*26. “However, there are enough that profess themselves Christians.” Yea, too many, God knoweth: too many that confute their vain professions, by the whole tenour of their lives. I will allow all you can say on this head, and perhaps more than all. ’Tis now some years since I was engaged unawares in a conversation with a strong reasoner, who at first urged the wickedness of the _American Indians_, as a bar to our hope of converting them to Christianity. But when I mentioned their temperance, justice, and veracity, (according to the accounts I had then received) it was asked, “Why, if those Heathens are such men as these, what will they gain by being made Christians? What would they gain by being _such Christians_ as we see every where round about us?” I could not deny, they would lose, not gain, by such a Christianity as this. Upon which she added, “Why, what else do you mean by Christianity?” My plain answer was, What do you apprehend to be more valuable than good sense, good nature, and good manners? All these are contained, and that in the highest degree, in what I mean by Christianity. Good sense, (so called) is but a poor, dim shadow of what Christians call faith. Good nature is only a faint, distant resemblance of Christian charity. And good manners, if of the most finished kind that nature assisted by art can attain to, is but a dead picture of that holiness of conversation, which is the image of God visibly expressed. All these put together by the art of God, I call Christianity. “Sir, if this be Christianity, (said my opponent in amaze) I never saw a christian in my life.” 27. Perhaps it is the same case with _you_. If so, I am grieved for you, and can only wish, ’till you do see a living proof of this, that you would not say, _you see a christian_. For this is scriptural christianity, and this alone. Whenever therefore you see an unreasonable man, you see one who perhaps calls himself by that name, but _is_ no more a _christian_ than he is an _angel_. So far as he departs from true, genuine reason, so far he departs from christianity. Do not say, this is only asserted, not proved. It is undeniably proved by the original charter of christianity. We appeal to this, to the written word. If any man’s temper, or words, or actions are contradictory to right reason; it is evident to a demonstration, they are contradictory to this. Produce any possible or conceivable instance, and you will find the fact is so. The lives therefore of those who are _called_ christians, is no just objection to christianity.