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 uncertain, fluctuating, interrupted happiness at the very best; or, perhaps, an almost uninterrupted series of everlasting calamities; for chance may be always against him. All men are therefore by this scheme, rendered anxious about the future state of existence—good men are discouraged and depressed in their enterprizes of virtue—wicked men are placed in very disconsolate circumstances, for they are deprived of the most powerful motives to reform their evil courses, and to pursue the greatest and most important happiness of their being. To be cut off from the possibility of obtaining the enjoyment of pure and immortal pleasure, is what few, even of the most corrupt and degenerate of men would wish to be their inevitable portion; for they generally sin with the hope of securing the gratifications of both worlds. But Atheism does cut them off from the assured expectation of any pleasures beyond the narrow limit of mortality; for it supposes the nonexistence of that God, who can, and has promised to bestow them. And this is the peculiar baseness and infamy of it, that it ruins the most glorious hope that the mind of man can form, that of extending his being to eternity; and degrades him to the destiny of a brute, that of rotting for ever among the clods of the valley.

Whence, it is now time to ask, could such a scheme as that of Atheism arise. If there be a human being who desires the existence of a Deity, and explodes his laws, he must be one of the most daring beings in creation ; and one could hardly conceive by what train of impressions he could have reached such awful insolence, as to defy all