Instituting a generous and tolerant survey of religious opinions, we see nothing in the solemn pomp of catholic worship which could disorganize the mind; as human beings, they have employed human art to render the impression more vivid and durable. The decorous piety, and exemplary life of the quaker has signally exempted him from this most severe of human infirmities. The established church of this country, of which I am an unworthy member, will delude no one, by its terrors, to the brink of fatuity: the solid wisdom, rational exposition, and pure charity, which flow through the works of Taylor, Barrow, Secker, and Tillotson, will inspire their readers with a manly confidence: the most enlightened of our species will advance in wisdom and in happiness from their perusal; and the simplicity and truth of their comments will be evident to those of less cultivated understanding. The pastors of this church are all men of liberal education, and many have attained the highest literary character; they are therefore eminently qualified to afford instruction. But what can be expected, when the most ignorant of our race attempt to inform the multitude; when the dregs of society shall assume the garb of sanctity and the holy office; and pretend to point out a privy path to heaven, or cozen their feeble followers into the belief that they possess a picklock for its gates? The difficulty of curing this species of madness will be readily explained from the consideration, that the whole of their doctrine is a base system of delusion, rivetted on the mind by terror and despair; and there is also good reason to suppose, that they frequently contrive, by the grace of cordials, to fix the waverings of belief, and thus endeavour to dispel the gloom and dejection which these hallucinations infallibly excite. Although the faction of faith will owe me no kindness for the disclosure of these opinions, yet it would be ungrateful were I to shrink from the avowal of my obligations to methodism[23] for the supply of those numerous cases which has constituted my experience of this wretched calamity. When the natural small-pox attacks insane persons it most commonly proves fatal. I was induced to draw this conclusion from consulting the records of Bethlem, where I found that few of those who had been sent to the Small-pox Hospital recovered; but subsequent experience has enabled me to point out this distinction: that those who have been in a furious state have generally experienced a fatal termination, and that those who recovered had the small-pox when they were in a state of convalescence from their insanity. When patients, during their convalescence, become more corpulent than they were before, it is a favourable symptom; and, as far as I have remarked, such persons have very seldom relapsed. But it should also be observed, that many, who become stupid, and in a state, verging on ideotism, are very much disposed to obesity: these cases are not to be remedied.