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has this system been in operation in our own Commonwealth. And where, let me ask, has freedom of inquiry been less restricted, where has persecution or oppression been less felt; where are the institutions of religion more respected, the sabbath better observed, where is sincere piety more prevalent, or the christian virtues more faithfully practised? In New England, generally, till of late, the same system has existed, and has any region of our country, or of the world, for so long a period been distinguished by a higher tone of moral and religious principle? So true is this, that in the new settlements of the west, if the traveller find a village with its meeting house, and its minister, may he not fairly presume beforehand, that its inhabitants are principally emigrants from New England? Will it be said that these effects are to be ascribed to the peculiar character and circumstances of the first settlers of this part of our country? I believe it. But will any one maintain that the habits and sentiments of our forefathers have been transmitted without the aid of means; or must it be confessed, that their permanency is the natural consequence of the institutions they established, and handed down to us? Has the number of settled ministers been increased, or are the meeting houses more crowded in Rhode Island or New Hampshire, since these states

departed from the system of their ancestors; or does any one expect that the sentiments and virtues of Christianity will henceforth start up with a more vigorous growth in Connecticut, now that the shades of a legal establishment have been swept away ? In the Southern States religion has been long left to take care of itself, and has it flourished more than in New England? It is invidious to institute particular comparisons. Every one may be safely left to draw his own conclusions from facts the most notorious. There is one circumstance, however, already noticed, to which I must be allowed again to refer, as bearing forcibly upon several of the points under discussion. While in the capital of Massachusetts the proportion of settled ministers to the population is one third less than in the state at large; in the Southern States this proportion between the large towns and the country is more than reversed.

It is a maxim in politics, that the actual results of any important change often differ most widely from the anticipations of theory; and of course that innovations, though sometimes necessary to be made, are always experiments of hazard. This consideration ought to have the greatest weight in the present instance, because we may have all the advantage of the experiment without any of the

danger. The existing system is believed by many to have produced incalculable benefits; and by none will it be maintained to be an evil so intolerable as to demand an immediate alteration. In the neighbouring states, the experiment of the change is now making. If, upon full trial, this change should not be found to occasion the mischiefs that are apprehended from it, still more, if it should appear positively beneficial, we may at any time imitate their example, and reap all the advantages of their experience. But if, as is most solemnly feared by some of our wisest and best men, the reverse of all this should be proved by the event; if we should see in these states, notwithstanding the protracted operation of established sentiments and habits, one after another of the citizens, under various pretexts, withdrawing their aid from the support of religion, or neglecting to attach themselves to any society for that purpose, till the countenance of numbers shall take away the disgrace of singularity; if, as a necessary consequence of this, we should see parishes broken up, the clergy, from the poverty and precariousness of their support, losing their respectability, and men of talents no longer entering the profession; if we should see youth growing up without the regular instructions of the sabbath, the general sense of the sanctions of futuri

ty disappearing, and the tone of morals universally relaxed; what reason shall we have to bless God, that we have been saved from evils so deplorable. Nor let it be thought, should we follow in this dangerous path, we might at any time retrace our steps. It is easy to relax existing obligations; but to bind them again upon men, when they have been once loosened, is at all times most difficult, and would in this case be impossible; since the very causes which would require such a measure-the increase of irreligion and vice-would most effectually prevent its adoption. Enthusiasm and fanaticism might still occasionally shoot over the multitude, and shed on crowds of gazers a glare of wild and useless excitement; but a system of rational and regular instruction and worship could not be restored. That steady light, which shines into every man's dwelling, and guides him to his daily occupations and duties, which ripens the fruit and tinges the flowers of the earth, and spreads its brightness over a serene and glorious heaven, will have gone down upon us.

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