I have no other evidence of their belief in an evil Spirit, and a place of future Torment, than the report of their Prayer-books, and the tenor of their conversation. I must, at the same time, acknowledge, that the looseness and frequency with which they refer to Hell and the Devil, on the most ordinary occasions, have excited my doubts whether they use these awful terms in the same religious sense in which orthodox Christians are accustomed to employ them. These doubts have been greatly encouraged by that sceptical facetiousness with which they apply the name of the evil spirit to their Fashionable amusements, and make the place of torment a subject of scenic representation. I will not say that these people do not believe what they thus caricature; but I think it must be obvious that they cannot have any very exact notions of their scriptural import, while they continue to employ them as terms of merriment, and sources of diversion. {57} Religious worship, though not inculcated as absolutely necessary in the Fashionable World, is yet neither prohibited nor renounced. Certain persons of considerable influence among them, and whose connexion with them arose out of the incidental circumstances of birth, or office, or elevation, have carried into the societies of Fashion some principles which operate as a check upon the natural libertinism of the community. I impute it to this circumstance, rather than to any sober consideration of duty, that religious worship, though it is not esteemed _essential_ to a Fashionable character, is yet not regarded as any impeachment of it. My reason, in a word, for ascribing their conformity in this particular to influence rather than principle, is the difficulty of reconciling it, on any hypothesis besides, to the other parts of their conduct. For it would be a contradiction of ideas to suppose, that persons can seriously mean to worship a God whom they habitually blaspheme; or to pray against a devil, whom they are accustomed to hold out as a bugbear or a joke. Their mode of worship is generally that which prevails in the country in which they live: they like the credit of an Establishment, and the convenience of taking things as they find them. There are, I am told, some members of Fashion among those who dissent from the established religion. These I shall leave to the care of their Pastors; and proceed to animadvert upon the Fashionable adherents to the religion of the State.