religion, so much as to their domestic education, and to the circumstance of every one being personally known to his fellow-citizens." This, then, is the morality of self-love, calculations of worldly interest, fashion, and mere respect to man; it is the morality which has often shone brilliantly in Heathens and Deists: but I must renounce the Bible before I can accept it as Christian morality. The former rises from motives only selfish, and will follow the course of custoin and convenience: the latter is a stream from the divine fountain of holiness; its principle is LOVE to God, venera tion for his authority, and sincere delight in his LAW; and its object is an entire conformity, first of the thoughts and affections, and then of the outward character, to His pure and righteous WILL. Upon all other morality, the awful question will produce withering confusion. "Did ye it at all unto ME, even unto me?" [En ma considération, et à cause de moi? Lecêne's Version.] "Did ye not it unto your selves?" Zech. vii. 5.

Mr. B. dilates upon the impossibility of the Genevese making any attempts for the spiritual benefit of their benighted neighbours, on account of the severe intolerance of the Popish governments around them, and the political danger of provoking those governments; but he entirely overlooks the essential point of the argument, and which I had explicitly laid down. This was, that such attempts were not made at the time when those difficulties either did not exist, or were easily superable; namely, the period of sixteen or eighteen years, in which Savoy was united to France. It was during this period that the evangelical churches and societies of Great Britain, Holland and North America were labouring to extend the best of blessings in ignorant districts at home, in Ireland, and among the Heathen to the ends of the earth. Happy should I be to be contradicted in what I advanced in my first letter, and to be assured, on good grounds, that the Genevese did improve the golden opportunity, and labour to introduce the Scriptures and scriptural instruction among that "honest and simple-hearted people," as Mr. B.

calls them.

Mr. B. says, "I believe the main

object of Dr. Smith's accusations of the Genevese is, through them, to attack the English Unitarians, by representing their doctrines to be productive of gross immorality and impiety." I beg leave to reply, that I have no covert designs. My motives and objects are no other than what are openly avowed. The imputation here laid upon me is not true. But I shrink from no fair consequence of my principles, believing both the principles and their consequences to rest upon the eternal basis of scriptural authority. Those Unitarians with whom I have opportunities of intercourse would, I am assured, readily bear witness to the disposition and conduct which I habitually shew towards them. I honour them for their many personal and social excellencies, and am never backward to avow my respect. But, if I am asked whether I regard their religious system as reconcileable with the gospel of Christ, as a safe ground of trust for a sinful creature, or as a foundation on which that structure of holiness can be built which the New Testament represents as essential to the Christian character; my honest convictions, forced upon me by what seems to me the broad light of divine evidence, convictions which I cannot resist or conceal or compromise, oblige me, in faithfulness to God and man, to say, No. It is very unwelcome to write so much about one's self: but Mr. B. has compelled me.

This gentleman does me also great wrong, when he says that I have "expressed my utter contempt for moral sermons." In no part of my letters can he find such a sentiment, either expressed or implied. No one could so understand me, except by perverting what I trust I have with sufficient explicitness declared, that morality, not founded on Christian principles, is not the religion of Jesus.

He charges me with "indulging in a violence of abuse-altogether unrestrained by candour or courtesy,extreme bitterness,eninity_to_M. Chenevière and the Genevese Pastors, -hating them with perfect hatred,"

and using language which reminds us of a "mixture of coarse abuse and cant." Upon these accusations I must again appeal to the seriousness and candour of your readers. I will vindi

cate no evil passions, nor intemperate language; and if I have been guilty of either, I yield myself to censure. But let me be judged justly. The strongest expressions that I have used, have been in repelling allegations concerning doctrines, particular persons and specific facts, which I am satisfied are flagrant violations of truth. I have adduced my proofs in each case : and upon those proofs I rest the propriety of my language.

I beg leave to remark, in passing, that Mr. B. is mistaken in the insinu ations which he throws out, as if the revealed religion of the Old Testament sanctioned the indulgence of malevolent passions. The Hebrew verb usually rendered to hate, signifies, in Ps. exxxix. 22, and, in other places, to feel aversion or disgust on account of that which is wrong and base: and, in this sense, it is predicated of the best and purest minds, and even of the Deity himself. Some writers, who call themselves Christians, seem not to be aware that to discredit the revelations made to the patriarchs and prophets is, in its necessary consequence, to reject Christianity itself.

In the remaining parts of Mr. B.'s second letter I find nothing relevant to the case which does not appear to be sufficiently obviated by what I have written before. All, therefore, that I request of any reader is a fair and impartial comparison of his objections with the corresponding parts of my letters.

M. Chenevière has sent to you a paragraph, complaining that I have addressed to him injurious language, -insults instead of reasons;"-and that I was "embarrassed by a statement of facts." It is always easy to make such replies; but others must judge of their validity. I have intended him no injury. I have offered him no insult; unless it be an insult to bring EVIDENCE, as I have abundantly done, of the numerous and wide departures from truth which appear throughout his Summary. These, I presume to say, were not insults, but reasons, and weighty reasons, which it behoves M. C. very seriously to consider. I cheerfully leave to all competent and upright judges, the decision between his statements and reasonings, and those which I have opposed to them. I have no personal

VOL. XIX.

5 B

interests to serve. I would not vindicate my friends beyond what I believe to be the strict warranty of truth. I plead for nothing but liberty, integrity, and that which I am convinced is genuine Christianity. Some inconsiderable mistakes I may perhaps have committed; but I am convinced that all the main and essential parts of both my facts and my arguments are impregnable. With this conviction, I do not think myself bound to continue the controversy. Enough has been said, on both sides, to enable the impartial to judge.

I again return sincere and respectful thanks for the ample opportunity which you have afforded me, not only of pleading for religious liberty, a topic on which we are perfectly agreed; but of vindicating sentiments which you do not approve, and which have been, I fear, disagreeable to many of your readers.

J. PYE SMITH.

P. S. Nov. 18. I request permission to add an extract from the Cor respondence of a Traveller on the Continent, which appears in the London Christian Instructor for the present month. I have not the most distant idea or conjecture who the writer can be. It does not appear that he is acquainted with the state of religious parties at Geneva. He is mistaken in his account of the times of the public services. The three services on each Lord's-day, extending to an hour each, are at seven, nine_and three; besides which there is a Catechetical Exercise at four. Your readers will judge for themselves, what regard is due to the testimony of an unknown person. It is dated September 1824.

"Well; I am now at Geneva, the centre of Protestantism: here are no crosses, no reliques, no decorated altars. The eye is no longer offended with waxed and painted puppets, representing virgins, infants and crucifixions; nor is the ear amused with the audible devotions of the people; all is simple, unaffected and unpretending. But is all right? I have been unfortunate in not meeting with the friends to whom I had introductions, so that I have seen nothing of the people in their houses, and can only tell the impressions things have

M

made upon me as a passing stranger, I inquired in the streets for the best preacher, and was told that the most celebrated did not preach yesterday, but if I went to the Madelaine I should hear a minister of acknowledged talent. To the Madelaine I went. M. a man about 33 years of age, was in the pulpit. The subject was beneficence, charity and alms-giving: under these heads, so fertile in appeals to the feelings, he made an eloquent, powerful, impressive sermon. In many parts his eloquence was quite dramatic, and he drew pictures of distress, which dissolved his audience in convulsive tears! But there was not a word from beginning to end to remind his hearers that they were sin ners, not a word on the necessity of repentance, nor a syllable on the subject of faith in the great atonement. He concluded by assuring the people that they had only to go on with increasing energy, to multiply as much as possible their acts of beneficence, and they would assuredly receive their just reward of eternal life! This may, I suppose, be considered a tolerably fair specimen of the present state of pulpit instruction in this celebrated city.

"A Peruvian, who has been for the last day or two my travelling companion, was with me at church, and observed, shrewdly enough, that the sermon might have been preached to any religious sect in any part of the world, so little did it contain of that which is peculiar to Christianity.

"The religious services of the city, which began at nine in the morning, were all over by three o'clock, and at six the theatre was open, and an actor from Paris was announced to take his leave in a tragedy by VOLTAIRE!—”

establishing the justness of my arguments. But, as I fear that such an equitable comparison will not be made by all, I am induced to ask your indulgence for a few sentences. Every topic in Mr. B.'s last letter, except one, I am content to leave to the good sense and judgment of your readers; but that one is too important to be passed by. It refers, not to my opinions or feelings merely, but to the most vital doctrine of Christianity. Mr. B. (pp. 662, 663,) has selected and combined what were, in my letter, passages separated by important parts of the connexion; and thus he aims to produce, upon those readers who may not be aware of the contrivance, an impression which would be far from correct. Let me, then, intreat them to look at my third letter, (Mon. Repos. pp. 468, 469,) where they will find that my censure of M. Chenevière was founded upon his representing as licentious and inimical to the practice of good works, a book which he must have read, partially at least, and which, therefore, he could not but know to be of a perfectly opposite spirit and tendency. My language is, indeed, strong: but, if it be taken (as Mr. B. has been careful not to take it) in its connexions and with its accompanying evidence, it still appears to me not too strong for the JUSTICE of the case. I expressed those feelings which extreme misrepresentation could scarcely fail to excite: but I wish that I had repressed them, not because I consider them as not merited, but because they are harsh and irritating, and I fear that they violate the precept to "instruct in meekness those who oppose themselves" to the truth.

Yet I solemnly remonstrate with Mr. B. for representing my statements as if they had referred to personal holiness, and the unchangeable obligations of universal virtue, when they are in the plainest manner restricted to the single point of the JUSTIFICATION of a sinner in the sight of God. If he is so unacquainted with the doctrines of religion as not to be aware of this broad distinction, if none of the books of his excellent ancestors have descended to him, which might have given him the information, and if he choose not to take the trouble of a little research; he must excuse my

the other, that some soldiers" took religious tracts from terrified children, and ramming them into their pieces, boasted, We fire off the Lord"! The Genevese Government keeps a few hired soldiers in its pay, who may be much like the soldiers in other countries, but I am certain that they dare not repeat such an act, were it known to their officers, or to the magistrates; and it is as unfair to charge the Genevese with profaneness for a single act of these men, as it would be to defame the English Calvinists, for any act done by our soldiers in the Green Park.

Dr. S., finding the evidence for the immorality of the Genevese of the present day so defective, moves the charge back forty years, to 1784. This reminds us of the wolf and the lamb in the fable: "If it was not you, it was your mother"! He has also brought forward the rhapsody of M. de Joux, written twenty years since, in the time of the captivity of Geneva. It is exactly what we may every day hear well-meaning preachers in England pour forth against their own countrymen, measuring them by an imaginary standard of perfection at which society has never yet arrived. Such lamentations are of little value in aiding us to form a comparative estimate of the morals of any people. It is, however, with the present state of morals in Geneva that we are concerned, and I feel fully assured of the truth of all that I have written respecting it in my former letters.

As Dr. Smith declines the challenge to bring forward a moral comparison of the Genevese with Calvinists in other cities, I will refer your readers to the account of Holland in 1816, by Mr. James Mitchell, M. A.: "The prevailing religion is pure Calvinism: any preacher who were to oppose the tenets of Calvin, would draw upon himself the vengeance of the Synods." Notwithstanding this, Mr. Mitchell says there are 500 spiel-houses in Rotterdam alone, where unfortunate young women are purchased like slaves and kept for prostitution: respectablelooking persons bring their wives and daughters on Sunday evenings to see the girls dance. He inquired several times the number of these infamous spiel-houses, and was constantly told five hundred ! In Amsterdam, the

He

manners are much the samé. says that, on Sundays, respectable men and their families attend such houses, "and do not seem to feel any repugnance at joining in the dance with females whose society might be supposed no acquisition. It is no stain on a man's morals or piety to be present. Such things (he adds) are not exactly what we would expect from Calvinists or Presbyterians.” (Mitchell's Tour.) It appears from this account, and from that of Sir J. Carr, that Calvinism does not possess any high degree of preserving influence over the morals of a people professing it. Surely Dr. Smith and his friends, who are so zealous for the reform of Genevese heretics, would do well to direct their attention elsewhere, and visit their Calvinist brethren in Holland: but errors in conduct are considered by many religionists as trifles compared with errors of faith.

Now let us turn to Geneva. At the time that I was there, a circumstance occurred which proves in a striking manner the care that is taken to preserve young persons from moral contagion. A company of Italian operadancers, passing through the city, performed for a few nights at the theatre. During one of the representations, the gesture of an actor, which would have passed without the slightest notice on the London stage, was considered as indecorous. A magistrate who was present immediately ordered the piece to be stopped for the evening, and the spectators withdrew. Dancing in private houses, even of the first citizens, is not allowed to be continued longer than 12 o'clock at night: a heavy penalty is levied on those who violate this regulation-Among the Orthodox Genevese, according to Bishop Burnet, as I have before mentioned, secret debauchery "was managed with great address ;” but unfortunate women whose crimes became notorious, were drowned in the Rhone-which, I suppose, was regarded as washing away the sins of the people. The modern Genevese compel known prostitutes to live in one street, to prevent their mixing generally with the citizens: thus they endeavour to lessen the pernicious ef fects of an evil which it has been found impossible to annihilate in large and densely-peopled cities.