Literary Extracts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 16, 10 August 1848, Page 3

Literary Extracts.

Franklin has a great deal to answer for. Success has made him flippant and self-sufficient, and, like all self-taught men, he thinks he Knows more than he does, and more than anybody else. If lie bad more religion and less philosophy, as he calls scepticism, it would be heller lor bun and nstoo. He is always a saiin" lo me—leave religion alone, Gineral—leave it to Ike voluntary principle; the supply will aliva\s keep pace « itu the demand, It is the maxim ■'/ a pedlar, Joshua, and onwurthv of a Statesman oi a Christian—r'or in religion, unlike other things, the demand «:ldom or never precedes, but almost incariably follows and increases with the supply. "An ignorant man knoweth not this—neither doth .1 fool understand it." I wish he could see wi.h his I own eyes the effects of bis liberality, Joshua, ii would sober his exultation, and teach him a sad and humiliating lesson. Let him come with me j nilo Virginia, andsee the ruins of that great and good establishment that ministered to us in our youth, as our nursing moiher—let him examine the ninety-five parishes of the Sta'e, and he w ill find twenty-three extiucl, and thirty-four destitute, the pastors expelled by want, or violence, or death. I His Philosophy will be gratified too, I suppose, by seeing the numerous proselytes lie has made to his enlightened opinions. In breaking up the Churcb, these rational religionists have adopted bis maxims of frugality, and abstained from destroying that which might be useful. The baptismal fonts have been preserved as useful for watering horses, and the sacred cup has been retained as a relic of the olden time, to grace the convivial board. There is no bigotry here, Joshua, no narrow prejudice, for reformers are alnays men of enlarged minds. They have done their work like men. They have applied the piopeity of the Church to secular purposes, and covered their iniquity under the cant of educating the poor, forgetting all the while tiiat a knowledge of God is the foundation of all wisdom. They have extinguished the cry of the Church being in danger, by extinguishing the Church itsell. When Reformers talk ofieligious freedom as a popular topic, depend upon it they mean to dispense with religion altogether.—" The Clockmaker .*']