'I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in defence of real
Christianity such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the
authors of those ages) to have an influence upon men's beliefs and
actions. To offer at the restoring of that would indeed be a wild
project: it would be to dig up foundations: to destroy at one blow all
the wit and half the learning of the kingdom, to break the entire frame
and constitution of things, to ruin trade, extinguish arts and
sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts,
exchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as absurd as the
proposal of Horace, where he advises the Romans all in a body, to leave
their city, and seek a new seat in some remote part of the world, by
way of cure for the corruption of their manners.'--DEAN SWIFT, _An
Argument to Prove that the Abolishing of Christianity in England may,
as things now stand, be attended with some Inconveniences_.
{220}