insidious combination, which requires the close attention of the religious instructor, because it veils the danger which it augments.

Strange havock is made in our opinions by words; appellations frequently convey censure, or praise which the ideas they signify certainly would not do; and definition seems as necessary in morals, as it is for any object of science. It is enough for the purposes of shame, or honour, to get hold of certain phrases, or terms, what is the real import of these words, and what good, and evil, they really convey, few people give themselves the trouble to consider; hence, if a loose expression be set up, significant of some popular qualities, the adjacent vices will soon connect themselves with these welcome guests, and bidding, under cover of their name, defiance to the indolent search made for them, they will share in common the indulgence, and approbation of the world.

The appellation of a man of the world, can in strictness mean nothing more than

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a person who, by long mingling with his fellow-creatures, has acquired a knowledge of human nature, together with those habits, and manners which prevail in that cast of society which gives the law to the rest. Good manners, and skill in character contribute so much to the general happiness, that this appellation of man of the world, would very justly confer popularity, if it were found to mean nothing more: It is not a knowledge of the world, properly so called, that can ever be the subject of condemnation in this place; to be ignorant of men, can never be the way to live well amongst them; but those vices which have been fraudulently interwoven with this pleasant, and important knowledge, should be torn off, we should toss out the asp which lies hidden in the fruit, death is a hard price for delight.

In the first place, the appellation of a man of the world, has become a protection for irreligion.

When I proceed to estimate the religion of a man of the world, no one will

imagine me about to draw a very savage picture of severity, and gloom; some little relaxation of self-denial will be anticipated, and some little deviation from unerring rectitude: It will be no story of the cowl, and the cloister, of the burning lamp, and the midnight prayer, of the altar ever charged with oblation, and the hymn ever sounding with praise: I do not mean to be unjust in the delineation of character; injustice of this kind is impolitic, and immoral; but I am not afraid of being severe, while I confine myself to truth; we are placed here to remind, to warn, to detect, to caution, to entreat, to blame, and to praise; and that man is a traitor to the most sacred trust, who thunders grief, and terror against aukward vice, and holds parley with pleasing error, and popu

lar sin.

A man of the world is rarely, or ever seen in any place of public worship; a spirited, and a witty contempt for religion is the most gaudy, indispensable feather in his whole plume: If he happen not yet to have shaken off his religion internally, which

in the beginning of his career may perhaps be the case, he must indulge only in furtive supplication, and retire to his own chamber, not to avoid the ostentation, but the imputation of piety. As a man of the world becomes older, and more a man of the world, he may perhaps become a conformist, and comply with the outward ceremonies of religion, still taking care it is privately understood he is there to humour the world; that his contempt for these things is in no ways diminished; that he still thinks religion the business of women, children, and priests: His object is, to impress mankind with a notion of his versality; he insinuates that he would fall in with the reigning worship, wherever he might be placed, and change his adoration with his climate; and you cannot more effectually pique, or punish his vanity, than by mistaking him for a devout man seriously impressed with the truths of religion. This singular, and impious affectation, proceeds from a desire of appearing to have escaped from those unsocial, and unpleasant qualities, with which religion is in our imagination so fatally con

nected; an association strengthened by that period of our history, when irreligion was unfortunately the only test of genuine loyalty, and elegant extraction. But this union between disaffection, and devotion, is now not only dissolved, but reversed, and religion is clearly no longer the parent of barbarous, and austere manners: As far as it affects manners at all, it teaches the reality of every amiable quality, of which knowledge of the world teaches us to counterfeit the appearance, and changes a system of conventional fraud, and sanctioned falsehood into a solid commerce of benevolence, and mutual indulgence.

A man of the world, though he have no learned disbelief of sacred things, but rather an habitual carelessness concerning them, is still the author of much serious mischief to the cause of religion; he is always hovering upon the borders of consecrated ground, and watching his opportunity to make light, and successful incursions upon it; and when the outworks of religion are attacked by a popular character, with humour, and pleasantry, we are