are under to the Philosophism of the age, there is one maxim, which is calculated to damp all the noblest exertions of the human intellect to check the current of honest inquiry, at once-and to encourage the baneful exercises of infidelity in every possible direction and extent. The maxim, I mean, is, The innocence of error." For, if error be innocent, the research of truth is scarcely worth the pursuit.

What then! instead of cultivating that mental dignity, and soaring into those regions of discovery, for which we were formed, are we so groveling, as to think it harmless to deviate into the wilds of mistake and delusion, though surrounded with the means of light and knowledge? Can we deem it innocent, to indulge any false conceptions of the nature, perfections, and will, of the divine Being, or of religion, of virtue, and of morals, when the richest sources of the most correct information are put into our hands? Far be it from us.

to relax and paralyze all our intellectual faculties, either by reposing in the castle of indolence and apathy; or, by rioting in the depravities of sense and appetite; or, by the adoption of a principle so fatal to those investigations, which are among the most pure and refined distinctions of the human kind*. Truth is a treasure of

"Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in Charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of TRUTH. It is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed on the sea: a pleasure, to tand at the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof, below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing on the vantage-ground of Truth, and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests of the vale beneath; so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride." BACON'S ESSAYS;

I perfectly agree with a philosophical writer, whom I cannot always approve, when he says, "A careful observation of Truth, the way to Happiness, and the practice of Reason, are in the issue the same thing. For, of the two last, each falls in with the first; and, therefore, each with other. They are all in the same interest, and conspire to advance and perfect human nature: and the best definition which can be given of Religion is, that it is The pursuit of Happiness, by the practice of Truth and Reason."

such value, that it cannot be purchased at too dear a rate; and the words of a very ancient philosopher would be no dishonour to more enlightened times than those, in which he flourished:Χαίρειν εν εασας τας Τιμας τας των πολλων άνθρωπων, την ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ σκοπών, πειρασομαι τω οντι ως αν δύνωμαι βέλτιςος ων και ζην, και επειδαν αποθνησκω, αποθνησκειν. "Wherefore, bidding farewel to the honours of the multitude, and having my eye upon TRUTH, I will really endeavour, as far as I am able, to live in the best manner I can; and when I die, to die so."

But, without enlarging unnecessarily on a maxim, which is fraught with infinite mischief, and which therefore ought never to be noticed, but to be exposed, if Truth, whether in the mind, or in the expression, be the conception and the representation of things as they really are, a man must be lost either to good sense, or to rational consideration, who will be an avowed advocate for the innocence of conceiving or

of representing things, as they are not. A Child, an Idiot, or a Maniac, might be allowed such wretched imbecility; but, in any higher character, it ought only to provoke our contempt. Effectually to subvert this poisonous maxim, let us strive to establish that of the Grecian sage, Ορθον η Αληθεί αει. “ Truth is always right.” If so, Error is always wrong.

"None sends his arrow to the mark in view,
"Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue.
"For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing,
«Or when it first forsakes th' elastic string,
"It err but little from th' intended line,
"It falls, at last, far wide of his design."

From that principle of Benevolence, by which we ought to be universally actuated,

*Is it not surprising, that the advocates for the harmlessness of error should be so lost to common sense, and so destitute of good sense, as not to have discovered, what is so very obvious to the meanest capacity? Having taken but one false step out of the way of truth, every additional step we take must remove us the farther from it. «For, when the mind, that compleat machine, has its first wheel set wrong, which gives movement to every other, though all the rest go right, the whole will terminate in wrong."

I have felt much secret concern in observing, of late, how many persons, whose literary endowments may be justly ranged in the highest class, have perverted them in the service of the Maxim, I have here presumed to hold up to public detestation. I should think myself entitled to far greater applause, from minds the most estimable, for employing my glimmering taper in conducting one modest inquirer into The temple of truth, than in displaying their splendid torch, to mislead unwary admirers into the devious mazes of scepticism, or error. Let the vanity of others be gratified, in advancing sophism; let ours be the more honourable and easy labour, of promoting and embracing truth. The whole World ought to be the Temple of truth.

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To the adoption of this maxim, however, incontestible as it is, and so very superior to that I have just dismissed, there are, it is to be feared, two almost insurmountable barriers-Passion, and Preju