Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

From the Western Telegraphe,

HISTORY is a narrative of divine Providence or God's government of the world—and the Jewish history as contained in the bible is the more instructive as the finger of God is there constantly pointed out. We read other histories as men see a puppet show at a distance. But in the bible we are brought near and as it were let behind the scene and see the wires and springs by which all the motions are directed. If we read the history or attend to the transactions of any nation, we shall find that all nations, like the Jews, are under the immediate government of God; that their fate is generally according to their conduct; that righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is the reproach of any people; that when corrupted by prosperity, they forget God, he forsakes them to misfortune; and that when awakened by distress they return to him, he comforts and raises them up. It is true he sometimes to accomplish the purposes of his providence gives prosperity to one guilty nation, merely to use it as a scourge to the sins of others. The wicked in great power spread for a while like a green bay-tree. But it is soon cut off and forgotten. It may always be distinguished, whether prosperity is given by God to any nation as a blessing or a curse, by their spirit, temper, and conduct under it. If they are humble, just, and reverential of God, we may expect their greatness will be stable. If they are insolent, oppressive and irreligious, depend upon it, they are raised not for their own benefit, but for the calamity of others; and their destruction will be sudden. France seems now to be in this state. She is Babylon, a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that hath made all the earth drunken of her wine, therefore the nations are mad. A fire is kindled in his anger and shall burn unto the lowest Hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. Their wine is the vine of Sodom and of the field of Gomorrah: their grapes are of gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the poison of dragons, & the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid-up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures? To me belongeth vengeance and recompence their foot shall slide in due time. for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make haste, For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants: when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left. After spreading calamity over the half of Europe, France comes now to disturb the peace of America. As Alexander was never at rest while there was any power to subdue France, is never at rest while there is any power to subdue.
There is any happiness to destroy. We have done her no injustice. We can do her no injury, we are free ourselves, and we rejoiced in her freedom and should yet cordially exult in the permanent establishment of a constitutional Government, liberty, and happiness in that nation. What but a domineering spirit of destruction could lead France to attack America! We have tried every means of conciliation. She will not listen unless we sacrifice our happiness, our liberty, our honour, our independence to her base haughtiness and passions.

In this state what should America do? What did she do when required in like manner by Britain to crouch under tyranny? After all pacific measures are exhausted, let America put her confidence in God, and under his protection exert her means of self-defence. A just cause and a fear of God gives a confidence and courage which nothing else can inspire. There is a boldness in virtue which ensures success, when its strength is animated by a trust in divine Providence and favour. A bad cause and a want of hope and faith make the endeavours languid and the arm nerveless. Conscience makes cowards of us all.

The President of the United States conscious of the justice of our cause, of the rectitude of his motives, and of the sincerity of his endeavours for reconciliation and peace, has piously determined to awaken the minds of the American people to an appeal to heaven, their true resource, their certain help in time of trouble. He has proclaimed the 9th of May a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. If we mean to trust in the favour of God we must cultivate virtue. And piety is necessary to enforce virtue. Let all friends to their country now in the hour of its distress turn their hearts to God: we have a good cause and in him we shall find a true friend. Let the day be observed according to the proclamation. Even where there is no minister or regular congregation, let the people assemble at their ordinary places of worship. The quakers worship even in silence. Let some of the most intelligent deliver their sentiments on our condition and our duties and let the others regard with an attentive ear and a sincere heart.

Here follows the President's proclamation.

These are the sentiments of true piety and expressions of the fear of God. Let us now turn our eyes to France: and we shall see that their Rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

Hebert, a professed atheist, at the instigation of the execrable Condorcet, set up the Journal de Veritable Pere du Chene. This paper was filled with blasphemy, and obscenity of the grossest kind, and was distributed with a most pernicious activity.

The bloody effects of this patriotic print were not long in manifesting themselves. The people, accustomed to see the religion of their ancestors daily reviled, learned to think of it with indifference, and soon became ripe for the Farce which Condorcet and his atheistical associates were preparing for them.

Gobet, the revolutionary bishop of Paris, appeared at the bar of the Constituent Assembly with his inferior clergy, and made a formal abjuration of Christianity. He threw himself, he said, on the mercy of the nation, for having so long deceived them with the absurdities of the impostor Christ, and his pretended Father, whose doctrines he now abjured with detestation and horror; and he assured them, that in future he would acknowledge no other deity than reason.

Here began the ceremony so much admired by the Jacobin prints. Hebert kept a strumpet of the name of Momoro, the wife of a renegado Corsican. This miserable prostitute was fixed upon to represent the Goddess of Reason; she was fantastically tricked out, and led at the head of a grand procession, to the church of Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris: here she was solemnly placed on a throne of turf and flowers, while Gobet, and the rest of the revolutionary clergy, burnt incense on an altar, erected just before her.

While this was performing, the cannon announced the installation of the new Goddess; the enlightened people of Paris fell prostrate at the signal, and paid their brutified adorations at the feet of a street walker and an adulteress!!

They wrote over the entrance of their church yards, This is the place of everlasting sleep. And so completely was it supposed that religion was destroyed in France that Robespierre thought proper to propose a decree that the French nation believed in a God.

If we compare the conduct of our President with that of the French government may we not well say that their Rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges? And if we believe in a God and his Providence can we think that prosperity is given to the French but as a scourge to other nations'; that it will last longer than that end is accomplished; or that if we put our trust in God we need fear what they can do unto us?

Let the well disposed people of this country, reflect seriously on these paragraphs.

Are they content to exchange rational liberty for anarchy, and the religion of their forefathers for atheism in its most horrid form? If so, they will do well to attend these zealots of infidelity; these faithful copyists of the Pere du Chene; they are the mouth pieces of the party; and they speak to us in thunder.

But we have better hopes: we trust our countrymen regard their blasphemies with abhorrence, and are well aware of the folly of confiding in the hypocritical pretensions of those men, who begin their patriotic career by requiring us to renounce our peace here, and our hopes of happiness hereafter.