at least, if not chiefly, to moral causes. Such admission would open the eyes of observers to many facts, which otherwise would be passed over as irrelevant. It would not be wise indeed to draw hasty conclusions on so large a subject, or to draw general inferences from a few scattered facts. But contemplating, for instance, that horrid pestilence, the Plague,—the thought has sometimes presented itself, whether there might not be some relation between that fearful pestilence and a state of general moral impurity. It is known that the Plague is continually to be found in Oriental countries, where the institution of polygamy exists, and a consequent sphere of unchasteness must prevail. Looking, too, at some of the periods when it has extended itself over Europe, or particular countries of it, does not history show the existence of a similar state of moral corruption? England, for instance, was visited by it, in the reign of the licentious and shameless Charles II., when from the court downward a state of moral impurity seems to have spread through all classes: and as if in consequence of such wickedness, as well as to put a check to it,—the Plague, one year, and the great fire, the next, ravaged London to its heart.
But, indeed, a state of general moral disease, in the present condition of the world, is, alas! too prevalent amongst mankind at all times and everywhere. Could we see ourselves as we really are,—could we view the state of the human race, as it is seen by the eye of angels, still more as it appears to the Divine Eye,—we should rather wonder that the universal corruption prevailing did not at once break out into a general pestilence all over the world, rather than that the terrible
