rit. They venerated the establishment merely as a
political institution, but of her outward forms they conceived, as
comprehending the whole of her excellence. Of her spiritual beauty and
superiority, they seemed to have no conception. I observed in them less
warmth of affection, for those with whom they agreed in external
profession, than of rancor for those who differed from them, though but
a single shade, and in points of no importance. They were cordial
haters, and frigid lovers. Had they lived in the early ages, when the
church was split into parties by paltry disputes, they would have
thought the controversy about the time of keeping Easter of more
consequence than the event itself, which that festival celebrates."

"My dear sir," said I, as soon as he had done speaking, "you have
accounted very naturally for your prejudices. Your chief error seems to
have consisted in the selection of the persons you adopted as standards.
They all differed as much from the right as they differed from each
other; and the truth is, their vehement desire to differ from each
other, was a chief cause why they departed so much from the right. But
your instances were so unhappily chosen, that they prove nothing against
Christianity. The two opposite descriptions of persons who deterred you
from religion, and who passed muster in their respective corps, under
the generic term of religious, would, I believe, be scarcely
acknowledged as such by the soberly and the soundly pious."

"My own subsequent experience," resumed Mr. Carlton, "has confirmed the
justness of your remark. When I began, through the gradual change
wrought in my views and actions, by the silent, but powerful preaching
of Mrs. Carlton's example, to have less interest in believing that
Christianity was false, I then applied myself to search for reasons to
believe that it was true. But plain, abstract reasoning, though it might
catch hold on beings who are all pure intellect, and though it might
have given a right bias even to _my_ opinions, would probably never have
determined my conduct, unless I saw it clothed, as it were, with a body.
I wanted examples which should influence me to act, as well as proofs
which should incline me to believe; something which would teach me what
to do, as well as what to think. I wanted exemplifications as well as
precepts. I doubted of all merely speculative truth. I wanted, from
beholding the effect, to refer back to the principle. I wante