thereof, I shall now with equal deference and submission to wiser
judgments as before, proceed to mention a few inconveniences that may
happen, if the Gospel should be repealed, which perhaps the projectors
may not have sufficiently considered.

And first, I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure
are apt to murmur, and be choqued[18] at the sight of so many draggled
tail parsons, that happen to fall in their way, and offend their eyes,
but at the same time, these wise reformers do not consider what an
advantage and felicity it is, for great wits to be always provided with
objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their
talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other or on
themselves, especially when all this may be done without the least
imaginable danger to their persons.

[Footnote 18: Shocked Swift's habit when using a word of French origin
was to keep the French spelling. [T. S.]]

And to urge another argument of a parallel nature. If Christianity were
once abolished, how could the freethinkers, the strong reasoners, and
the men of profound learning, be able to find another subject so
calculated in all points whereon to display their abilities? What
wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of, from those whose
genius by continual practice hath been wholly turned upon raillery and
invectives against religion, and would therefore never be able to shine
or distinguish themselves upon any other subject! We are daily
complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would we take away
the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left? Who would ever have
suspected Asgil for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the
inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them