Imagine not because the pestilence smites not at once, that its fatality is the less certain-imagine not, because the lower orders are the earliest victims, that the more elevated will not suffer in their turn: the most mortal chillness begins at the extremities; and you may depend upon it, nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land into a charnel-house, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, and the whole hellbrood of infidelity, will quaff the heart's blood of the

consecrated and the noble.

My Lord, I am the more indignant at these designs, because they are sought to be concealed in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend of Liberty to tear the mask from the fiend who has usurped it. No, no; this is not our island goddess, bearing the mountain freshness on her cheek, and scattering the valley's bounty from her hand, known by the lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful virtues that attend her path, and the long blaze of glory that lingers in her train; it is a demon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hope and visionary realms, but even within the folding of its mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophistry; guard your child against it; draw round your homes the consecrated circle which it dares not enter. You will find an amulet in the religion of your country-it is the great mound raised by the Almighty for the protection of humanity-it stands between you and the lava of human passions; and, oh, believe me, if you stand tamely by while it is basely undermined, the fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you hold dear, or venerable, or sacred, will wither into ashes. Believe no one who tells you that the friends of Freedom are now, or ever were, the enemies of Religion. They know too well that rebellion against God, cannot prove the basis of government for Man, and that the loftiest structure impiety can raise is but the Babel monument of Impotence; its pride mocking the builders with a moment's strength, and then covering them with inevitable confusion. Do you want an example? only look to France. The microscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers has not sight enough to contemplate the

H

mighty minds which commenced her revolution. The wit the sage the orator-the hero-the whole family of genius, furnished forth their treasures, and gave them nobly to the nation's exigence; they had great provocation-they had a glorious cause-they had all that human potency could give them. But they relied too much upon this human potency-they abjured_their God, and, as a natural consequence, they murdered their King-they called their polluted deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol, extinguished the flame of the altar. They crowded the scaffold with all their country held of genius or of virtue; and when the peerage and the prelacy were exhausted, the mob-executioner of to-day became the mob-victim of to-morrow-no sex was spared-no age respected-no suffering pitied! and all this they did in the sacred name of Liberty, though in the deluge of human blood they left not a mountain top for the ark of Liberty to rest on. But Providence

was neither "dead nor sleeping." It mattered not that for a moment their impiety seemed to prosper-that Victory panted after their ensanguined banners—that as their insatiate Eagle soared against the sun, he seemed but to replume his wing, and to renew his vision-it was only for a moment, and you see at last that in the very banquet of their triumph the Almighty's vengeance blazed upon the wall, and the diadem fell from the brow of the idolater.

"My Lord, I will not abjure the altar, the throne, and the constitution, for the bloody tinsel of this revolutionary pantomime. I prefer my God even to the impious democracy of their Pantheon-I will not desert my King, even for the political equality of their Pandemonium. I must see some better authority than the Fleet-street Temple, before I forego the principles which I imbibed in my youth, and to which I look forward as the consolation of my age-those all-protecting principles, which at once guard, and consecrate, and sweeten, the social intercourse-which give life happiness, and death hope-which constitute man's purity his best protection, placing the infant's cradle and the female's couch beneath the sacred shelter of the national morality. Neither Mr. Paine, nor Mr. Palmer, nor all

the venom-breathing brood, shall swindle from me the book where I have learned these precepts. In despite of all their scoff, and scorn, and menacing, I say, of the sacred volume they would obliterate "It is a book of facts, as well authenticated as any heathen history-a book of miracles, incontestably avouched-a book of prophecy, confirmed by past as well as present fulfilment -a book of poetry, pure, and natural, and elevated even to inspiration—a book of morals, such as human wisdom never framed for the perfection of human happiness." My Lord, I will abide by the precepts, admire the beauty, revere the mysteries, and, as far as in me lies, practise the mandates, of this sacred volume; and should the ridicule of earth and the blasphemy of hell assail me, I shall console myself by the contemplation of those blessed spirits who in the same holy cause have toiled, and shone, and suffered. In the 'goodly fellowship of the Saints,' in the 'noble army of the Martyrs,' -in the society of the great, and good, and wise, of every nation,-if my sinfulness be not cleansed, and my darkness illumined, at least my pretensionless submission may be excused. If I err with the luminaries I have chosen for my guides, I confess myself captivated by the loveliness of their aberrations. If they err, it is in an heavenly region;-if they wander, it is in fields of light; if they aspire, it is at all events a glorious daring; and, rather than sink with infidelity into the dust, I am content to cheat myself with their vision of eternity. It may indeed be nothing but delusion, but then I err with the disciples of philosophy and of virtue -with men who have drank deep at the fountain of human knowledge, but who dissolved not the pearl of their salvation in the draught. I err with BACON, the great confidant of Nature, fraught with all the learning of the past, and almost prescient of the future, yet too wise not to know his weakness, and too philosophic not to feel his ignorance. I err with MILTON, rising on an angel's wing to heaven, and, like the bird of morn, soaring out of sight amid the music of his grateful piety. I err with LOCKE, whose pure philosophy only taught him to adore its Source, whose warm love of genuine liberty was never chilled into rebellion with its

I err with NEWTON, whose star-like spirit shooting athwart the darkness of the sphere, too soon to reascend to the home of his nativity. I err with FRANKLIN, the patriot of the world, the play-mate of the lightning, the philosopher of liberty, whose electric touch thrilled through the hemisphere. With men like these, my Lord, I shall remain in error; nor shall I desert those errors even for the drunken death-bed of a PAINE, or the delirious war-whoop of the surviving fiends, who would erect their altar on the ruins of society. In my opinion, it is difficult to say, whether their tenets are more ludicrous or more detestable. They will not obey the King, or the Prince, or the Parliament, or the Constitution: but they will obey Anarchy. They will not believe in the Prophets-in Moses-in Mahometin Christ; but they believe Tom Paine! With no government but confusion, and no creed but scepticism, I believe in my soul, they would abjure the one, if it became legitimate; and rebel against the other, if it was once established.

Holding, my Lord, opinions such as these, I should consider myself culpable, if, at such a crisis, I did not declare them. A lover of my country, I yet drew a line between patriotism and rebellion. A warm friend to liberty of conscience, I will not confound toleration with infidelity. With all its ambiguity, I shall die in the doctrines of the Christian faith; and, with all its errors, I am contented to live under the glorious safeguards of the British Constitution.

ADAMS, ON THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN
INDEPENDence.

Sink or Swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote! It is true, indeed that, in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and blinded to her own interest, for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within

our grasp; we have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why then, should we defer the declaration.

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed may rue it, we may not live to the time, when this declaration shall be made good. We may die, die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be ignominiously, and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country. But whatever may be our fate, be assured, that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood, but it will stand and it will richly compensate for both.

Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honour it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving and festivity, On its annual return, they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude and joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment; Independence now; and Independence for ever!

LORD CHATHAM, ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

I cannot, my Lords, will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us