AN ADDRESS TO THE MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL OF EVERY DENOMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES, UPON SUBJECTS INTERESTING TO MORALS.

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ROM the nature of your pursuits, and from your influence in fociety, I am encouraged to address you upon fubjects of the utmost importance to the present and future happiness of your fellow-citizens, as well as to the profperity of the United States.

Under the great diversity of opinions, you entertain in religion, you are all united in inculcating the neceffity of morals. In this business you are neither catholics nor proteftants-churchmen nor diffenters. One fpirit actuates you all. From the fuccefs, or failure, of your exertions in the caufe of virtue, we anticipate the freedom or flavery of our country. Even the new government of the united states, from which fo many advantages are expected, will neither restore order, nor establish justice among us, unless it be accompanied and supported by morality, among all claffes of people. Impreffed with a fense of the truth of these observations, I fhall briefly point out a few of those practices, which prevail in America, which ex

ert a pernicious influence upon morals, and thereby prepare our country for misery and slavery.

I fhall begin by pointing out, in the first place, the mischevious effects of spirituos liquors upon the morals of our citizens.

I. They render the temper peevish and paffionate, They beget quarrels, and lead to profane and indecent language. They are the parents of idleness and extravagance, and the certain forerunners of poverty, and frequently of jails, wheelbarrows, and the gallows. They are likewise injurious to health and life, and kill more than the peftilence, or the fword. Our legislatures, by premitting the ufe of them, for the fake of the paltry duty collected from them, act as absurdly as a prince would do, who should permit the cultivation of a poifonous nut, which every year carried off ten thousand of his fubjects, because it yielded a revenue of thirty thousand pounds a year. These ten thousand men would produce annually by their labour, or by paying a trifling impoft upon any one of the neceffaries of life, twenty times that fum. In order to put an end to the defolating effects of fpirituous liquors, it will be proper for our minifters to preach against, not the abuse of them only, but their use altogether. They are never neceffary but in sickness : and then they are better applied to the outfide, than to the infide of the body.

II Militia laws have an unfriendly influence upon morals, more especially where they authorife the election of the officers by the privates. The meetings of citizens for militia exercises are generally attended with intemperance in drinking, quarrelling, profane swearing, and acts of violence to the property of the perfons who live near the places where those meetings are held. It is a mistake to fuppofe that the defence of liberty requires a well organized militia in the time of peace.

The United States proved in the beginning of the late war, and France has proved fince, that armies of disciplined irrefiftable troops may be formed in a fhort time out of the peasants of a country. War has lately become a simple art. All that is practical in it, may be acquired in a few weeks. The most gallant exploits were performed during the late war, by men who had been but a few days in the practice of handling fire

arms.

III. Fairs are a Pandora's box opened twice a year, in many of the states. They are wholly unneceffary, fince fhops are fo common in all the civilized parts of the country. They tempt to extravagance-gaming -drunkennefs-and uncleannefs. They are proper only in defpotic ftates, where the more a people are corrupted, the more readily they submit to arbitrary government.

IV. Law-fuits fhould be difcouraged as much as poffible. They are highly difreputable between perfons

who profefs chriftianity. The attendance upon courts exposes to idlenefs-drinking-and gaming; and the ufual delays of justice seldom fail of entailing hereditary discord among neighbours. It is with inexpreffible pleafure that I have lately feen an account of a recommendation from the prefbyterian fynod of New-York and Philadelphia, to all the churches under their care, to fettle their difputes after the manner of the primitive christians and friends, by arbitration. Bleffed event in the history of mankind! may their practice spread among all fects of chriftians, and may it prove a prelude of that happy time foretold in the fcriptures, when war and murder fhall be no more.

V. The licentioufnefs of the prefs is a fruitful fource of the corruption of morals. Men are deterred from injuring each other, chiefly by the fear of detection or punishment. Now both of these are removed by the usual secrecy of a licentious prefs. Hence revenge, fcandal, and falfehood are cherished and propagated in a community. By means of this engine of malice, we fometimes fee not only reputation but even life, itfelf, taken away. The patriotic Mr. Cummins, and the amiable Dr. Hawkefworth, it is faid, both died of a broken heart, in confequence of being attacked by perfons, who concealed themfelves behind a licentious prefs in London. Perfonal difputes and attacks in a newspaper, may be compared to duels, or to the Indian mode of fighting, according as they are carried on with,

or without the names of their authors. They fhew in both cafes, a degree of the fame spirit, which leads to open murder or private affaffination. But further: the cause of liberty is greatly injured by personal publications, which are not true, or which have no connection with the public; for who will believe a truth that is told of a bad man, who has been accustomed to read falfehoods published every day, of a good man? Printers who vend 'fcurrility, would do well in confidering, that the publisher of scandal, is as bad as the author of it, in the fame manner that the receiver of stolen goods, is as bad as the thief.

VI. Horfe-racing and cock-fighting are unfriendly amusements to morals, and of course to the liberties of our country. They occafion idlenefs, fraud, gaming, and profane fwearing, and harden the heart against the feelings of humanity. Thefe vulgar sports should be forbidden by law in all chriftian and republican countries.

VII. Clubs of all kinds, where the only bufinefs of the company, is feeding (for that is true name of a gratification that is fimply animal) are hurtful to morals. The fociety in taverns where clubs are ufually held, is feldom fubject to much order. It exposes men to idlenefs, prodigality, and debt. It is in private families, only that fociety is innocent, or improving. Here manners are ufually kept within the bounds of deceney by the company of females, who generally compofe