of decrease, pressed upon us; and, while it would
be a subject of congratulation to ourselves to add one to our party, it
would be doubly gratifying to rescue from the pernicious influence of
superstition and unrelenting tyranny, the victims that now, though
voluntarily enchained, groaned beneath it. If we had considered the
preacher as sincere in a belief of his own denunciations, or only
moderately actuated by kind feeling in the exercise of his assumed powers,
we should have immediately addressed ourselves to him, and endeavoured with
our best arguments to soften and humanize his views. But he was instigated
by ambition, he desired to rule over these last stragglers from the fold of
death; his projects went so far, as to cause him to calculate that, if,
from these crushed remains, a few survived, so that a new race should
spring up, he, by holding tight the reins of belief, might be remembered by
the post-pestilential race as a patriarch, a prophet, nay a deity; such as
of old among the post-diluvians were Jupiter the conqueror, Serapis the
lawgiver, and Vishnou the preserver. These ideas made him inflexible in his
rule, and violent in his hate of any who presumed to share with him his
usurped empire.

It is a strange fact, but incontestible, that the philanthropist, who
ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable and gentle, yet
disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men's
minds, than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means,
nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the advancement of
his cause. If this from time immemorial has been the case, the contrast was
infinitely greater, now that the one could bring harrowing fears and
transcendent hopes into play; while the other had few hopes to hold forth,
nor could influence the imagination to diminish the fears which he himself
was the first to entertain. The preacher had persuaded his followers, that
their escape from the plague, the salvation of their children, and the rise
of a new race of men from their seed, depended on their faith in, and their
submission to him. They greedily imbibed this belief; and their
over-weening credulity even rendered them eager to make converts to the
same faith.

How to seduce any individuals from such an alliance of fraud, was a
frequent subject of Adrian's meditations and discourse. He formed many
plans for the purpose; but his own troop kept him in full occupa