Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/331

Rh meriting, and more easily contented with such low offices; which some nearer neighbours, hardly think it worth stirring from their chimney-sides to obtain. And I am told, it is the common practice of those who are skilled in the management of bees, that when they see a foreign swarm at some distance, approaching with an intention to plunder their hives, these artists have a trick to divert them into some neighbouring apiary, there to make what havock they please. This I should not have hinted, if I had not known it already to have gotten ground in many suspecting heads; for it is the peculiar talent of this nation to see dangers afar off: to all which I can only say, that our native presbyterians must, by pains and industry, raise such a fund of merit, as will answer to a birth six degrees more to the north. If they cannot arrive at this perfection, as several of the established church have compassed by indefatigable pains, I do not well see how their affairs will much mend by repealing the test: for, to be qualified by law to accept an employment, and yet to be disqualified in fact, as it will much increase the mortification, so it will withdraw the pity of many among their well wishers, and utterly deprive them of that merit they have so long made, of being a loyal true protestant people, persecuted only for religion.

If this happen to be their case, they must wait maturity of tmie; until they can, by prudent gentle steps, make their faith become the religion established in the nation; after which, I do not in the least doubt that they will take the most effectual methods to secure their power, against those who must then be dissenters in their turn; whereof, if we Rh