e. The word "people," too, was in everybody's
mouth, as if the colonists themselves had made those lovely islands,
endowed them with fertility, and rendered them what they were now fast
becoming--scenes of the most exquisite rural beauty, as well as
granaries of abundance. By this time, the palm-tree covered more or less
of every island; and the orange, lime, shaddock and other similar
plants, filled the air with the fragrance of their flowers, or rendered
it bright with the golden hues of their fruits. In short, everything
adapted to the climate was flourishing in the plantations, and plenty
reigned even in the humblest dwelling.

This was a perilous condition for the healthful humility of human
beings. Two dangers beset them; both coloured and magnified by a common
tendency. One was that of dropping into luxurious idleness--the certain
precursor, in such a climate, of sensual indulgences; and the other was
that of "waxing fat, and kicking." The tendency common to both, was to
place self before God, and not only to believe that they merited all
they received, but that they actually created a good share of it.

Of luxurious idleness, it was perhaps too soon to dread its worst
fruits. The men and women retained too many of their early habits and
impressions to drop easily into such a chasm; on the contrary, they
rather looked forward to producing results greater than any which had
yet attended their exertions. An exaggerated view of self, however, and
an almost total forgetfulness of God, took the place of the colonial
humility with which they had commenced their career in this new region.
These feelings were greatly heightened by three agents, that men
ordinarily suppose might have a very different effect--religion, law,
and the press.

When the Rancocus returned, a few months after the repulse of the
pirates, she had on board of her some fifty emigrants; the council still
finding itself obliged to admit the friends of families already settled
in the colony, on due application. Unhappily, among these emigrants were
a printer, a lawyer, and no less than four persons who might be named
divines. Of the last, one was a presbyterian, one a methodist,--the
third was a baptist, and the fourth a quaker. Not long after the arrival
of this importation, its consequences became visible. The sectaries
commenced with a thousand professions of brotherly love, and a great
parade of Christian charity; indeed they pretended that they h