Inoculation I maintain to be, in a religious and moral view, a self-destructive, inhuman, and impious machination, and in a physical one an unreasonable, unnatural, unlawful, most hazardous, ineffectual, fruitless, uncertain, unnecessary device; in a word, a practice which nature recoils at, which reason opposes, and which religion condemns. We sometimes read that inoculation was denounced as Atheism, and we are expected to reprobate or to smile at the bigotry; and, whilst we may not approve of the stigma, we may at the same time recognise the honest sense in which it might be affixed. Some who spoke of inoculation as Atheistic felt more vividly than they could otherwise describe, that it was an infraction of the deeper sanctity of Nature, where man’s hand cannot enter and prosper, and that those who made the attempt could have no proper sense of Him in whom they lived, and moved, and had their being. Moreover, if we are to admit that they who thus expressed themselves are blameable for excessive vehemence, what are we to say of the more numerous party who did not hesitate to pronounce inoculation a discovery effected in the human mind by God himself? If it was reasonable to speak of the practice as Theistic, why should it be fanatical to assert the contrary, and maintain that it involved a negation of Divine Providence? Dr. Kirkpatrick, with the sycophancy which was the custom of his age, praised George II. for “the benevolent, and even celestial disposition,” which induced him to patronise “the wonderful and probably Heaven-descended practice of inoculation;” and extolled “its equal simplicity and success” as demonstrating “to a reflective mind the goodness of Providence in making what may be so often necessary, so easily accomplished.”[56] It would not be difficult to cite scores of confessions of gratitude to God for inoculation, but to what purpose? What we think good we necessarily ascribe to God; and we do well; but much that we think good is otherwise, or is only partially good; and what then? Why, we are undeceived and corrected by experience. We put our notion of what is good to the test of practice, and God answers us in the event--justifies, amends, or confounds us. Thus with inoculation. It was fair that those who thought it good should refer it to God, and thank him for it; and it was equally fair that those who thought it bad should say it was none of his--that it was at variance with his order, and a discredit to the intelligence of those who imputed it to Him. How was the issue to be determined? Only by God himself. And how would He speak? In the results of experience wherein his will would become manifest beyond equivocation.