ESSAY VIII.

CONTINUATION

OF THE

LIFE & CHARACTER OF PSALMANAZAR.

AFTER the dark catalogue of crimes which has been exhibited in the preceding Essay, the reader, upon receiving the foregoing declaration, that this apparent "Son of Belial," was received into the pale of the true church, is authorized in demanding evidence, substantial and unimpeachable; and that evidence, it is believed, he will receive.

Let the doubting, and scrupulous enquirer, and especially the christian, in whose breast (in proportion as he has imbibed the spirit of his Divine Master) a wish must prevail to behold rational proof of the renovated character of every man; let him ask himself, what test he would require of the sincere repentance of an erring, but reclaimed prodigal, and then dispassionately determine, whether those tests have not been furnished by Psalmanazar. If the inferences of his understanding should concur with the desires of his heart, let him not cast a pharisaical and repulsive look at this disciple, arrested by Sovereign power, in the midst of his career, but, rather hail him with the cordiality of a brother, and reject the proud utterance of, "Stand off, for I am holier than thou."

1st. An equitable examiner would require ample satisfaction of sincerity, in so violent a transition of character.

2ndly. He would especially examine whether the scriptural criterion of this assumed renovation, has been

furnished; namely, "Repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."

3dly. He would ascertain whether the fruits of faith were brought forth, in the professed convert's subsequent life and conversation, and

4thly. It would be a great confirmation, if his dying testimony conformed with his living professions.

Now all these tests, (as far as words and actions can become an index of the heart,) were presented by the once false, deceiving, abject, abandoned, but, at length, penitent Psalmanazar! The proof must now be adduced. Psalmanazar had been blessed with a pious father and mother, whose early religious inculcations, in his widest departure from truth, and uprightness, never became wholly obliterated. In the midst of his delinquencies, there was an accusing voice within. He strove to subdue conscience, but it was a pigmy contending with a giant. The monitor would be heard, and Psalmarazar, like a concealed murderer, felt, at his heart, an intolerable weight. He could still distinguish right from wrong, and when lie was added to lie, and deception to déception, it was only an accumulation of torment, to relieve himself from which, he fled to company, and, especially, to laudanum; not to alleviate pain, but from the base love of intoxication: yet the accusing voice within still pursued him. The moments of solitude were, to him, as they must be to every wicked man, the seasons of pungent self-reproach; and, for a considerable period, his internal conflicts were many, and his disquietudes great, till, after a hard, and long struggle, he experienced joy in believing, and obtained a cure for his wounded spirit, through the "Balm" that is in "Gilead."

The process which terminated in this happy result,

was protracted, but charity will make many allowances for inveterate habit; wounded pride; the false shame of the world; and that light, which Infinite Wisdom, sometimes sees fit to diffuse gradually over the mind, like the morning dawn that precedes the perfect day.

But it will be necessary to take a slight retrospect. Upon arriving in London, from Oxford, Psalmanazar published his second edition of the History of Formosa, for which the booksellers gave him eleven guineas, but he became secretly weary of the oft-repeated lie; and conscience became more clamorous. The Bishop of London he was ashamed to behold; his clerical friends, who had rejoiced in the hope of his becoming a missionary, and anticipated a thousand blessings from the young heathen's translation of the Church Catechism, now gradually exchanged confidence for suspicion. New acquaintances were formed, to whom (till his mind advanced to a better state,) he erroneously thought himself bound, from the love of consistency, to repeat his irksome" statements, thus opening afresh the wounds that were partially cicatrized; and it was not till his thirty-second year, that he wholly threw off the mask, and, (magnanimously braving the fear of man,) dared to be honest, and give eternal interests a complete ascendancy in his mind. The conflict was now to be ended. He found that he could no longer temporize with his convictions, and, to obtain repose, with confusion, deep and indelible, he confessed to his few lingering adherents, that his whole narrative was one tissue of lies! His more public recantation he reserved for a season when duplicity could no longer be suspected.

When he contemplated the magnitude of his crimes, he literally lay down in confusion. The frequency and severity with which he reproached himself, is a proof

of his sincerity; and there is one other pleasing feature in Psalmanazar. Though vanity, for many years, had been so predominant a feeling in his heart, and human praise the very aliment of his spirit, yet, like extinguished volcanos, these, in the maturer years of his life, no longer disgorged their impurities; the fire that scorched, and the smoke that obscured, had for ever passed away. Instead of advancing his literary pretensions, and magnifying his talents and acquirements, great as they must necessarily have been, he appeared to take a delight in depreciating himself, to a degree, which, if his principle could be questioned, would seem to border on affectation. But it should be recollected, that to those who propose to themselves high standards, and entertain abstract, and lofty conceptions of excellence, such as the subject of this Essay evidently did, attainments respectable, if not great, stand divested of attractions. The ascent of the lark is lost in the flight of the eagle; and it is this grasp of the intellect, where the spirit toils after ideal elevations, that made Psalmanazar denominate all his academical acquisitions as superficial, and his youthful range of knowledge as contracted. Nothing seemed to him to have been done, while so much remained to be accomplished. Conceit and Arrogance may here learn a salutary lesson.

In the strict sense of the words, when he became thoroughly alive to the turpitude of his actions, he never again "held up his head." He knew that the Almighty, after he has pardoned a great transgressor, often allows the effects of transgression to remain, both as a warning to others, and to preserve the due equipoise of the moral world. He shrunk to privacy, and seemed to say of mankind, as David did of Shimei, from a sense

of his deserts," Let them curse:" yet in the depths of his affliction, from indulging the well-grounded hope of his Maker's pardon, through the great atonement, be found indescribable peace, and consequently bore, in the same proportion, with becoming resignation, the loss of human favour.

It is not, however, to be understood, that he was forsaken of all men. The learned Lesley delighted in his society, whose treatise," The case stated between a nobleman of the Church of Rome, and a gentleman of the Church of England," first completely answered all his scruples, and made him a decided convert to the Protestant faith. Many other men of letters, also, and particularly several pious and literary clergymen, respected and adhered to Psalmanazar; who, without compromising their sense of his crimes, softened their censures, from beholding in him, so becoming a spirit of humility, with all the other unequivocal evidences of contrition. Whilst they acquired knowledge by his erudition, they returned more than the obligation, by allaying his fears, and moderating his self-condemnation. One of these benevolent individuals, in particular, cheered him with the seasonable and pithy remark, "Do not presume, you are not yet come to a state of Christian perfection; do not despair, you are in the way to it."

Psalmanazar now received a testimony of respect, by several friends, unsolicited, entering into an annual subscription, to the amount of thirty pounds; prior to which period, he had often endured privations, if not want. This sum, with a few small additional means, rendered his circumstances easy, and enabled him to bend the full force of his vigorous mind to the acquisition of certain higher branches of knowledge, as well as to the effectual mastering of several languages, with which he