tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some volumes against deism fell into my hands. They were faid to be the fubftance of fermons preached at Boyle's Lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precifely the reverse of what was intended by the writers: for the arguments of the deifts, which were cited in order to be refuted, appeared to me much more forcible than the refutation itself. In a word, I foon became a perfect deist. My arguments perverted fome other young perfons; particularly Collins and Ralph. But in the fequel, when I recollected that they had both used me extremly ill, without the smallest remorse; when I confidered the behaviour of Keith, another freethinker, and my own conduct towards Vernon and Mifs Read, which at times gave me much uneafiness, I was led to fufpe&t that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very ufeful. I began to entertain a less favourable opinion of my London pamphlet, to which I had prefixed, as a motto, the following lines of Dryden; Whatever is, is right; tho' purblind man and of which the object was to prove, from the attributes of God, his goodnefs, wifdom, and power, that there could be no fuch thing as evil in the world; that vice and virtue did not in reality exift, and were nothing more than vain diftin&tions. I no longer regarded it as fo blame M lefs a work as I formerly had imagined; I fufpected that fome error must have imperceptibly have glided into my argument, by all the infere ences I had drawn from it had been affected, as it frequently happens in metaphyfical reafonings. In a word, I was at laft convinced that truth, probity and fincerity, in tranfactions between man and man, were of the utmost importance to the happiness of life; and I refolved from that moment, and wrote the refolution in my journal, to practise them as long as I lived. Revelation indeed, as fuch, had no influence on my mind; but I was of opinion, that, though certain actions could not be bad merely becaufe revelation prohibited them, or good because it enjoined them, yet it was probable that thofe actions were prohibited because they were bad for us, or enjoined because advantageous in their nature, all things confidered. This perfuafion, divine providence, or fome guardian angel, and perhaps a concurrence of favourable circumftances cooperating, preferved me from all immorality, or grois and voluntary injustice, to which my want of religion was calculated to expofe me, in the dangerous period of youth, and in the hazardous fituations in which I fometimes found myself, among ftrangers, and at a distance from the eye and admonitions of my father. I may fay voluntary, because the errors into which I had fallen, had been in a manner the forced refult either of my own inexperience, or the difhonefty of others. Thus, before I entered on my new career, I had imbibed folid principles, and a character of probity. I knew their value: and I made a folemn engagement with myself never to depart from them. I had not long returned from Burlington before our printing materials arrived from London. I fettled my accounts with Keimer, and quitted him with his own confent, before he had any knowledge of our plan. We found a houfe to let near the market. We took it; and to render the rent iefs burthenfome (it was then twentyfour pounds a year, but I have fince known it let for feventy,) we admitted Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, with his family, who eafed us of a confiderable part of it; and with him we agreed to board. We had no fooner unpacked our letter, and put our prefs in order, than a person of my acquaintance, George House, brought us a countryman, whom he had met in the streets enquiring for a printer. Our money was almost exhausted by the number of things we had been obliged to procure. The five fhillings we received from this countryman, the first fruit of our earnings, coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any fum I have fince gained; and the recollection of the gratitude I felt on this occafion to George Houfe, has rendered me often more difpofed, than perhaps I fhould otherwife have been, to encourage young beginners in trade. There are in every country morofe beings, who are always prognofticating ruin. There was one of this ftamp in Philadelphia. He was a man of fortune, declined in years, had an air of wifdom, and a very grave manner of fpeaking. His name was Samuel Mickle. I knew him not; but he stopped one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-houle. Upon my anfwering in the affirmative, he faid that he was very forry for me, as it was an expenfive undertaking; and the money that had been laid out upon it would be loft, Philadelphia being a place falling into decay; its inhabitants having all, or nearly all of them, been obliged to call together their creditors. That he knew, from undoubted fact, the circumftances which might lead us to fuppofe the contrary, fuch as new buildings, and the advanced price of rent, to be deceitful appearances, which in reality contributed to haften the general ruin; and he gave me fo long a detail of misfortunes, actually exifting, or which were foon to take place, that he left me almoft in a state of deipair. Had I known this man before I entered into trade, I should doubtless never have ventured. He however continued to live in this place of decay, and to declaim in the fame style, refusing for many years to buy a house, because all was going to wreck and in the end I had the fatisfaction to fee him pay five times as much for one as it would coft him had he purchated it when he first began his lamentations. I ought to have related, that, during the autumn of the preceding year, I had united the majority of well-informed perfons of my acquaintance into a club, which we called by the name of the Junto, and the object of which was to rove our understandings. We met every day evening. The regulations I drow up, obliged every member to propofe, in his turn, one or more queftions upon lome point of morality, politics, or philofophy, which were to be difcuffed by the fociety; and to read, once in three months, an effay of his own compofition, on whatever fubject he pleafed. Our debates were under the direction of a prefident, and were to be dictated only by a fincere defire of truth; the pleasure of difputing, and the vanity of triumph having no fhare in the bufiuefs; and in order to prevent undue warmth, every expreffion which implied obftinate adherence to an opinion, and all direct contradictions, were prohibited, under small pecuniary penalties. The first members of our club were Jofeph Breintnal, whofe occupation was that of a fcrivener. He was a middle-aged man, of a good natural disposition, strongly attached to his friends, a great lover of poetry, reading every thing that came in his way, and writing tolerably well, ingenious in many little trifles, and of an agre agreeable conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a skilful, though self-taught mathematician, and who was afterwards the inyentor of what now goes by the name of Hadley's dial; but he had little knowledge out of his own line, and was infupportable in company, always requiring, like the majority of mathematicians that have fallen in my way, an unusual precifion in every thing that is faid, continually contradicting, or making trifling diftinctions: a fure way of defeating all the ends of converfation. He very foon left us. |