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thefe great geniufes. They have a juft claim to it; they confoled human nature groaning under fuperftition and barbarity; they were in fome degree the precurfors of that reason, which was to bring to light life and immortality. I could willingly, if I dared, apply to them, what a writer, who was ftill more than a great genius, faid of the prophets, They were lights fhining in a dark place.

But, the more I ftudy thefe fages of Paganism, the clearer does it appear to me that they had not attained to that perfection of doctrine which I discover in the writings of the fishermen and the tent-maker. In the fages of Paganism, the whole is not homogeneous, nor of the fame value: they fometimes fay admirable things, and feem almost to be inspired; but these things do not go fo near my heart as thofe which I read in the works of these men, whom human philofophy had not enlightened. In these I find a pathos, a gravity, a force of fentiment and thought; I had almost faid, a ftrength of nerves and of mufcles, which

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I do not meet with in the others. The first penetrate the very receffes of my foul; the latter affect only my understanding. Then, how greatly do the former exceed the others in the powers of perfuafion! the reason is, because they had themselves received ful ler conviction-They had feen, heard, and touched.

I meet with many other characteristics, which create an immenfe difference between the disciples of the Meffiah and thofe of Socrates (n), and still more those of Zeno (o). I stop to confider thefe difcriminating

(n) The wifeft of the Grecian philofophers. He lived about four centuries before Chrift. It is of him that Cicero faid, That he had brought philofophy down from heaven, to introduce it into cities and houses, &c. He gave himself up entirely to moral philofophy, &c. Plato and Xenophon were his difciples..

(0) Another Grecian philosopher, who established the fect of Stoics. This fect received its name from a portico where Zeno taught. He made the fovereign good to confift in living in a manner conformable to what he called nature, and in following the dictates of reafon. He lived two centuries before Chrift, Of all the fects of

antiquity,

minating circumstances; and those which ftrike me the most in the former, are, that entire inattention to felf, which leaves no other fentiment to the foul than that of the importance and grandeur of its object, and to the heart no other defire than that of faithfully fulfilling its duty, and doing good to mankind; that patience, the result of reflection, which enables us to fupport the trials of this life, not only because it is great and philofophical to do fo, but because they are the difpenfations of a wife Providence, in whofe eyes refignation is the most acceptable homage; that elevation of thought, that dignified courage, which render the foul fuperior to all events, because they render her fuperior to herself; that conftant adherence to what is good and true, which nothing can ftagger, because that truth and good are not the refult of opinion, but reft on the demonstration of the Spirit

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'antiquity, that of the Stoics has produced the greatest men.-Could I for one instant forget that I am a Chriftian, fays the author of the Spirit of Laws, I should wish to be a Stoic.

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and of power; that just estimation of things-But how infinitely are fuch men above my feeble praife! they have drawn their own characters in their writings; it is there they must be confidered: and how is it poffible to draw any parallel between the difciples of divine wisdom, and thofe of human philofophy?

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ings of the fages of Paganism been beneficial to mankind? Did they eradicate one fingle prejudice from the people, or throw down a fingle idol? Socrates, whom I call the inftitutor of natural morality, and who was in Paganism the first martyr of reason; the astonishing Socrates, did he destroy the idolatry of Athens, or produce the slightest revolution in the manners of his country ?

Within a very short time after the death of the Meffiah, in a dark corner of the earth," there sprang up a fociety, of which the fages of Paganism had not even foreseen the poffibility. The characters of a Socrates, and

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