A Natural Religiosity
There is in some people a natural religiosity – that is, a disposition to be religious. If they had been born in Turkey, they would have been devout Muslims; if in Italy, they would have become priests, monks, or nuns, and as ready to burn a heretic as their fathers; if born and bred in England, they would be devout churchmen, pious dissenters, and so forth – just as the various circumstances of birth and education, habits and associations, might dispose or determine.
Now to these naturally religious minds, when fully ripened and blended with a stern spirit of self-denial, which usually accompanies and grows up with it, no system so thoroughly adapts itself as that of Popery – for it just meets and gives full play to that habit of mind which yields, like clay, to every object of groveling, superstitious veneration.
By J.C. Philpot
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