themselves; for He who sent us is able to exact most severe vengeance
for the ill treatment of His ministers."

"Very true, sir," cries the young one; "and I heartily hope He will;
but those punishments are at too great a distance to infuse terror
into wicked minds. The government ought to interfere with its
immediate censures. Fines and imprisonments and corporal punishments
operate more forcibly on the human mind than all the fears of
damnation."

"Do you think so?" cries the doctor; "then I am afraid men are very
little in earnest in those fears."

"Most justly observed," says the old gentleman. "Indeed, I am afraid
that is too much the case."

"In that," said the son, "the government is to blame. Are not books of
infidelity, treating our holy religion as a mere imposture, nay,
sometimes as a mere jest, published daily, and spread abroad amongst
the people with perfect impunity?"

"You are certainly in the right," says the doctor; "there is a most
blameable remissness with regard to these matters; but the whole blame
doth not lie there; some little share of the fault is, I am afraid, to
be imputed to the clergy themselves."

"Indeed, sir," cries the young one, "I did not expect that charge from
a gentleman of your cloth. Do the clergy give any encouragement to
such books? Do they not, on the contrary, cry loudly out against the
suffering them? This is the invidious aspersion of the laity; and I