Part, and perhaps the greater part, of this fear is a sad heritage, which has been transmitted down to us, an accumulating fund of sorrow, for a hundred generations. I have stated my conviction in another place, that our education, religious ceremonies, domestic manners, in short, all the influences of the present institutions of society tend to increase this evil. I am well aware, at the same time, that the number of those, who will admit it to be an evil, is but small. Most view it as it has been considered in all Christian countries, from time immemorial, as an instrument in the hand of God and his servants, to awe, and restrain the mind, recall it from illusions and vanities, and reduce it to the seriousness and obedience of religion. The broad declamation of the pulpit for effect, revolting representations of hell-torment and the vindictive justice of God, have passed with a readier tolerance, under a kind of tacit allowance, that if the means were unworthy, the proposed end was such as would sanctify them. It is almost unnecessary to remark, that all my hope of producing any useful impression is with the small, but growing number, (in the next age, I trust, it will be a majority) who hold this whole doctrine in utter unbelief; who have no faith in amendment and conversion, that grows out of the base and servile principle of fear; and least of all the fear of death; who believe that a great reform, a thorough amelioration of our species, will never be effected, until it is made a radical principle of our whole discipline, and all our social institutions, to bring this servile passion completely under the control of our reason. With these, it is a deep and fixed conviction, that every thing base, degrading and destructive of intellect and improvement, readily associates with fear; and that the basis of true religion, generous conception, high thoughts and really noble character, is firmly laid in a young mind, when trained to become as destitute of fear, as if it were conscious of being a sinless angel, above the reach of pain or death. It would be to no purpose for me to pause in this place, to obviate the strictures of those who will denounce this doctrine, by quoting from the scriptures the frequent inculcations of the _fear of the Lord_, and the Apostle’s declaration, that by the _terrors of the Lord we persuade men_. The true and religious fear, inculcated in the scriptures, not only has no relation to the passion I am discussing, but cannot exist, any more than the other requisite traits of religious character, in a bosom swayed by the grovelling and selfish passion of servile fear.