state of commercial prosperity; let it also be supposed to
have been making no unequal progress in all those arts, and sciences,
and literary productions, which have ever been the growth of a polished
age, and are the sure marks of a highly finished condition of society.
It is not difficult to anticipate the effects likely to be produced on
_vital_ Religion, both in the clergy and the laity, by such a state of
external prosperity as has been assigned to them respectively. And these
effects would be infallibly furthered, where the country in question
should enjoy a free constitution of government. We formerly had occasion
to quote the remark of an accurate observer of the stage of human life,
that a much looser system of morals commonly prevails in the higher,
than in the middling and lower orders of society. Now, in every country,
of which the middling classes are daily growing in wealth and
consequence, by the success of their commercial speculations; and, most
of all, in a country having such a constitution as our own, where the
acquisition of riches is the possession also of rank and power; with the
comforts and refinements, the vices also of the higher orders are
continually descending, and a mischievous uniformity of sentiments, and
manners, and morals, gradually diffuses itself throughout the whole
community. The multiplication of great cities also, and above all, the
habit, ever increasing with the increasing wealth of the country, of
frequenting a splendid and luxurious metropolis, would powerfully tend
to accelerate the discontinuance of the religious habits of a purer age,
and to accomplish the substitution of a more relaxed morality. And it
must even be confessed, that the commercial spirit, much as we are
indebted to it, is not naturally favourable to the maintenance of the
religious principle in a vigorous and lively state.

In times like these, therefore, the strict precepts and self-denying
habits of Christianity naturally slide into disuse; and even among the
better sort of Christians, are likely to be softened, so far at least
as to be rendered less abhorrent from the general disposition to
relaxation and indulgence. In such prosperous circumstances, men, in
truth, are apt to think very little about religion. Christianity,
therefore, seldom occupying the attention of the bulk of nominal
Christians, and being scarcely at all the object of their study, we
should expect, of course, to find them extremely un