religion amongst the idolatrous nations by whom they were surrounded,
proves the natural evil tendency of the human mind after the fall of man.
And, whoever will consider the nature of the Mosaical or ceremonial law
and the manner in which it was suspended before the end of the Roman
Empire, the expiatory sacrifice of the Messiah, the fear of death
destroyed by the blessed hopes of immortality established by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and
the triumphs of Christianity over paganism in the time of Constantine,
can I think, hardly fail to acknowledge the reasonableness of the truth
of revealed religion as founded upon the early history of man; and
whoever acknowledges this reasonableness and this truth, must I think be
dissatisfied with the view which Philalethes or his genius has given of
the progress of society, and will find in it one instance, amongst many
others that might be discovered, of the vague and erring results of his
so much boasted human reason.

_Onu_.--I fear I shall shock Ambrosio, but I cannot help vindicating a
little the philosophical results of human reason, which it must be
allowed are entirely hostile to his ideas. I agree with Philalethes that
it is the noblest gift of God to man; and I cannot think that Ambrosio's
view of the paradisaical condition and the fall of man and the progress
of society is at all in conformity with the ideas we ought to form of the
institutions of an infinitely wise and powerful Being. Besides, Ambrosio
speaks of the reasonableness of his own opinions; of course his notions
of reason must be different from mine, or we have adopted different forms
of logic. I do not find in the biblical history any idea of the supreme
Intelligence conformable to those of the Greek philosophers; on the
contrary, I find Jehovah everywhere described as a powerful material
being, endowed with organs, feelings, and passions similar to those of a
great and exalted human agent. He is described as making man in His own