One is, that they look for the influence of religion in the wrong place.

The other, that they charge Christianity with many consequences for which it is not responsible.

I. The influence of religion is not to be sought for in the councils of princes, in the debates or resolutions of popular assemblies, in the conduct of governments towards their subjects, of states and sovereigns towards one another; of conquerors at the head of their armies, or of parties intriguing for power at home (topics which alone almost occupy the attention, and fill the pages of history); but must be perceived, if perceived at all, in the silent course of private and domestic life.  Nay, even there its influence may not be very obvious to observation.  If it check, in some degree, personal dissoluteness, if it beget general probity in the transaction of business, if it produce soft and humane manners in the mass of the community, and occasional exertions of laborious or expensive benevolence in a individuals, it is all the effect which can offer itself to external notice.  The kingdom of heaven is within us.  That which the substance of the religion, its hopes and consolation, its intermixture with the thoughts by day and by night, the devotion of the heart, the control of appetite, the steady direction of will to the commands of God, is necessarily invisible.  Yet these depend the virtue and the happiness of millions.  This cause renders the representations of history, with respect to religion, defect and fallacious in a greater degree than they are upon any other subject.  Religion operates most upon those of whom history knows the least; upon fathers and mothers their families, upon men-servants and maid-servants, upon orderly tradesman, the quiet villager, the manufacturer at his loom, the husbandman in his fields.  Amongst such, its collectively may be of inestimable value, yet its effects, in mean time, little upon those who figure upon the stage of world.  They may know nothing of it; they may believe nothing of it; they may be actuated by motives more impetuous than those which religion is able to excite.  It cannot, be thought strange that this influence should elude the grasp and touch of public history; for what is public history but register of the successes and disappointments, the vices, the follies, and the quarrels, of those who engage in contentions power?

I will add, that much of this influence may be felt in times of public distress, and little of it in times of public wealth and security.  This also increases the uncertainty of any opinions that we draw from historical representations.  The influence of Christianity is commensurate with no effects which history states.  We do not pretend that it has any such necessary and irresistible power over the affairs of nations as to surmount the force of other causes.