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THE

SCEPTICAL YOUNG OFFICER.

EVERY one has remarked the mixed, and often ill-assorted company which meets in a public packet or stage coach. The conversation, with all its variety, is commonly insipid, frequently disgusting, and sometimes insufferable. There are exceptions. An opportunity now and then occurs of spending an hour in a manner not unworthy of rational beings; and the incidents of a stage-coach produce or promote salutary impressions.

A few years ago, one of the stages which ply between our two principal cities, was filled with a group which could never have been drawn together by mutual choice. In the company was a young man of social temper, affable manners, and considerable information. His accent was barely sufficient to show that the English was not his native tongue, and a very slight peculiarity in the pronunciation of the th ascertained him to be a Hollander. He had early entered into military life; had borne both a Dutch and French commission had seen real service, had travelled, was master of the English language; and evinced, by his deportment, that he was no stranger to the society of gentlemen. He had, however, a fault too common among military men, and too absurd to find an advocate among men of sense: he swore profanely and incessantly.

While the horses were changing, a gentleman who sat on the same seat with him took him by the arm, and requested the favour of his company in a short walk. When they were so far retired as not to be overheard, the former observed, "Although I have not the honour of your acquaintance, I perceive, Sir, that your habits and feelings are those of a gentleman, and that nothing can be more repugnant to your wishes than giving unnecessary pain to any of your company." He started, and replied, "Most certainly, Sir! I hope I have committed no offence of that sort."

"You will pardon me," replied the other, "for pointing out an instance in which you have not altogether avoided it." "Sir," said he, "I shall be much your debtor for so friendly an act for, upon my honour, I cannot conjecture in what I have transgressed."

"If you, sir," continued the former, "had a very dear friend, to whom you were under unspeakable obligations,

should you not be deeply wounded by any disrespect tc him, or even by hearing his name introduced and used with a frequency of repetition and a levity of air incompatible with the regard due to his character ?"

"Undoubtedly, and I should not permit it; but I know not that I am chargeable with indecorum to any of your friends."

"Sir, my God is my best friend, to whom I am under infinite obligations. I think you must recollect that you have very frequently, since we commenced our journey, taken his name in vain. This has given to me and to others of the company excruciating pain.'

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"Sir," answered he, with very ingenuous emphasis, "I have done wrong. I confess the impropriety. I am ashamed of a practice which I am sensible has no excuse; but I have imperceptibly fallen into it, and I really swear without being conscious that I do so. I will endeavour to abstain from it in future; and as you are next me in the seat, I shall thank you to touch my elbow as often as I trespass.' This was agreed upon the horn sounded, and the travellers resumed their places.

For the space of four or five miles the officer's elbow was jogged every few seconds. He always coloured, but bowed, and received the hint without the least symptom of displeasure; but in a few miles more he so mastered his propensity to swearing, that not an oath was heard from his lips for the rest, which was the greater part of the journey.

He was evidently more grave; and having ruminated some time, after surveying first one and then another of the company, turned to his admonisher, and addressed him thus: "You are a clergyman, I presume, Sir."

"I am considered as such." He paused; and then, with a smile, indicated his disbelief in Divine revelation, in a way which invited conversation on that subject.

"I have never been able to convince myself of the truth of revelation,"

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Possibly not. But what is your difficulty ?"

"I dislike the nature of its proofs. They are so subtle, so distant, so wrapt in mystery, so metaphysical, that I get lost, and can arrive at no certain conclusion."

"I cannot admit the fact to be as you represent it. My impressions are altogether different. Nothing seems to me more plain and popular; more level to every common understanding; more remote from all cloudy speculation, or teasing subtleties, than some of the principal proofs of Divine

revelation. They are drawn from great and incontestible facts; they are accumulating every hour. They have grown into such a mass of evidence, that the supposition of its falsehood is infinitely more incredible than any one mystery in the volume of revelation, or even than all their mysteries put together. Your inquiries, Sir, appear to have been unhappily directed: but what sort of proof do you desire, and what would satisfy you?"

"Such proofs as accompany physical science. This I have always loved; for I never find it deceive me. I rest upon it with entire conviction. There is no mistake, no dispute in mathematics. And if a revelation comes from God, why have we not such evidence for it as mathematical demonstration ?"

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Sir, you are too good a philosopher not to know, that the nature of evidence must be adapted to the nature of its object; that if you break in upon this adaptation, you will have no evidence at all; seeing that evidence is no more interchangeable than objects. If you ask for mathematical evidence, you must confine yourself to mathematical disquisitions. Your subject must be quantity. If you wish to pursue a moral investigation, you must quit your mathematics, and confine yourself to moral evidence. Your subject must be the relations which subsist between intelligent beings. It would be quite as wise to apply a rule in ethics to the calculation of an eclipse, as to call for Euclid when we want to know our duty, or to submit the question, whether God has spoken,' to the test of a problem in the conic sections. How would you prove mathematically that bread nourishes men, and that fevers kill them? Yet you and I both are as firmly convinced of the truth of these propositions, as of any mathematical demonstration whatever; and should I call them in question, my neighbours would either pity me as an idiot, or shut me up as a madman. It is therefore, a great mistake to suppose, that there is no satisfactory nor certain evidence but what is reducible to mathematics.'

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This train of reflection appeared new to him. Yet, though staggered, he made an effort to maintain his ground, and lamented that the "objections to other modes of reasoning are numerous and perplexing, while the mathematical conclusion puts all scepticism at defiance."

"Sir," rejoined the clergyman, "objections against a thing fairly proved, are of no weight. The proof rests upon our knowledge, and the objections upon our ignorance. It is true, that moral demonstrations and religious doctrines

may be attacked in a very ingenious and plausible manner, because they involve questions on which our ignorance is greater than our knowledge; but still our knowledge is knowledge, or, in other words, our certainty is certainty. In mathematical reasoning our knowledge is greater than our ignorance. When you have proved that the three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles, there is an end of doubt; because there are no materials for ignorance to work up into phantoms; but your knowledge is really no more certain than your knowledge on any other subject. There is also deception in this matter. The defect complained of is supposed to exist in the nature of the proof: whereas it exists, for the most part, in the mind of the inquirer. It is impossible to tell how far the influence of human depravity obscures the light of human reason.

At the mention of "depravity," the officer smiled, and seemed inclined to jest; probably suspecting, as is common with men of that class, that his antagonist was going to retreat into his creed, and intrench himself behind a technical term, instead of an argument. The triumph was premature.

"You do not imagine, sir," said he, continuing his disCourse to the officer, " you do not imagine that a man who has been long addicted to stealing, feels the force of reasoning against theft as strongly as a man of tried honesty. If you hesitate, proceed a step further. You do not imagine that an habitual thief feels as much abhorrence of his own trade and character as a man who never committed an act of theft in his whole life. And you will not deny that the practice of any crime gradually weakens, and frequently destroys, the sense of its turpitude. This is a strong fact, which, as a philosopher, you are bound to explain. To me it is clear as the day, that his vice has debauched his intellect; for it is indisputable, that the considerations which once filled him with horror, produce now no more impression upon him than they would produce upon a horse. Why? Has the vice changed? Have the considerations changed? No. No. The vice is as pernicious, and the considerations are as strong as ever. But his power of perceiving truth is diminished, and diminished by his vice; for, had he not fallen into it, the considerations would have remained; and, (should he be saved from it,) they would resume their original force upon his mind. Permit yourself, for one moment, to reflect how hard it is to persuade men of the virtues of others, against whom they are prejudiced! You shall bring no proof of the virtues which the prejudice shall not resist or evade. Remove

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