My whole politics, at present, centre in one point, and to this the merit or demerit of every measure (with me) is referable,—­that is, what will most promote or depress the cause of Jacobinism.  What is Jacobinism?  It is an attempt (hitherto but too successful) to eradicate prejudice out of the minds of men, for the purpose of putting all power and authority into the hands of the persons capable of occasionally enlightening the minds of the people.  For this purpose the Jacobins have resolved to destroy the whole frame and fabric of the old societies of the world, and to regenerate them after their fashion.  To obtain an army for this purpose, they everywhere engage the poor by holding out to them as a bribe the spoils of the rich.  This I take to be a fair description of the principles and leading maxims of the enlightened of our day who are commonly called Jacobins.

As the grand prejudice, and that which holds all the other prejudices together, the first, last, and middle object of their hostility is religion.  With that they are at inexpiable war.  They make no distinction of sects.  A Christian, as such, is to them an enemy.  What, then, is left to a real Christian, (Christian as a believer and as a statesman,) but to make a league between all the grand divisions of that name, to protect and to cherish them all, and by no means to proscribe in any manner, more or less, any member of our common party?  The divisions which formerly prevailed in the Church, with all their overdone zeal, only purified and ventilated our common faith, because there was no common enemy arrayed and embattled to take advantage of their dissensions; but now nothing but inevitable ruin will be the consequence of our quarrels.  I think we may dispute, rail, persecute, and provoke the Catholics out of their prejudices; but it is not in ours they will take refuge.  If anything is, one more than another, out of the power of man, it is to create a prejudice.  Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman, but he cannot make a gentleman.

All the principal religions in Europe stand upon one common bottom.  The support that the whole or the favored parts may have in the secret dispensations of Providence it is impossible to tell; but, humanly speaking, they are all prescriptive religions.  They have all stood long enough to make prescription and its chain of legitimate prejudices their main stay.  The people who compose the four grand divisions of Christianity have now their religion as an habit, and upon authority, and not on disputation,—­as all men who have their religion derived from their parents and the fruits of education must have it, however the one more than the other may be able to reconcile his faith to his own reason or to that of other men.  Depend upon it, they must all be supported, or they must all fall in the crash of a common ruin.  The Catholics are the far more numerous part of the Christians in your country; and how can