I have, in former Papers, shewn how great a Tendency there is to Chearfulness in Religion, and how such a Frame of Mind is not only the most lovely, but the most commendable in a virtuous Person.  In short, those who represent Religion in so unamiable a Light, are like the Spies sent by Moses to make a Discovery of the Land of Promise, when by their Reports they discouraged the People from entering upon it.  Those who shew us the Joy, the Chearfulness, the Good-humour, that naturally spring up in this happy State, are like the Spies bringing along with them the Clusters of Grapes, and delicious Fruits, that might invite their Companions into the pleasant Country which produced them.

An eminent Pagan Writer [3] has made a Discourse, to shew that the Atheist, who denies a God, does him less Dishonour than the Man who owns his Being, but at the same time believes him to be cruel, hard to please, and terrible to Human Nature.  For my own part, says he, I would rather it should be said of me, that there was never any such Man as Plutarch, than that Plutarch was ill-natured, capricious, or inhuman.

If we may believe our Logicians, Man is distinguished from all other Creatures by the Faculty of Laughter.  He has an Heart capable of Mirth, and naturally disposed to it.  It is not the Business of Virtue to extirpate the Affections of the Mind, but to regulate them.  It may moderate and restrain, but was not designed to banish Gladness from the Heart of Man.  Religion contracts the Circle of our Pleasures, but leaves it wide enough for her Votaries to expatiate in.  The Contemplation of the Divine Being, and the Exercise of Virtue, are in their own Nature so far from excluding all Gladness of Heart, that they are perpetual Sources of it.  In a word, the true Spirit of Religion cheers, as well as composes the Soul; it banishes indeed all Levity of Behaviour, all vicious and dissolute Mirth, but in exchange fills the Mind with a perpetual Serenity, uninterrupted Chearfulness, and an habitual Inclination to please others, as well as to be pleased in it self.

O.

[Footnote 1:  Supposed to be Anthony Henley, a gentleman of property, who corresponded with Swift, was a friend of Steele’s, and contributed some unidentified papers to the Tatler.  He died in August, 1711.]

[Footnote 2:  Dr. Thomas Goodwin, who was born in 1600, and educated at Cambridge.  He was one of those who, like Milton’s tutor, Dr. Thomas Young, went to Holland to escape from persecution, and was pastor of the English church at Arnheim, till in the Civil Wars he came to London, and sat at Westminster as one of the Assembly of Divines.  In 1649 Cromwell made him President of Magdalen College As Oliver Cromwell’s chaplain, he prayed with and for him in his last illness.  At the Restoration, Dr. Goodwin was deprived of his post at Oxford, and he then preached in London to an Assembly of Independents till his death, in 1679.  His works were collected in five volumes folio.]