ngth
grown into the condition which has been here stated; it is but too
obvious, that, in the bulk of the community, Religion, already sunk very
low, must be hastening fast to her entire dissolution. Causes, energetic
and active like these, though accidental hindrances may occasionally
thwart their operation, will not at once become sluggish and
unproductive. Their effect is sure; and the time is fast approaching,
when Christianity will be almost as openly disavowed in the language, as
in fact it is already supposed to have disappeared from the conduct of
men; when infidelity will be held to be the necessary appendage of a man
of fashion, and _to believe_ will be deemed the indication of a feeble
mind and a contracted understanding.

Something like what have been here premised are the conjectures which we
should naturally be led to form, concerning the state of Christianity in
this country, and its probable issue, from considering her own nature,
and the peculiar circumstances in which she has been placed. That her
real condition differs not much from the result of this reasoning from
probability, must, with whatever regret, be confessed by all who take a
careful and impartial survey of the actual situation of things among us.
But our hypothetical delineation, if just, will have approved itself to
the reader's conviction, as we have gone along, by suggesting its
archetypes; and we may therefore be spared the painful and invidious
task of pointing out, in detail, the several particulars wherein our
statements are justified by facts. Every where we may actually trace the
effects of increasing wealth and luxury, in banishing one by one the
habits, and new-modelling the phraseology, of stricter times; and in
diffusing throughout the middle ranks those relaxed morals and
dissipated manners, which were formerly confined to the higher classes
of society. We meet, indeed, with more refinement, and more generally
with those amiable courtesies which are its proper fruits: those vices
also have become less frequent, which naturally infest the darkness of a
ruder and less polished age, and which recede on the approach of light
and civilization:

Defluxit numerus Saturnius, & grave virus
Munditiae pepulere:

But with these grossnesses, Religion, on the other hand, has also
declined; God is forgotten; his providence is exploded; his hand is
lifted up, but we see it not; he multiplies our comforts, but we are not
grateful;