Chap. VII.] IMMORAL INFLUENCE OF SKEPTICISM.

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picture of disunion, disgust, and animosity would such a familypresent. How utterly would domestic affection be extinguished,and all the purposes of domestic society be defeated. Thegeneral prevalence of such dispositions must be accompanied byan equal proportion of general misery.

The same restless and eager vanity which disturbs a family,when it is permitted to mingle with political affairs, distracts akingdom or commonwealth ; infusing into those intrusted with theenactment of laws, a spirit of rash innovation and daring empiri-cism, a disdain of the established usages of mankind, a foolishdesire to dazzle the world with new and untried systems ofpolicy, in which the precedents of antiquity and the experienceof ages are only consulted to be trodden under foot; and into theexecutive department of government, a fierce contention forpreeminence, an incessant struggle to supplant and destroy, witha propensity to calumny and suspicion, proscription and mas-sacre. The nature and progress of vanity, and its kindred pas-sions, were more strikingly displayed in the French revolutionthan they have ever been elsewhere ; a revolution, which, viewedin its true light, ought to be contemplated as a grand experimenton human nature.

If such be the mischiefs, both in public and private life, result-ing from an extravagant self-estimation, it remains next to be con-sidered whether Providence has supplied any medicine to correctit ; for, as the reflection on excellence, whether real or imagina-ry, is always attended with pleasure to the possessor, vanity is amoral disease, deeply seated in human nature.

Humility, cherished under an habitual sense of the Divine pres-ence and of our sinfulness in the sight of God, evinced by heartyrepentance, is the appointed antidote to this disease of our nature.Humility is, in truth, the most precious fruit of religion. In theteaching of our Saviour, there is no maxim so frequent as thefollowing ; “ Whosoever exalteth himself shall he abased , and hethat humbleth himself shall he exalted .” Religion, and that alone,teaches absolute humility ; by which is meant, a sense of our ab-solute nothingness in the view of infinite greatness and excel-lence. That sense of inferiority, which results from the compari-