“Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress. “I will illustrate this by an example. “I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in” --[There is no need, cried Dr. _Slop_ (waking), to call in any physician in this case]---- “to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so much scorn, as to put the matter past doubt. Well; --notwithstanding this, I put my fortune into the hands of the one: --and what is dearer still to me, I trust my life to the honest skill of the other. “Now let me examine what is my reason for this great confidence. Why, in the first place, I believe there is no probability that either of them will employ the power I put into their hands to my disadvantage; --I consider that honesty serves the purposes of this life: --I know their success in the world depends upon the fairness of their characters. --In a word, I’m persuaded that they cannot hurt me without hurting themselves more. “But put it otherwise, namely, that interest lay, for once, on the other side; that a case should happen, wherein the one, without stain to his reputation, could secrete my fortune, and leave me naked in the world; --or that the other could send me out of it, and enjoy an estate by my death, without dishonour to himself or his art: --In this case, what hold have I of either of them? --Religion, the strongest of all motives, is out of the question; --Interest, the next most powerful motive in the world, is strongly against me: ------What have I left to cast into the opposite scale to balance this temptation? ------Alas! I have nothing, ----nothing but what is lighter than a bubble ------I must lie at the mercy of HONOUR, or some such capricious principle --Strait security for two of the most valuable blessings! --my property and myself. “As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion; --so, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without morality; nevertheless, ’tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself in the light of a religious man.