to a safe skulking place for his
life.

1. In that half-papist, half-atheistic country called France there is a
class of politicians known by the name of Opportunists. They are a kind
of public men that, we are thankful to say, are not known in Protestant
and Evangelical England, but they may be pictured out and described to
you in this homely way: An Opportunist stands well out of the sparks of
the fire, and well in behind the stone wall, till the fanatics for
liberty, equality, and fraternity have snatched the chestnuts out of the
fire, and then the Opportunist steps out from his safe place and blandly
divides the well-roasted tid-bits among his family and his friends. As
long as there is any jeopardy, the Jacobins are denounced and held up to
opprobrium; but when the jeopardy and the risk are well past, the sober-
minded, cautious, conservative, and responsible statesmen walk off with
the portfolios of place and privilege and pay under their honest arms.
But these are the unprincipled papists and infidels of a mushroom
republic; and, thank God, such spurious patriotism, and such sham and
selfish statesmanship, have not yet shown their miserable heads among
faithful, fearless, straightforward, and uncalculating Englishmen. At
the same time, if ever that continental vice should attack our national
character, we have two well-known essays in our ethical and casuistical
literature that may with perfect safety be pitted against anything that
either France or Italy has produced. Even if they are but a master's
irony, let all ambitious men keep _Of Cunning_ and _Of Wisdom for a Man's
Self_ under their pillow. Let all young men who would toady a great man;
let all young ministers who would tune their pulpit to king, or court, or
society; let all tradesmen and merchants who prefer their profits to
their principles--if they have literature enough, let them soak their
honest minds in our great Chancellor's sage counsels; and he who promoted
Anything and dubbed him his Darling, he will, no doubt, publish both a
post and a title on his birthday for you also.

2. 'What religion is he of?' asks Dean Swift. 'He is an Anythingarian,'
is the answer, 'for he makes his self-interest the sole standard of his
life and doctrine.' And Archbishop Leighton, a very different churchman
from the bitter author of the _Polite Conversations_, is equally
contemptuous toward the self-seeker in divine things. 'Your boasted
peaceableness oft