life from the death of ages, offered them by the martyrs, and champions of renovated Christianity, it fared well with those who accepted the glorious boon, and ill with those nations who clung the closer to the rotten hierarchy of the papal church. Germany, baptized in the waters of salvation, hailed her most glorious days; education, along with holiness, diffused immortal splendor through all the Helvetic clime. But France, second only to the Latin fortress of the See Apostolic, clung to the mitred crown and lent her strength to him who had, in his attributes, exalted himself above all that was called God. Learning no wisdom from the loss of kingdom after kingdom, Papacy still adhered to its assumption of power over earth and heaven, over life and limb, as well as over the undying soul, which the stern prayers of the Church tossed in its purgatorial sufferings, like those forbidden to rest when the torments of earthly penance and ghostly absolution were over. The natural retreat to one whose reason refused to swallow down the enormously distended mass of miracle and saint, the mingled rites of heathen worship and christian ceremonies, would be infidelity. Infidelity was born in the bosom of the Romish Church? The Infidels of France played with the infernal passions of men as with fiery serpents. The broad experiment was made whether earth could at once be turned into a hell of furious execration, and summary bloodshed. Heaven was to have been robbed at once of every expected accession from earth; and, in contemptuous mockery of the dead, the inscriptions of the cemeteries declared that death was an ete. al sleep. The Sabbath became a decade of mirth, such as the Creator had never sanctioned. The shining talents, and learning, the wit of the age, became auxiliaries to the new and amazing theories of licencious systems, and grovelling practices. Infidels seemed amazed at the long bondage under which they supposed themselves to have been groaning a bondage to moral precepts, to good order and religious principles. Awake, at length, they determined to enjoy their new found freedom and all creation opened before them where they might prowl, and lay rapacious hands on riches they had never earned, honors they had never deserved-making havoc of beauty, virtue, and the loveliest beings that had ever adorned the circles of social life and the duties of affection and constancy, The measures pursued by these fiends in human form to propagate their principles, or to destroy the pure, confiding faith of the humble christian, were ridicule, violence, death. Voltaire, with a perpetual sneer woven into the fibres of his countenance, used the artillery of wit, sarcasm, and ridicule to overthrow the religion and the name of Jesus Christ. 'Crush the wretch,' was the motto of infidelity, which passed like a watch-word from kingdom to kingdom in the darkened conclaves of the Illuminati. The reckless deeds of proscription, violence, and death were done by Danton, Robespiere, Marat, and the hell-hounds who licked the blood of the guillotine, and howled their orgies amidst death-groans, and the shrieks of murder. History has never had crimson deep enough to paint these bloody scenes. Here, Modern Infidel, was thy beginning! Here the young monster, abominable to earth and heaven, was baptized in the blood of infants, of maidens, of youths, of matrons, and virtuous men. Hell celebrated with her horrid orgies this new era of human inisery, as if man had fallen once again from a state of wo to a deeper ruin. Too much for heaven to bear, the sin of this dreadful time was not permitted with impunity. Left to their own counsels, the millions of infidelity were for a time like hungry wolves that leave the sheep-fold desolate to prey upon each other, until few were left to howl in the madness and torment of their punishment. The terrible agony of this period humbled no one. Men gnashed their teeth, blasphemed against heaven and repented not. Foiled in its work of bloody extermination, Infidelity went into the schools and universities to poison the fountain of happiness. Germany, eminent for literature and science, was caught in the snare of the adversary. In the struggle for classical eminence, the student of the German gymnasia and universities were taught in their exegesis of heathen authors to imbibe as it were the very vitality of the writer; they were to translate themselves back to the time in which he lived and wrote; they were to drink in the religious opinions, receive his notions of mythology, and think his thoughts with the same eagerness of pursuit and absorbed mind they should have done the oracles of inspiration. The legitimate consequence has been that all religious opinions, with the exception of the truth itself exerted an equal influence over the youthful mind. It soon became no matter whether the Deity was 'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.' This is the legitimate cause, doubtless, of all the unsanctified literature of Germany-and offers no argument against education if it be sufficiently guarded with a salutary religious influence. It is preposterous for Christians to go back to heathenism for religion. German neology as well as the more barefaced and unblushing infidelity of French derivation have deeply affected society in England and in this country. Indeed, where have they not gone poisoning the happiness of man in time, and obscuring the glory of his eternity, in the same proportion that they weakened his responsibility and clouded over the brightness of his immortality. Infidelity is now old enough to see that every blow, it has thus far struck against the sublime and awfully venerable fabric of Christianity, has rebounded with accelerated momentum against its own fortress. Voltaire little thought that his infidel tracts would furnish the hint for a religious movement that should wrest every victory from his hands and leave him a shorn, weak, and blasted man, trembling on the bed of death-his name linked to infamy and moral deformity forever. He little thought that the very identical press which vomited forth his blasphemous scoffings should, in a few years, become a hallowed instrument in the hands of benevolence and Christian charity of diffusing light over those fields he was clouding with mental darkness. The world became afraid of Infidelity under its first bloody type. Fear fell on the nations. Oh, never, never, said they, while time wanders onward towards eternity, let us see the gory scenes, the headless trunks, the spouting life-blood, the maniac features of a revolution in favor of infidelity. Never, said they, while earth adds page to page of her fearful history, may the startling ghosts of a thousand hellish monsters again cross our vision-and, never again may demons rock the cradle of empire with clotted fangs, or gaze on the infancy of a new dynasty, with burning, blood-shot eyes. If we mistake not, the more serpent-like, insinuating, and covered infidelity of the later school is soon destined to become the loathing of the nations, and beget a deeper re-action than even the bloody reign of terror. JERUSALEM OVERTHROWN. Compassed with armies-rent with war-- What wait Judea's millions for, A better or a worse? Pierced with the brazen engine beam Gray walls, like storm-clouds torn, |