of the community; for he complains of a general and permanent depravation of morals, which dated its origin from this calamity. Nor again does the description apply to such only as had been, either openly or secretly, contemners of the whole system of the national religion; for we are told, that "at first many had recourse to the offices of their religion, with a view to appease the gods; but that when they found their sacrifices and ceremonies availed nothing against the disease, and that the pious and the impious alike fell victims to it, they at once concluded that piety and impiety were altogether indifferent, and cast off all religious and moral obligations." Is it not evident from this, that those who did reverence the gods, had been accustomed to look for none but temporal rewards and punishments from them? Can we conceive that men who expected that virtue should be rewarded, and vice punished, in the other world, would, just at their entrance into that world, begin to regard virtue and vice as indifferent?

It is but too true, indeed, that men have been found, in countries where Christianity is pro

fessed, so hardened, as to manifest, even at the approach of death, no regard to the judgment which is to succeed it; who have availed themselves of present impunity for the commission of crimes, or have endeavoured to drown thought in sensual excess but instances of this kind rather go to prove that such men do not, than that the heathens did, believe in a future retribution; if by belief is to be understood, not a mere unthinking assent, or a mere non-denial, of the doctrine, but a deliberate, firm, and habitual conviction. Such gross and complete ignorance is to be found in not a few of the lower orders in professedly Christian countries, that scarcely any idea whatever of religion has at any time entered their minds. If this assertion should appear, as it probably may, to some of my readers overcharged, or if they should suppose that instances of this kind must be, in this country at least, extremely rare, they may convince themselves but too easily of the deplorable truth, either by enquiring of those, who in the discharge of their clerical functions have had opportunity to ascertain it, or by themselves

examining such of the least educated among the lower orders (and many, I fear I may add, much above the lowest) who come in their way; among whom they will, I am convinced, meet with instances of persons growing up to maturity with scarcely any more knowledge or thought concerning the Christian religion, than the Hindoo mythology. Those again who have been long hardened in habits of extreme profligacy, may ultimately become as blind to all ideas of a future state as if they had never heard of it: but experience as well as reason forbids us to believe, that, where the Gospel is assiduously preached, such a degree of ignorance, or of depravity, can ever be general, much less universal. And, accordingly, it appears, that the great plague which desolated London, produced, on the whole, an effect exactly opposite to that at Athens. Some abandoned wretches, no doubt, took the same advantage as the Athenians did, of the calamity; but the generality. seem plainly to have shewn, that their belief of a future state, however it might have lain dormant during a time of apparent security, and,

however easily it might be thrown off on a return to such a state, was real and deeprooted. No instances are recorded there of pious men renouncing their piety when they saw death approaching: on the contrary, serious devotion seems for the most part to have prevailed, and, if not reformation, at least alarm and contrition, to have been generally produced among sinners. Many are said, when attacked by the plague, to have even rushed into the public streets, confessing aloud and bewailing crimes long ago committed, and never before imputed to them, and earnestly seeking to make réparation. Now it may surely be presumed, that instances of this kind, if they occurred at all, at Athens, must have been rare indeed; that no one such took place is the most probable inference; since none are recorded. The account indeed which the historian gives of the general depravity that supervened, is certainly not to be understood without exceptions; for he tells us, that some good men retained their virtue, and displayed their humanity; but had any instances occurred of the repentance of bad men-of sin

ners alarmed into remorse for their guilt, and endeavouring to atone for it-such instances would have presented so striking a contrast to the general case, that we can hardly suppose a writer so accurate and intelligent, living on the spot, would have made no mention of them.

In Christian countries, on the contrary, however imperfectly Christian, in respect of many of the inhabitants of them, it is well known that instances of this kind are of daily occurrence, even when the ordinary course of human mortality is not accelerated by any remarkable visitation.

Can we then, on comparing two such cases together, come to the conclusion, that in each, the notions respecting a future state were the same, or at all similar? Is not the obvious inference, that, at least the Athenians of that age, considered the accounts of a future life as no more than amusing fictions, of whose utter falsity there was no reason even to doubt?

And that the prevailing belief at other times, and in other states, Greek or Italian, was the same as at Athens at the period just spoken of,