Is it not the zeal for proselytism, that daily thins the established church of England, and increases the congregations of the innumerable denominations of sectaries, which are tolerated in this country, and of which each, if it could, would make its own universal? Even in private and temperate characters, a conformity of {58} soul is one of the bases of friendship. The desire of impressing our sentiments and opinions upon the minds of those we love is the source of intercourse; we should be dumb without it. It is not wonderful, that this spring of the social system should extend to the principles of religion; and to say, that a Christian is zealous to make a Pagan a Christian is to bestow the highest praise upon him. If the reformed missionaries deserve this praise, it cannot be refused to the Jesuits. Nothing, in fact, can be more laudable than such a zeal, and all that can be objected to it is foreign to its real nature. The treasons and crimes, which have been imputed to the Jesuits, Hume himself has shown were falsely charged to them. Vice is not inherent in any profession of faith; it is inherent in the corrupted nature of man. Compare a Knox with a Bordaloue, a Prynne with a Beauregard or a Bossuet, and we shall be blind if we do not perceive the difference between the zeal which actuates the Christian, and that which leads to treason and to crime. {59} Hume's other objection to the Jesuits was, "their cultivation of learning for the nourishment of superstition." Now we very well know how far his idea of superstition extended, and that it did not fall short of the whole system of revealed religion. It is not necessary to dwell long upon this objection. The superstition which is injurious to mankind, must be the offspring of ignorance; and, no one denies, that ignorance and superstition were very prevalent in the dark ages of the world, and even long after the revival of letters; no one denies, that weak and illiterate minds, of whatever persuasion, are yet prone to it. What is meant by the superstition _nourished by learning_ can only be the impression of mysteries, which the understanding, however puzzled, finds sufficient grounds to entertain, and on which to build hopes of an immaterial and immortal connexion with the Supreme Being. This kind of superstition, or rather this religious impression, has ever been cherished by the noblest minds, and forms a prominent part of the character of learned {60} men of all persuasions. Attached, myself, to the church of England, it is, nevertheless, clear to me, that the Reformation has generated the most absurd superstitions; and I cannot conceive that there is a man, of unbiassed mind and good sense, who would not rather embrace all that has been retrenched from the catholic creed, than adopt the spurious abominations and blasphemies which, every where, under the screen of toleration, disgrace the world. But I am not here entering into a defence of the Roman church, or into a derision of the