It is difficult to say of which there is most in the world, ablind belief in religious dogmas, or a presumptuous and ignorantcavilling on revelation. The impression has gone abroad, thatFrance was an example of the last, during the height of her greatrevolutionary mania; a charge that was scarcely true, as respectsthe nation, however just it might be in connection with her bolderand more unquiet spirits. Most of the excesses of France, duringthat momentous period, were to be attributed to the agency of afew, the bulk of the nation having little to do with any part ofthem, beyond yielding their physical and pecuniary aid to anaudacious and mystifying political combination. One of the banefulresults, however, of these great errors of the times, was theletting loose of the audacious from all the venerable and healthfulrestraints of the church, to set them afloat on the sea ofspeculation and conceit. There is something so gratifying to humanvanity in fancying ourselves superior to most around us, that webelieve few young men attain their majority without imbibing moreor less of the taint of unbelief, and passing through the mists ofa vapid moral atmosphere, before they come to the clear, manly, andyet humble perceptions that teach most of us, in the end, our owninsignificance, the great benevolence as well as wisdom of thescheme of redemption, and the philosophy of the Christian religion,as well as its divinity.
Perhaps the greatest stumbling-block of the young is adisposition not to yield to their belief unless it conforms totheir own crude notions of propriety and reason. If the powers ofman were equal to analyzing the nature of the Deity, tocomprehending His being, and power, and motives, there would besome little show of sense in thus setting up the pretence ofsatisfying our judgments in all things, before we yield ourcredence to