The Loyalists, Volumes 1-3 | Page 2

abound; where desperadoes and plunderers go forth to destroy and pillage; the passive virtues pray, and endure. Self-devoting generosity then interposes her shield, and magnanimous heroism her sword; benevolence seeks out and consoles distress; the confessor intercedes with heaven; the patriot sacrifices his fortune and his comforts; the martyr dies on the scaffold, and the hero in the field. England hath often witnessed such piteous scenes, and many fear she is now on the verge of similar calamities, which threaten to cloud her glory from the envy and admiration of foreign nations, making her a taunting proverb of reproach to her enemies, while she points a moral, and adorns a tale, for posterity. May those who govern her wide extended empire, so study the records of our former woes, and shape their political course with such single-hearted observance of the unerring laws of God, as to become, under his Providence, our preservers from danger; and may the governed, remembering the tyranny which originated from insubordination; the daring ambition of popular demagogues; the hypocrisy of noisy reformers, and all the certain misery which arises from the pursuit of speculative unattainable perfection, adhere to those institutions, which have been consecrated with the best blood in England, and proved by the experience of ages to be consistent with as large a portion of national prosperity, as any people have ever enjoyed. Yet as our offences may prevail over our prayers, let us prepare our minds for times of trial. The public duties they require, are adapted to the discussion of that sex, whose physical and mental powers fit it for active life, and deliberate policy. But the exercise of the milder virtues is imperiously called for in seasons of national alarm. Whether we are to endure the loss of our accustomed wealth and luxury, or to encounter the far heavier trial of domestic confusion, there are habits of thinking and acting, which will conduce to individual comfort and improvement. There are sorrows which neither "King nor laws can cause or cure;" enjoyments, that no tyrant can withhold; and blessings, which even the wildest theories of democracy cannot destroy. The asylum where these sacred heritages of a good conscience are generally concealed, is the domestic hearth, that circumscribed but important precinct where the female Lares sit as guardians. Is it presumptuous in one, who has long officiated at such an household altar, again to solicit the forbearance and favour, which she has often experienced, by calling public attention to a popular way of communicating opinions, not first invented by herself, though she has often had recourse to it. The tale she now chooses as a vehicle, aims at conveying instruction to the present times, under the form of a chronicle of the past. The political and religious motives, which convulsed England in the middle of the seventeenth century, bear so striking a resemblance to those which are now attempted to be promulgated, that surely it must be salutary to remind the inconsiderate, that reformists introduced first anarchy and then despotism, and that a multitude of new religions gave birth to infidelity.
Nor let the serious hue which a story must wear that is dated in those times, when the church militant was called to the house of mourning, deter the gay and young from a patient perusal. Whatever mere prudential instructors may affirm, worldly prosperity should not be held out as the criterion, or the reward of right conduct. Let us remember St. Augustine's answer to those Pagans, who reproached him with the evils that Christians, in common with themselves, suffered from the then convulsed state of the world. They asked him, "Where is thy God?" But he declined founding the believer's privileges on individual exemptions, or personal providences. "My God," said he, "in all his attributes, different from the false impotent Gods of the Heathen, is to be found wherever his worshippers are;--if I am carried into captivity, his consolations shall yet reach me;--if I lose the possessions of this life, my precious faith shall still supply their want;--and if I die, not as the suffering heathen dies, by his own impious and impatient hand, but in obedience to the will of God, my great reward begins. I shall enter upon a life that will never be taken from me; and henceforth all tears shall be wiped from my eyes."
Adversity purifies communities, as well as individuals. If fastidiousness, selfishness, pride, and sensuality, conspire to cloud, with imaginary woes, the enjoyments of those whom others deem happy and prosperous; faction, discontent, a querulous appetite for freedom, and an inordinate ambition to acquire sudden pre-eminence, disturb public tranquillity, when a country has long enjoyed the blessings of plenty and repose. Previous to the commencement of that great rebellion, which tore the crown and mitre from the