not answer, but ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I addressed him, Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions; will you answer them? Allow me to ask again-Do you believe? or let me qualify the question--do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? After a pause of some minutes, he answered, 'I have no wish to believe on that subject. I then left him, and know not whether he afterwards spoke to any person on any subject, though he lived, as I before observed, till the morning of the 8th.* "Such conduct, under usual circumstances, I conceive absolutely unaccountable, though with diffidence I would remark, not so much so in the present instance; for though the first necessary and general result of conviction be a sincere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it may be a question worthy of able consideration whether excessive pride of opinion, consummate vanity, and inordinate selflove, might not prevent or retard that otherwise natural consequence?" J Such was the exit of this uneducated agitator, who, whatever his talents were, obtained a degree of celebrity much above the point of his abilities, a celebrity which made him giddy, and at last contributed to the wretched disregard which awaited him at the close of his chequered life. His pitch of talent after all appears to have consisted in a penetrating, quick sagacity, capable to perceive the shrewd and pointed casuistry of the deists and sceptics of Great Britain and Europe on the Continent. The press teemed with their licentious works, when he set out in his abominable career, and the manner in which he vulgarized (if such a word be allowable) the acumen and force of their scepticism, made him an eminent champion in the * Paine died on the 8th of June, 1809, aged seventy-two years and five months. cause of anarchy and impiety. Such in short was Paine, and it is worth while to reflect how his departure from this world, somewhat assimilated to the dissolution of the arch-deist Voltaire, and others who denied the Christian doctrines. The Abbé Baruel relates how Voltaire, in spite of his unprincipled associates, whom in his dying agonies he cursed for their base assistance before, was attended by a father confessor to enable him to atone as much as possible for his apostacy. And we find, although Paine remained stubborn when death overtook him, yet that he but concealed his mental conflicts with his usual constitutional moroseness. This is almost proved by his desire that the nurse would pray for him from a manual of Christian devotion, and his own occasional involuntary supplications of that Divine Personage who became an oblation and ransom for our fallen and degenerated species. Such an unrighteous demise, however, is dreadful in the extreme, while it exposes fallacy, hypocrisy, and profane ness in a colouring painful to any mind impressed with sacred thoughts. How weak is man in all his boasted ability! Voltaire rejoiced in his strength of learning, intellect, and genius; and, lo! the king of terrors found him on a bed of languishing, a trembling human creature, willing to give worlds, if he owned them, for a few months, or even weeks of divine reconciliation, and contrite repentance. His vassal admirer and disciple Paine, notwithstanding his constant, filthy ebriety, could not drown reflection entirely, or put the worm of remorse to sleep by the grossest riot. If we were to make an estimate in result of unbelievers bred in the congregations of Christians, we would perhaps conclude, if not with certainty, at least with the greatest probability, that there is no such principle as a solid satisfactory unbelief of that celestial providence in which we live, and are enlightened with reasonable and religious ideas! It would seem of a truth that the vanity of idle and vicious philosophy deceives the entertainers of it during the years of their youth and spirits, that they remain utter strangers to the recesses of their own breasts, and so recoil in sickness and old age from the phantoms of intoxicating pleasure and mental delusion to their early tenets of devotion, or the latent prejudices of piety they imbibed in the days of infancy. Here a passing observation presses itself, viz. inculcating the inestimable benefit of vital Christianity instilled in the nurture and education of the rising generation. If the word of life be divinely engrafted on the blooming growth of the Christian soul as it expands and opens, it will scarcely become unbelieving and reprobate in its future progress through a world of evil communication, in which the imposing advocates of sensuality for a season sow the hotbed seeds of gross wickedness and vice, so as to choak the goodly shoots of reason and principle. Such was the loose economy of human life in general among the gay people of France, when sensual indulgence and elegant oblivion insensibly unsluiced the torrent of revolution, until anarchy swept away the throne and the altar. May the British islands be warned by the awful example, and lay the vast lesson with fear and contrition to heart, by keeping alive the holy fire of gospel religion, and cultivating the good fruits of evangelical virtue! The republican tree of liberty, it is well known,, could not flourish in the same region with true Christianity, our tree of life! To eradicate the latter and plant the former was the diabolical aim of the Voltaires and the Paines, of the high and the low deists; and these deistical names will be recorded as glaring instances of self degradation and nuisance in the annals of the faithful historian, who will have to record the rise and progress of the French revolution, and the order of things which at length it tended to establish in so many states and countries of the continent. The historian, no doubt, will develope the springs and engines which effected such a manifold change, and in so doing will expose the malicious motives and dying desperation of the prime movers of sedition and strife in Europe. It is to the infidel's and sceptic's condition and reward, that the author would direct the reader's strict attention and religious care. "Behold from night the great Accuser rise, i A secret patron of Samaria's cause ; 241 So, as authentic old records declare, Impious, but unbelieving now no more, He owns the Galilean conqueror," S CHAP. VIII. Surprizing loftiness and peculiar nature of Pines and Cedars of Canada. Canadian's neat and useful economy as a farmer, and householder. Account of some civil and religious usages. Canadian and French manners similar a good deal. Defeat and death of General Montgomery before Quebec.: Dangers in carrying on the Fur Trade by the People of Montreal, &c, with the Indian Tribes. Description of Quebec, the St. Laurence River and Falls of Niagara. Observations on the Bear and Rat of Canada, with General Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants. AT our arrival in Canada, as it was in the last Chapter observed, new dispositions of the Colonial forces, and appointments of officers commanding, took place in the hope of overpowering the Royal troops, after the signal discomfiture which Mr. Montgomery's army met at Quebec. The importance and value of the district was thus acknowledged by the measures of Congress to recover it, and by the plans of the best generals and most capable individuals of America, for the purpose of attaining so valuable an object. Our army therefore on gaining the American shore, had the approaching prospect of hard fighting, and due preparations were accordingly made. Previous, however, to an account of actual hostilities it may better accord with the outline of this memoir to describe the local situation of the country. An European, after disembarking upon this northern shore of the American main, is at first seized with astonishment at the exceeding loftiness of the pine, fir, and cedar trees, which here acquire an ascendency sublime indeed. Of the pine tree Canada produces two kinds, the white and f |