Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/83

Rh without some artifice of that sort, it would have been impossible to have gained any attention at all to the topick of religion. People were quite wearied out with the continual repetition of the same dull arguments; or sore, on account of the ill temper with which the disputes were carried on, and the ill blood which they occasioned. The bulk of mankind were therefore in a fit disposition to fall in with the principle of moderation held out by the whigs, but as it was easy to see from some of their political measures, that moderation was not the point at which they intended to stop; but that an indifference with regard to any form of religion was likely to ensue, in consequence of some of their tenets; Swift thought it high time that the attention of the people toward the security of the established church should be roused, that they might be guarded against the undermining artifices of its enemies, secretly carried on under covert of her pretended friends; who in their hearts were little solicitous about her interests, being wholly absorbed in worldly pursuits. And surely nothing could be contrived better to answer this end, than to make religion once more a general topick of conversation; but of such conversation as no longer excited the disagreeable and malevolent passions, but gave rise to cheerfulness and mirth. Stripped of the frightful mask with which her face had been covered by bigotry and enthusiasm, and adorned with all the graces of the comick muse, she became a welcome guest in all companies. The beauty of the church of England, by a plain and well conducted allegory, adapted to all capacities, was shown, in the most obvious light, by the characters of simplicity and moderation, which are the VOL. I