the whole accordant with the manners, habits, characters, and genius of the people.

But besides worshipping God, or the author of good, they also worship personages whom they consider the authors of evil, and being more fearful of pain and punishment, than grateful for benefits, the ceremonies intended to deprecate the malignant beings are as numerous as those addressed to the Creator and Preserver, and the worship often more fervent.

Thus the Chinese believe in one God, but they worship Confucius, the founder of their religion,and nearly contemporary with Noah, and various monstrous idols or devils, by which they personify the passions of the Gods, and the vices and virtues of men, which, at least, to foreigners, renders their religion odious and ridiculous.

The Hindoos mingle the worship of God, or Brahma, with an infinite number of ceremonies, and numerous personifications of his attributes. They also believe in various missions from Heaven, at least, nine in number, and worship as demi-gods all those personages of whom their religious histories give surprising accounts; and they seem to be the originals of those gods and goddesses who were worshipped by the Greeks and Romans, and of whom the poets make such convenient use.

The African nations recognize certain animals or reptiles, as emblems of the deity, which they consider as guardians of their nation, and preserve and sanctify as such; and it is in the same spirit that the English vulgar venerate the robin, and forbear to kill certain beetles, lest their death should make it rain.

All the civilized nations of Asia, except the Chinese and the Hindoos, are Mahometans, or disciples of an Arabian, who, in the seventh century, set up for a prophet, and made considerable conquests, which his successors extended over Persia, parts of

India, Egypt, Northern Africa, and over all the countries constituting the Turkish empire. His religion is developed in a book called the Koran, which he alleged was delivered to him by an angel. Mecca, the place of his burial, is regarded as a holy city, proper for a pilgrimage, once in life, of all Mahometans or true Musselmen. They date from the year of Mahomet's flight from Mecca to Medina, which was the 622d year of the Christian æra, and called the epoch of the Hegira.

Of the Christian religion I have given you an account in the early letters. Christians are divided into two great bodies, those who consider the Patriarch of Constantinople as their head, or the Greek church, which prevails in Greece, Turkey, and Russia; and those who acknowledge or have acknowledged the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, called Father, Papa or Pope. The western christians consist, however, of two great divisions, the papists or catholics, and the reformers or protestants. These last arose at the period of the happy reformation of the christian church, under the direction of Martin Luther and John Calvin, and their doctrines prevail in Sweden, Denmark, in the north of Germany, Holland, and Great Britain. In our own country the reformation, directed by the master minds of Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, and others, raised our national church, the doctrines of which I have held up for your admiration.

Its tolerant spirit permits every mode of worship, and hence numerous dissenters, under the names of presbyterians, unitarians, independents, baptists, methodists, &c. &c. all respectable as contributing to virtue and improvement of character.

The Jews also are a numerous race, and are the merchants, money-changers, and medium of commerce in all nations, owing to the dispersion of ten of their tribes by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, in the reign of Hoshea, Kings ii. chap. xvii; and

to the subsequent dispersion of the remnant under Vespasian, 76 A. C. while the rites and ceremonies instituted by Moses every where distinguish them from the natives.

But on all these subjects, and they are of inexhaustible curiosity and interest, I refer you to Nightingale's Account of all Religions and Sects of Religions, and at your leisure it merits attentive perusal. A still better book is Robinson's Theological Dictionary; but it is more expensive, and on this particular subject less to your purpose.

LETTER LXX.

Plan and Economy of Newspapers.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,

As we have often introduced a newspaper into the school, and its variety generally affords you satis faction; and as the events of the day afford the pleasantest use of your facility in reading, an analysis of a newspaper and of its general topics, cannot but be useful and interesting. I lament that none of them are more exactly adapted to the perusal of young ladies, and that the indiscriminate selections of the editors render it generally improper to introduce them. Pictures of vice and vulgarity, grossness of language, and indecent narratives, too often disfigure their columns.

Of the advertisements I need say little, they are inserted at a heavy cost, for the purposes of attraction and business, and when written to catch the loose money of the credulous, should be read with caution. They pay a large revenue to the government, every advertisement being subject to a duty of 3s. 6d. and every newspaper to a stamp duty of 4d.

For the purpose of generalizing his opinions and avoiding the egotistical "I by myself I," the editor writes in the plural number, and adopts the plural

pronouns we, us, and our, as though there were a plurality of persons concerned in writing the paragraph, whereas, in general, every opinion is merely that of a single writer. The same practice prevails in anonymous writings in general, and a critic. assumes invariably the style of plurality, and gives his single opinion as that of many.

Newspapers are for the chief part copied from one another, and each at the most contains but one or two columns of original matter, though some of the London papers often contain double that quantity. They are made up of foreign news, translated from foreign newspapers; of reports of public intelligence at home, as parliamentary, legal, or magisterial; and of incidents and accidents, with notices of births, marriages, and deaths. The foreign news generally speaks for itself; but is meagre and unsatisfactory, because foreign newspapers are always printed under controul, especially those on the continent of Europe. To understand it tho roughly you should be familiar with geography and modern history.

The public home news should also be read with a grain of allowance, because even parliamentary speeches are much garbled, and the reporters have their favourites to whose speeches alone they do full justice, and often set them off by improvements of style and condensations of argument. On the whole, nothing can be more instructive than the debates in parliament, and they are sometimes very interesting, and even entertaining. Law reports, as relating to the affairs of individuals, are often improperly made, and seldom are interesting to general readers. Daily police reports are, almost without exception, useless in their matter, and obstructions of justice, while they serve no other purpose than that of filling up the columns of such papers as are patronized by persons of second-rate minds.

The detail of incidents and accidents are sometimes useful as matter of information and caution; but newspaper accounts are often fallacious, and in general exaggerated.

The reports of the prices of stocks and of commodities in the markets, are valuable as far as figures go; but the observations made on such subjects are commonly written for some corrupt purpose, either of enhancing or lowering prices in aid of speculators for a rise or fall.

In general, therefore, all newspaper information must be read with discrimination, and never be implicitly believed, unless no possible motive can be assigned for a sinister design. No assertion is the more true because it possesses the formality of being in print.

Subject to these cautions, newspapers are most useful publications. They place the entire community on the same level of information, they check oppressors, they expose false pretensions, and they afford a fairer chance to truth and reason than the world could possess without them. Editors, however, are theorists and partizans. They are often men of talents, who are capable of making the worse appear the better cause; and as their errors are but ephemeral, or at most hebdomadal, they become careless, draw hasty conclusions, and assert their opinions with a dogmatical spirit calculated to mislead the ignorant and unwary.

On Reviews I have already remarked; but you cannot be too often put on your guard against their venality, their artifices, their wilful misrepresentations, and their general inutility in directing the choice of books and the literary taste of the public. They are, under the semblance of virtue, the most plausible forms of imposture which exist in soci ety, while they are too much tolerated, even by the honourable and discerning. In purchasing books, the only safe opinion is that of your discreet