tort the elements, for new difcov. eries, useful only to the fpeculative theorist, and prized only for the labor they coft. His element was man. The advancement of focial happiness and order, his object. In this he has done, not fo much as a nation of philofophers, of a very different caft, have undone, but perhaps more than has been performed by any of his contemporaries, of whatever defcrip tion. capital, infefted and overrun with a diffolute horde of lazaroni, prey. ing upon the wealth of individuals, and levying an enormous tax on a too generous public, to which they had become, not only bur denfome, but formidable. When we fee this miferable rabble, always viewed with contempt, commonly, by a fatal error, as paft reform, fit only for the gloomy tenants of a prifon,and fubje&ts for legal punishment-When we fee them, not by a miracle, but by the most confummate effort of human prudence, reclaimed from their abandoned habits, to the cheerful paths of honeft induftry,adding wealth and strength to the community, to which they had been an infupportable burden con The man, who should difcover the process, to extract a wholefome, nutritive liquor from the dregs and fæces of a foul cafk, would be justly entitled to lafting praise. How much more then is due to him, who has difcovered and executed the plan of purifying the dregs of fociety, and ren--in fhort, regenerated from lidering them capable of preferv- centious beggars, to honeft, indufing themselves, and adding trious citizens-When we ftrength, fpirit, and duration, to template this truly interefting the whole? Of harmonizing its scene, we cannot withhold from waring elements, and calling the principal actor, the highest enorder out of its chaos? This has comiums, which man can bestow been the happy and honorable on man. This feene has been actemployment of Count Rumford, ed in Bavaria. It has certainly and it was worthy his purfuit. more intrinfic merit-is more inNature made him a nobleman: terefting to rich and poor, rulers and a generous, and difcerning and ruled, than all the dramas Prince, was proud to mark her that ever drew the involuntary diftinction with the ceremonial of bursts of applaufe, from an ap his feal. proving audience. To the honor of America, its author, and principal actor, was Count Rumford, a native of our foil. While Europe may justly confider him as one of her greatest benefactors, we have only to regret, that he did not make his native country the fcene of thofe improvments, which his correct and elegant pen has given us in narrative. But if we have not the benefit of his The Effays of Count Rumford are fraught with maxims, moral, prudential and politic, at once profound and practical. Had he only projected, what he has actually put in execution, he would have been entitled to the refpect of mankind, to the veneration due to a found philofopher. When we take a furvey of the Electorate of Bavaria, especially Munich its great and benevolent exertions, why fhould we not profit by his laudable example? It is worthy our emulation. Eafily reduced to practice, efpecialy in New England. Where it is more difficult, there is greater neceflity for putting it in execution. In almoft every county town, even in the Northern ftates, there are fome fickle unfortunate, idle inhabitants who need only the means of employment, and the parental authority of active, judicious overfeers, to teach them that "honefty is the beft policy," and industry the conftant and rational fource of pleafure. In most of our fea ports, there are many diffolute vagabonds, who need only proper institutions, and the exertion of refpectable, active and interested citizens to restore them to themfelves and to fociety. The difeafe is increafing. The cure can never be attempted with greater probability of fuccefs then at prefent. The laws have invefted every town with powers ample for the purpofe. The particular, methodical and confpicuous account of the plan, execution and fuccefs, purfued by Count Rumford, at Munich, on a largger fcale, minutely detailed in his Effays, may ferve in many refpects, as a model for our municipalities, on a fmaller plan. Thofe Effays in every point of view, are fo congenial to the genius of America-the purfuit of ufeful objects-that they cannot be too highly recommended to every clafs of citizens, more ef pecially to thofe responsible gentlemen, who are appointed overfeers of the poor. This refpectable clafs of citizens, might juftly confider them as neceffary to the faithful discharge of their functions, as the laws, preferibing their duty. They would find in them the greatest ftimulus, and the best directions for puttiug thofe laws in execution. The reg ulations of many focieties of the Friends or Quakers, in this country, especially at Philadelphia, prove that the example of Count Rumford is not impracticable in America. Were the most humble town to parfue this example with fpirit and perfeverance, it would raife itfelf to an envious diftinction. Were our capital feaports ferioufly to adopt the meafures purfued at Munich, they would become the worthy patterns of imitation for the country. Example would produce emulation; emulation a happy reform. The most formidable oppofers of our government will ever be found in the higher ranks of life; their moft dangerons inftruments in the loweft grades of fociety. Its filthy dregs will ever fofter the tools of faction, and its outlaws afford a ftanding corps of jacobins.Count Rumford has difcovered a method of training up these in the difcipline of order, the fchool of utility, more fure, more fafe, more honorable to humanity, and more ufeful to fociety than the difcipline of the whip, the prifon, or the pillory. It is, first to make them happy, then virtuous. [EXTRACT FROM ST. PIERRE.] REPLIES TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST DIVINE PROVIDENCE. refearches into the laws of Nature fo profoundly, never pronounced the name of God, without moving his hat, and otherwife expreffing the most devout refpect. He took pleasure in recalling this fublime idea, even in his moments of conviviality, and confidered it as the nutural bond of union among all nations. Corneille le Bruyn, the Dutch painter, relates, that happening to dine one day at his table, in company with feveral other foreigners, Newton, when the deflert was ferved up, propofed a health to the men of every country who believe in God. This was drinking the health of the human race. Is it poffible to conceive, that fo many nations, of languages and manners fo very different, and, in many cafes, of an intelligence fo contracted, fhould believe in GoD, if that belief were the refult of fome tradition, or of a profound, metaphyfical difquifition? It arifes from the fpectacle of nature fimply. A poor Arabian of the defert, ignorant as most of the Arabians are, was one day afked, How he came to be affured that there was a God?" In the fame way," replied he, "that I am able to tell, by the print impreffed on the fand, whether it was a man or a beaft which paffed that way." It is impoffible for man, as has been faid, to imagine any form, or to produce a fingle idea of He expands his reafon only on the reafons which nature has fupplied. GOD muft, therefore, neceffarily exift, were it but for this, that man has an idea of him. But if we attentively confider, that every thing, neceffary to man, exists in a molt wonderful adaptation to his neceffitics, for the Atrongest of all reafons, GoD likewife must exift, he who is the universal adaptation of all the focieties of the hu man race. But I fhould wish to know, in what way, the perfons who doubt of his existence,on a review of the works of nature, would defire to be affured of it? Do they with that he fhould appear under a human form, and affume the figure of an old man, as he is painted in our churches? They would fay, this is a man. Were he to invest himself with fome unknown and celeftial form, could we in a human body fupport the fight? The complete and unveiled dif play of even a fingle one of his works on the earth, would be fufficient to confound our feeble organs. For example, if the earth wheels round its axis, as is fuppo fed, there is not a human being in existence, who from a fixed point in the Heavens, could view the rapidity of its motion without horror; for he would behold rivers, oceans, kingdoms whirling 'about under his feet, with a velocity almoft thrice as great as that of a cannon ball. But even the 1 fwiftnefs of this diurnal rotation is a mere nothing: For the rapidity, with which the globe defcribes its annual circle, and hurls us -round the fun, is feventy five times greater than that of a bullet fhot from the cannon. Were it but poffible for the eye to view thro' the fkin, the mechanifm of our own body, the fight would overwhelm us. Durft we make a fingle movement, if we faw our blood circulating, the nerves pulling, the lungs blowing, the humours filtrating, and all the incomprehenfible affemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, currents, pivots, which fuftain an existence, at once fo frail and fo prefumptuous. Would we wifh, on the contrary, that God fhould manifeft himself in a manner more adapted to his own nature, by the direct and immediate communication of his intelligence, to the exclufion of every intervenient mean? Archimedes, who had a mind capable of fuch intenfe application, as not to be disturbed from his train of thought, by the fack of Syracufe, in which he loft his life, went almost distracted, from the fimple perception of a geometrical truth, of which he fuddenly caught a glimpfe. He was pondering, while in the bath, the means of discovering the quantity of alloy which a rafcally goldsmith had mixed in Hiero's golden crown; and having found it, from the analogy of the different weight of his own body, when in the water,and out of it, he fprung from the bath, naked as he was, and ran like a madman through the streets of Syracufe, calling out, I have found it! I have found it! Eee When fome striking truth, or fome affecting fentiment, happens to lay hold of the audience at a theatre, you see some melted into tears, others almost choaked with an oppreffed refpiration, others quite in a tranfport, clapping their hands, and ftamping with their feet; the females in the boxes actually fainting away. Were these violent agitations of fpirit to go on progreffively but for a few minutes only, the perfons fubject to them might lofe their reafon, perhaps their life. What would be the cafe, then, if the fource of all truth, and of all feeling, were to communicate himself to us in a mortal body? GOD has placed us at a fuitable distance from his infinite majefty; near enough to have a perception of it, but not fo near as to be annihilated by it. He veils his intelligence from us under the forms of matter; and he restores our confidence respecting the movements of the material world by the fentiment of his intelligence. If at any time he is pleafed to communicate himself in a more intimate manner, it is not through the channel of haughty science, but through that of our virtue. He difclofes himfelf to the fimple, and hides his face from the proud. "But," it is asked, "What made GoD? Why should there be a God?" Am I to call in queftion his exiftence, because I am incapable of comprehending his origin? This ftyle of reafoning would enable us to conclude, that man does not exift: For, who made men? Why should there be men? Why am I in the world in the eighteenth century? Why did I not arrive in fome of the ages which went before? And, wherefore fhould I not be here in those which are to come? The exiftence of God is at all times neceffary, and that of man is but contingent. Nay, this is not all; the exiltence of man is the only existence apparently fuperfluous in the order established upon the earth. Many iflands have been difcovered without inhabitants, which prefented abodes the most enchanting, from the difpofition of the valleys, of the waters, of the woods, of the animals. Man a lone deranges the plans of nature: He diverts the current from the fountain; he digs into the fide of the hill; he fets the foreft on fire; be maffacres without mercy every thing that breathes; every where he degrades the earth, which could do very well without him. The harmony of this globe would be partially destroyed, perhaps entirely fo, were but the fmalleft, and, feemingly, most infignificant, genus of plants to be fuppreffed; for its annihilation would leave a certain fpace of ground deftitute of verdure, and thereby rob of its nourishment the fpecies of infect which there found the fupport of life. The deftruction of the infect, again, would involve that of the fpecies of bird, which in thefe alone finds the food proper for their young; and fo on to infinity. The total ruin of the vegetable and animal kingdoms might take its rife from the failure of a fingle mofs, as we may fee that of an edifice commence in a small crevice. But if the human race exifted not, it would be impoffible to fuppofe that any thing had been deranged: Every brook, every plant, every animal, would always be in its place. Indolent and haughty Philofopher, who prefumeft to demand of nature, wherefore there fhould be a God, why demandest thou not rather wherefore there fhould be men? All his works fpeak of their author. The plain which gradually efcapes from my eye, and the capacious vault of heaven which incompaffes me on every fide, convey to me an idea of his immenfity; the fruits fufpended on the bough within reach of my hand, announce his providential care; the voice of the tempest proclaims his power; the conftant revolution of the feafons difplays his wisdom; the variety of provifion which his bounty makes, in every climate, for the wants of every thing that lives, the ftately port of the forefts, the foft verdue of the meadow, the grouping of plants, the perfume and enamel of flowers, and infinite multitude of harmonies, known and unknown, are the magnificent languages which fpeak of him to all men, in a thousand and a thoufand differ ent dialects. Nay, the very order of Nature is fuperfluous: GoD is the only Being whom diforder invokes, and whom human weakness announces. In order to attain the knowledge of his attributes, we need only to have a feeling of our own imperfections. Oh! how fublime is that prayer, how congenial to the heart of Man, |