Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1824 edition. Excerpt: ... the prospect before us is dismal and bleak, and discouraging indeed. It matters not that the intelligence and beneficence of the Creator is conspicuous alike in the instinct, which directs the smallest insect in the way he should go, and in the principle, which regulates and upholds thousands of worlds in empty space. It matters not that every inferior being seems fitted for the condition assigned to it, for man himself, it seems, is not. In his formation, an all-wise and omnipotent Creator has failed. Man's prospects of happiness are indeed fair and promising, but his heart has been made inherently depraved, and must always remain so--and that mars and blasts them all. To attempt its improvement would be in fact to oppose the fiat of his Creator, which has stamped deceit and depravity even on the earliest consciousness of infancy. In inculcating that religion teaches such a doctrine, let us at least confess to ourselves, that it is one, whose direct tendency is, to discourage all attempts to promote the i virtue or the happiness of the world; and to fill our mind with vague and painful ad prehensions for the future; on the ground, that an all-good and all-powerful Being has formed, or (which is the same thing) has permitted to be formed in the heart of man, a principle, which must render all such attempts abortive, and all such apprehensions but too well founded. Yet this doctrine, and many others of a similar tendency, form part of the religious instruction which is at present given, even to the youngest children. The world is at issue in regard to many of these doctrines; yet they are unhesitatingly presented, in the most uninteresting and dogmatical manner, to the mind of an infant, and he is expected to comprehend them. Can we...
