Mr. Fantom, who considered that a philosopher must set up with a little sort of stock in trade, now picked up all the common-place notions against Christianity, which have been answered a hundred times over: these he kept by him ready cut and dried, and brought out in all companies with a zeal which would have done honor to a better cause, but which the friends to a better cause are not so apt to discover. He soon got all the cant of the new school. He prated about _narrowness_, and _ignorance_, and _bigotry_, and _prejudice_, and _priestcraft_ on the one hand; and on the other, of _public good_, the _love of mankind_, and _liberality_, and _candor_, and _toleration_, and above all, _benevolence_. Benevolence, he said, made up the whole of religion, and all the other parts of it were nothing but cant, and jargon, and hypocrisy. By benevolence he understood a gloomy and indefinite anxiety about the happiness of people with whom he was utterly disconnected, and whom Providence had put it out of his reach either to serve or injure. And by the happiness this benevolence was so anxious to promote, he meant an exemption from the power of the laws, and an emancipation from the restraints of religion, conscience, and moral obligation. Finding, however, that he made but little impression on his old club at the Cat and Bagpipes, he grew tired of their company. This club consisted of a few sober citizens, who met of an evening for a little harmless recreation after business; their object was, not to reform parliament, but their own shops; not to correct the abuses of government, but of parish officers; not to cure the excesses of administration, but of their own porters and apprentices; to talk over the news of the day without aspiring to direct the events of it. They read the papers with that anxiety which every honest man feels in the daily history of his country. But as trade, which they _did_ understand, flourished, they were careful not to reprobate those public measures by which it was protected, and which they did _not_ understand. In such turbulent times it was a comfort to each to feel he was a tradesman, and not a statesman; that he was not called to responsibility for a trust for which he found he had no talents, while he was at full liberty to employ the talents he really possessed, in fairly amassing a fortune, of which the laws would be the best guardian, and government the best security. Thus a legitimate self-love, regulated by prudence, and restrained by principle, produced peaceable subjects and good citizens; while in Fantom, a boundless selfishness and inordinate vanity converted a discontented trader into a turbulent politician.