which is not Christian. Christianity guides us to another world, by showing us how to act in this; in precepts more, or less general, it enacts, and limits, every human duty; the world is the theatre where we are to show whether we are Christians in profession, or in deed; and there is no action of our lives, which concerns the interests of others, in which we do not either violate, or obey, a Christian law; I cannot, therefore, illustrate a moral duty, without, at the same time, enforcing a precept of our religion.

The love of our country has, in the late scenes acted in the world, been so often made a pretext for bad ambition, and so often given birth to crude, and ignorant violence, that many good men entertain no very great relish for the virtue, and some are, in truth, tired, and disgusted with the very name of it; but this mode of thinking, though very natural, and very common, is, above all others, that which goes to perpetuate error in the world; if good men are to cherish in secret the idea, that any theory of duties to our country is romantic, and absurd, because

bad men and foolish men have made it an engine of crime, or found it a source of error; if there is to be this constant action, and reaction between extreme opinions; the sentiments of mankind in eternal vibration between one error, and another, can never rest upon the middle point of truth. Let it be our pride to derive our principles, not from times, and circumstances, but from reason, and religion, and to struggle against that mixture of indolence, and virtue which condemns the use, because it will not discriminate the abuse, which it abhors. In spite of the prostitution of this venerable name, there is, and there ever will be, a Christian patriotism, a great system of duties which man owes to the sum of human beings with whom he lives: to deny it is folly; to neglect it is crime.

The love of our country has been ridiculed by some modern enthusiasts, as too narrow a field for the benevolence of an enlightened mind; they are for comprehending the whole human race in our affections, and deem any partiality shown to the particular country in which we happen to

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be born, as a narrow, and unphilosophical preference: Now, it would be difficult to say, whether complete selfishness, or universal philanthropy, is the most likely to mislead us from that sound practical goodness, in which the beauty of Christianity, and the merit of a Christian, consist. Our sphere of thoughts has hardly any limits, our sphere of action hardly any extent; we may speculate on worlds, we must act in families, in districts, and in kingdoms; and if we contract a distaste for the good we can do, because it is not equal to the good we can conceive, we only sacrifice deeds to words, and rule our lives by maxims of the most idle, and ostentatious sentiment.

One of the first passions by which the imagination of an able, and a good youth is inflamed, is the love of his country; but he often manages it in such a manner, as to convert it into a venial error rather than a virtue; I say venial, because those errors which proceed from the good, and generous dispositions of youth, deserve indulgence, and are seldom perpetuated but when they are treated with harshness. All the splendid

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actions performed in popular governments, give a very early bias to the mind; the sal of them forms the most material part of education; there is nothing which ranges youthful fancy on the side of government, and every thing which ranges it against it; there is very little to feed the imagination in the idea that men must be restrained, and protected (above all things)from their own madness, and folly; that they must often be deluded, and threatened into their own good; but a very little warmth, and elevation of thought, will convert all the necessary operations of the best governments into crimes; contribution is extortion, punishment is cruelty, management, and prudence are duplicity, and restraint slavish subjugation; and hence, in the young, patriotism is often little else than an universal suspicion, and abuse of all government whatsoever. Many have the good fortune to outgrow this childish propensity; in others it is fixed for life, and exhibits instances of mistaken, declamatory men, and of the most deplorable waste of talents.

Another cause which renders the love

of their country less useful in the young, is vanity.

A young man in some of the higher professions, becomes fluent in technical phrases, and skilful in technical business; he acquires some degree of consideration in the little circle in which he lives, and tastes, for the first time, the sweets of distinction, and praise: instantly he becomes to himself a creature of unlimited importance, a concealed treasure; and careless of that partial pre-eminence, which he considers so much less than his real right, he paints to himself listening senates, and applauding people; and is an orator, a demagogue, and a statesman.

In the first half of life, vanity in all its various shapes is unquestionably the great moving passion; and it is, perhaps, in the first half of life that these ideas more peculiarly prevail. As a man multiplies his relations, and takes a firmer root in society, as he assumes the new characters of father, and husband, and as the real business of the world crowds upon him, he becomes more