N° 87.

TUESDAY, March 7, 1780.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and, as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, fo is the other. BACON.

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HHRE is in the mind of man a fund of fuperftition, which, in all nations, in all ages, and in all religions, has been attended with effects powerful and extraordinary. In this refpect, no one people feem intitled to boaft of any fuperiority over the rest of mankind. All seem, at one time or other, to have been alike the flaves of a weak, a childish, or a gloomy fuperftition. When we behold the Romans, wife and great as they were, regulating their conduct, in their most important affairs, by the accidental flight of birds; or, when threatened by fome national calamity, creating a dictator for the fole purpose of driving a nail into a door, in order to avert the impending judgment of Heaven, we are apt, according to the humour we are in, to fimile at the folly, or to lament the weakness of human nature.

A little reflection, however, is fufficient to fhew, that, with all our advantages, we ourselves are, in this particular, equally weak and abfurd.

abfurd. The modern citizen of Rome, who thinks he can appeafe an offended Deity, by creeping on his knees up the steps of St. Peter's fo many times a day; or the pious Neapolitan, who imagines that carrying forth the relics of St. Januarius, is fufficient to stop an eruption of mount Vefuvius; are equal objects of pity with the good Roman, who devoutly affisted at driving the nail into the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

It is amufing to obferve the conduct of our first reformers in this particular. Their penetration led them to discover the grofs errors and manifold fuperftitions of the church of Rome; and their fpirit and ftrength of mind, aided by fortunate circumftances, enabled them to fet themselves free from thofe fhackles in which Europe had been held for fo many ages. But no fooner had they done fo, than they and their followers adopted another mode of fuperftition, in the place of that which it had coft them fo much pains to pull down. To maffes, and crucifixes, and images, were fubftituted a precife Severity of manner, and long sermons, and a certain mode of fanctifying the Sabbath, which were inculcated as conftituting the fum of virtue, and as comprehending the whole duty of a Christian. So ingenious are men in finding out fomething to put in the place of true piety and VOL. III.

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virtue!

virtue! - Neither is this confined to one religion or to one fect. To the same cause must be attributed, the broad brim and plain coat of the Quaker, the ablutions of the Gentoo, the pilgrimages of the Mahometan, the severe fasts obferved in the Greek church, with numberlefs other inftances that might be mentioned.

There is a species of fuperftition, which, perhaps, might be traced back to a fimilar origin, that often lays ftrong hold of the imagination; and fills the mind with terrors and apprehenfions, which reafon and philofophy have not power to eradicate, when once they have fairly got hold of us. Of this fort is the dread of apparitions, of fpirits, and of witches. Mr. Addison, in an excellent paper in the Spectator, has fhewn the folly of thofe apprehenfions, and has cautioned parents to be particularly careful to preserve their children from thofe little horrors of imagination, which they are apt to contract when they are young, and are not able to hake off when they grow up. He justly obferves, that, next to a clear judgment and a good confcience, a found imagination is the greatest bleffing of life. Perhaps it might be going too far to attribute to this essay of Mr. Addison the reformation fo strongly recommended by him. It is, however, certain, that all thefe apprehenfions, formerly productive of fo much

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much real uneafinefs, are now, in a great meafure, unknown. We have fo far fucceeded in plucking the old woman out of our hearts; and we no longer fee a brave foldier afraid to walk through a dark paffage, or an intrepid failor fhrink with horror at the thought of paffing the night in a folitary apartment.

There is, however, another weaknefs fomewhat a-kin to this, that, I am afraid, ftill prevails among us, which my fondness for children, and the pleasure I find in prattling with them, give me frequent opportunities of obferving. I mean, a custom of terrifying children, and filling their young minds with gloomy apprehenfions of death. This is one of the most common methods employed by ignorant nurfery-maids, and foolish parents, to frighten infants into obedience. But nothing can be more abfurd, or attended with more pernicious confequences. Were a perfon of a timid frame of mind under a neceffity of croffing the ocean, would it be the part of a friend to magnify the danger, and to amuse him, all the way to the port where he was to embark, with accounts of forms and tempefts, and with a fearful picture of the many and various hazards to which he must be exposed on the voyage?

A wife parent, attentive to the future happinefs of his children, ought to follow a very different

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different rule of conduct. From their earliest infancy, he ought to make the idea of death familiar to them; he ought to accuftom them to look upon it, not only without fear, but with the fame indifference as on any other unavoidable occurrence to which they are daily expofed. By this means they will, as they advance in life, be led to confider it as a friend rather than an enemy; they will perceive that, but for death, this world would be a prifon more dreadful than any the most cruel tyrant ever invented; they will look forward to it as the only period to the cares of this life,—as a happy paffage to that better world, where only they can expect a complete reward for a faithful discharge of their duty in this.

However abfurd a dread of witches and apparitions may be, the confequences attending it are not fo bad as thofe that flow from the fear of death. The one, it is true, fills the mind with many difagreeable apprehenfions, and caufes many uneafy moments; but the other unfits a man for discharging his duty in fociety, and too often expofes him to infamy and difgrace. Courage is a quality that depends, in fome measure, on the conftitution of the body and it has been obferved, that the fame individual is not, at all times, and upon all occafions, equally brave. I cannot help being of opinion, however,