Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/203

tranquillity of private companies. So pernicious it is to common sense, reason, truth, virtue, order, and religion, when men of genius and learning employ their pens in spreading nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood; vice, disorder, and irreligion. If a writer of this sort were to take a cool and dispassionate view of the talents he has received, and the acts which he has done, the amount might probably be, nature has bestowed on him a mind competent to the acquisition of valuable and deep knowledge. Instruction and assiduity operating on these gifts of nature, have enabled him to communicate his conceptions, thoughts, and discoveries, agreeably, forcibly, and impressively. What has he done? He exhorted men and women to avoid the first link of a rational community, marriage, and to mingle with promiscuous intercourse, according to temporary im-