it and encouraged, shall burst their chains, and walk and free upon the fair earth which God has given them

When, at first, we set up for independence, the pries and kings and nobles looked upon us with surprise an tempt. "What do these feeble Jews?" they said. a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone Next, they pitied us. "Poor orphans," they said, have no kings, nor church and state, to take care of th And they doubted not that we should go back to legged stools and skins and acorns. But we have kept for more than three-quarters of a century, and have ha cral skirmishes upon land and sea in defence of our lib and in that time have made considerable corn and

and beef and pork, and some to spare, cotton, als woollen cloths, and a few chairs, and knives and fork spoons, and farming utensils;-and, under the banner o and liberty, we have faith to believe that we shall h till the Gospel has done for all nations what it has for us.

There are, it is true, some among us who are not to "let pretty well alone," and are anxious to try the iment of making us more free and happy. They hav covered, they think, that there is no God; that the Bil fable, and civil government a usurpation of human that separate families and separate property are a that it is a vile monopoly for any man to have any particular, or for a son to know and love his father modesty is an insult and persecution, and brass the in right of woman; that liberty is the right of every man as he pleases, and equality the right of every man to tall, and as strong, and handsome, and wise, and witty, neighbor; and to dress as well, and enjoy as fine a hou

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equipage, and to eat and drink as much by weight and measure, as his neighbor.

You remember, I suppose, the dog with a marrow-bone in his mouth, who swam the river, and, to grasp the shadow, lost the substance. And you, I trust, will not imitate his example, by giving up the greatest blessings ever bestowed by Heaven, not for a shadow, but for the greatest sufferings that ever came upon a guilty nation. You will think it best, I doubt not, to wait until some other nation has made a more successful experiment on the principles of Atheism, before you abandon God and the Bible, and the civil and religious institutions of your country.

Atheism was the rod of God's anger, by which he overturned and dashed in pieces the governments and hierarchies of Europe, who took counsel against the Lord and his anointed.

But the wild power which destroyed thrones and feudal systems and ecclesiastical dominions in Europe, would blow to atoms our republic, rulers, priests and people, and introduce, first, anarchy intolerable, and then an everlasting despotism. It is for want of the Bible, and the moral government of God, in Europe, that liberty is struggling for life between revolutions and anarchy and despotisms; and when in our nation religion and liberty and constitutions and laws shall be, by the people, identified with European despotisms, and regarded with hate, not kings and priests only, and temples and Sabbaths, will be swept away, but the whole generation will be involved in a vortex of fire and blood. "In that day

shall kings, and great men, and rich men, and chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every freeman, hide themselves in dens and in the rocks of the mountains; saying to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us

from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand?"

But recently another generation of infidels have sprung up confident that the experiment was not fairly made, and that the church and the Gospel having failed, reason and philoso phy are the last hope of man. And, for some time past they have been turning their attention to the laboring classes of our nation; since which, I have trembled for my country For I know that the heart and bone and sinews of liberty are with the laboring men of my country,-the agriculturists artisans, and all sorts of laborers. And I know that, unper verted, they will defend her institutions forever.

But I know, too, who has carried among them lying sophistries and corrupting principles. And I have looked on and wept, and would fain have come to the rescue of this best and last hope of my country. For when you fail, the last citadel of liberty has been undermined and laid in ruins. And if ever I longed for the power of ubiquity, it was that I might stand by every laborer while the deceiver was poisoning his soul, and, with Ithuriel spear, compel that deceiver, Satan-like, to stand up in his own malignant, horrible, repellent character.

I have heard, on the other side, all, and more than all, which you have heard. And, after repeated and careful examinations, I do not hesitate to assure you, that it can all be refuted, and has been, times without number. And if hard mental and physical action may constitute a working man, I hope to be admitted into your fraternity, as a friend and counsellor. For, beside my own direct claims, all my American ancestors were farmers or artisans. My father

an athletic and hard-laboring man, intelligent, patriotic,

and well versed in history, geography, and the constitution of the United States, and was respected and beloved by his fellow-citizens; and, more than all, was a Christian.

I have good hope, therefore, that you will receive kindly this volume, which I dedicate to you, and that you will read it with candor and care, and impartial and earnest attention.

MORAL ATHEISM is the aversion of the heart to God and his government. It implies no impotency of intellect; but its perversion, by the obliquity of the heart. It is not the understanding which revolts against evidence, but the heart which revolts against holiness and moral obligation. The language of the heart consists in feeling; and to say in the heart, "no God," is to wish there were none. This aversion to the existence of God springs, however, from no disinterested malignity to his being, provided it implied no law, accountability, guilt, and danger.

It is against God as a moral governor, reigning over men by a law which is holy and just and good, that the heart of the fool makes insurrection. Its language is, No accountability, no fear, no restraint, no self-denial, no change of heart and life to escape perdition, and no reward or punishment in a future state according to deeds.

SPECULATIVE ATHEISM is the actual belief of what the heart thus desires. It is giving up the understanding to strong delusion, to believe a lie.

The first aberration of alienated mind before the flood was manifested in licentiousness and violence; the second in idolatry—the worship by visible symbols of local divinities inhabiting the several departments of nature. The increase of philosophy united these scattered energies into one almighty mind, from which inferior minds were emanations, like sparks from heavenly bodies, to be in due time absorbed again. Gradu

ally, however, as animalism prevailed, and the darkness deepened, the intelligence and voluntary action of this great mind went out, and left only an unthinking, all-pervading energy -the soul of the world, and the primum mobile of all motion in the universe, according to the attributes and laws of selfexistent and eternal nature.

This is Pantheism, which makes the world God, and God the world. It is the atheism which was in France the offspring of perverted Christianity; and it is substantially the form which the infidelity of this country has assumed. Most who doubt are as much unsettled concerning the being of a God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state, as about the Bible. It is denominated political atheism, because, in France and here, its theories extend to the modification of the religious, civil, and social state of man,

contemplating nothing less than the abolition of marriage and the family state, separate property, civil government, and all sense of accountability, and all religious worship;an effort to turn the world up side down, and empty it of every institution, thought, feeling, and action, which has emanated from Christianity, to unite mankind under the auspices of atheism.

That such associations exist, and are acting in correspondence, and are extending themselves through the country, is a matter of notoriety. That they can no longer, with safety, be despised, or permitted to move on without some effort to apprize the community of their character and designs, is equally certain; for, though no doubt public sentiment, when brought to act upon them, will render them harmless, it is no less true that the reality and nature of these associations must be understood, that this great corrector may act upon

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