The writer justly remarks the equal adaptation of
the philosophy in question "to the finest minds, and to the least
cultivated." And so we add in regard to these works, that quite apart
from the pleasure of reading modern history in old books, the reader
will find another reward in the abundant illustration they furnish to
the fact, that wherever the religious enthusiasm makes its
appearance, it supplies the place of poetry and philosophy and of
learned discipline, and inspires by itself the same vastness of
thinking; so that in learning the religious experiences of a strong
but untaught mind, you seem to have suggested in turn all the sects
of the philosophers.
We seize the occasion to adorn our pages with the dying speech
of James Naylor, one of the companions of Fox, who had previously
been for eight years a common soldier in the army. Its least service
will be to show how far the religious sentiment could exalt the
thinking and purify the language of the most uneducated men.
"There is a spirit which I feel," said James Naylor a few hours
before his death, "that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any
wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in
the end.
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