or geological essay furnishes a ground of
doubt as to the existence of afros.: cause; a biographical
sketch gives full cpportunity of praising the most
wicked of mankind, if they have had but political or
scientific worth. It is only the bold and impudent pau-
per in the field of literature that advances his pextilent
doctrines without disguise ; and what his success is, we
can judge by recent events. We have no wish to say
one severe word against the poor man who has lately
been the subject of prosecution for blasphemy. He fell
into the taste of the party to which he had long had a
leaning, and what he wrote he wrote for bread ; a wife
and seven starving children nigh drive a man to the
commission of a greater crime than that Mr. Hone was
guilty of, and his subsequent conduct slims that he is
not insensible to the nature of his °Team. But no
apology of this sort can welt be offercl for the conduct
of those who have come forward with such alacrity in
his beholi. To r_liewe the neccoities of the man was
an act beconii:;g a Brilish public, and the appeal Ivhieh
lie made to the fungi of the jury oa the third day of his