sinful passion and corrupt propensity; as if the facility with which they fall into the snare of the devil, and are taken captive by him, did not equally prove that permanent tendency to wrong which showed that the heart was deceitful and desperately wicked. What is commonly called (and very frequently is) temptation, is often ascribed to this especial agency, when it really consists in the aptitude of the mind for certain evil modes of action, which are embraced when presented to it, because there exists a corresponding feeling, a principle from within, harmoniously combining with every outward ac. tion of a similar character.

Another step in advance, and we meet the whole tribe of dreams, visions, reveries, and the like, frequently the offspring of recollected impressions disjoined from their original trains of association; or resulting from a bad habit of indulging the love of mental wandering without guidance, or fixed rule, or definite object; or depending upon the organ of mind, variously irritated by immediate or intermediate connexion or sympathy with the morbid action of such other organ of the body as may happen to form the nucleus of that preponderating disorder of function which overturns the balance of health.

Next appears for consideration the lengthened

train of vulgar prophecies.-We need not go beyond the instance of Johanna Southcote, to perceive that there is no folly so great but that it will find a corresponding trait of imbecility in the character of many with which it readily assimilates; and if this future should happen to possess a pretended association with religion, the dupe of the designing, or of the infatuated and misled, may become the disciple, or the founder, of a new sect, a zealous partizan of its views, a devotee to his newly-formed opinions, and a worshipper at the altar he has erected; he receives the seal of his safety, and becomes the fully-formed enthusiast.

One step more in the descending scale of credulity, and we meet with a belief in the performance of vulgar miracles: as if the Author of nature would permit his laws to be interrupted, except to prove his own Divinity, to show that His is the creative power, that this power is superior to the laws of the universe, and that therefore he is God. Of the claims to miraculous agency in these latter days, the history of animal magnetism may be referred entirely to a well-timed employment of certain known physical laws on the part of the designing magnetizer, and to the influence of an exalted imagination under such physical agency on the part

of the magnetized. The sacred advantages arising from the possession of the Holy Scapular,* may be adjusted, partly by the selfish and avaricious influence of a crafty priesthoodpartly by the falsehood of the narrative-and partly by purely physical and mechanical agency. The existence of Anne Moore without taking any sustenance, has been satisfactorily traced to imposture; and the astonishing cures of Prince Hohenlohe, if authentic, are to be explained upon the principle of unlimited credence, producing such an effect upon the animal fibre as to suspend for a time the morbid action which was previously going on; and which, in certain constitutions, might then be entirely superseded by the commencement of a new train of healthy associations. The same explanation will apply to the agency of charms in dispelling the returns of ague, and other in

* Some of my readers may not be aware that the Holy Scapular is supposed to be in imitation of a portion of the dress of the Virgin Mary, which, having been consecrated by the priest and sold to the people, will defend the purchaser and wearer from many imminent dangers, from death in a thousand forms, and from various other evils The history of the Holy Scapular forms an interesting and valuable monument of the influence of a secular priesthood, and of the degradation of human nature, by which it is placed in a situation for believing such monstrous absurdities, and for revering, nay adoring their authors!

termittent irritations depending upon a law of the nervous system, by which a certain periodicity of action is observed; and the same functions, whether healthy or diseased, commence at similar hours, and are continued by habit, and by the persistence of similar conditions.

To this enumeration may be added, lastly, the whole system of dupery, involved by the mystic science of astrology, and its pigmy offspring-divination, casting nativities, and fortune-telling. The influence of this latter form of superstition upon the mind, is very considerable; and even at the present hour exerts an agency, far greater than could be believed by those who contemplate the barefaced knavery which it involves, had it not been actually traced by others who have obtained extensive opportunities of observation; aye, and this agency is exerted even upon those whose minds by education and situation ought to have been exempted from this grossest fanaticism. Now all these several forms of superstition may be referred to one or more of the following causes.

I. The most fruitful source of superstition, and indeed that which characterises every other cause, is the belief of that which is false, or contrary to reason and revelation, as regards the agency of a Divine power. The God of

the Christian is a being of infinite mercy and love; his compassion is unbounded; he pities the wanderings of his creatures; he is slow to anger; his knowledge, his wisdom, and his power, are equalled only by his benevolence and tenderness. And although his children have broken his laws, forgotten his precepts, and incurred the penalties due to their disobedience, he is anxious to receive them back to his favour; he waits to be gracious; he will be found of those who seek him; he will blot out their iniquities, and will no more remember their transgressions, but will be reconciled to them through the sacrifice of Christ; and they shall become his people, and walk in his ways, and love and serve and fear him.

Not so the divinity of superstition, or false religion. The prominent attribute of every such form of worship, is that of an irrevocable fatalism: the decree has passed, and cannot be altered; infinite knowledge is exchanged for predetermination of the will, which nought can change; the justice of a pure and Holy Being is supplanted by the capricious declaration of a changing mortal; the smile of pity is superseded by the frown of vengeance; the anger of Him, who "willeth not the death of a sinner," but rather that "he turn unto Him and live;"