American Watchman And Delaware Advertiser

SUPERSTITION.

There are a certain description of persons, whose intemperate zeal frequently leads them into the most ridiculous absurdities, & far outstrips their religion; they appear to have a constant and perpetual itching to dive into the inscrutable plans of Divine Providence and would really persuade us to believe that they are familiar with the views and designs of the Supreme. All the victories & triumphs, rewards and punishments, casualties and crimes of mankind, are presumptuously and indiscriminately ascribed to the special and immediate interposition of the Almighty. If a man not engaged in the customary duties of the day happens to fall and break his neck, on Sunday, the occurrence is published to the world, with no inconsiderable display, as "an awful warning to Sabbath breakers," as tho' such accidents never occurred on any other day, or to none but "Sabbath breakers." A casualty of this description, it appears, recently took place somewhere in the United States, and certain sagacious editors, who appear to be more gifted than their neighbors, seem determined that we shall never hear the last of it—Now nothing can be more absurd—it is a gross libel on the age. All such attempts to impose upon vulgar credulity, at this enlightened period, must subject its authors to public ridicule; they would hardly have been countenanced in the superstitious days of an Ignatius Loyola. It is only a short time since, that a church in New-England was shattered to pieces on Sunday, by lightning, while the congregation were devoutly engaged in the solemn duties of the meeting, and several persons within, instantaneously killed.—Was not this, too, a manifestation of Divine displeasure, and should it not operate as a warning to others, never to enter a meeting house on the Sabbath? How absurd! It is horribly impious for nearsighted mortals to indulge themselves in determining the precise cases wherein the immediate interposition of the Divinity is discoverable. It is running into the weakest and most absurd superstition, thus to pronounce upon any contingency; unless, indeed, we were capable of looking through the whole chain of things, and of viewing each effect in its remote connexions and final issues. It must not be understood as rejecting the doctrine of providential influence and protection. The belief in a controlling & superintending Providence however, is quite a different thing, and is full of the most enlivening consolation.—This belief is the most animating persuasion that the mind of man can embrace; it gives strength to our hopes, and firmness to our resolutions: it subdues the insolence of prosperity, and draws out the sting of affliction. In a word, it is like the golden branch to which Virgil's hero was directed, and affords the only secure passport through the regions of darkness and sorrow.