vernment, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an
idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"

In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun
by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in
our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the
constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are
contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by
their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The
bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The
Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution
will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction.
When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the
multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the
faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle,
the desperate, and the rapacious--Law will be a dead letter--Religion a
mockery--Right superseded by violence--and the only title to possession
will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.

We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be
persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort,
quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason--that they believe all change
to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and
that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for
their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and
contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have
a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as
the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act;
for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug
incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a
shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet
even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and
the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of
rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from
the report of the well-known Barrere, from the "Committee of Public
Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It
begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of _mercy_ in
republican government." It pronounces the necess