land is indebted to the influence of Christianity for all that he now is, as a man, above the most savage barbarian that ever lived on the face of the earth. Atheism✓ makes men fools, and fools demons. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity."

But Mr. D. H. in his review of Mr. Lothrop's sermon, says Mr. Kneeland "could not help his belief, it was the result of conviction-his right to profess that belief, is guaranteed to him as we have shown, by the constitution." Rather too fast Mr. H. You have not

shown, nor can you show it. Nor is it true that Mr. Kneeland" has been hurt, or molested, or restrained in his person, liberty and estate, for his religious sentiments and professions." Because he has no "religious sentiment or professions." Nor does the constitution of this Commonwealth known him as having any. So that Mr. H. has built his whole fabric upon the sand.

I have never seen Mr. Lothrop's sermon, but judging from the extracts that Mr. H. has made from it, it will stand the test as well, to say the least, as the review will. For Mr. H. has "strained at a knat, and swallowed a camel."

In my humble opinion Mr. Kneeland has not been hurt or molested, in the cause of his national rights and liberties, but in the cause of anarchy and confusion-not for truth but for error-not for well but for evil doingnot for righteousness, but for unrighteousness. Nor did justice demand that he should be pardoned out of prison.. But justice demanded that he should remain in prison the sixty days. Nor was it wise and judicious in Dr. Channing in making an effort to obtain from the "Executive Officers" of this State government, his pardon. If men cannot help their belief, then they are not in the least to blame; and, of course, they are perfectly innocent in holding their opinions. And if men are not to blame for their opinions, then they are not in the least to blame for their acts-for their acts are the result of

their belief or opinions. And this would go to destroy the moral free agency of man. And there is no doctrine in the Bible that is more clearly and fully taught than the doctrine of man's moral free agency.

The Bill of Rights says "As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of a civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of GOD, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of GOD, and for the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily."

From what is now before us, it is evident that the framers of the constitution of this State made no provision for the free toleration of the sentiments of the Roman Catholic, Deist or Atheist. So that Mr. H. is altogether mistaken upon the subject of Mr. Kneeland's constitutional rights and liberties.

INTEMPERANCE is one of the greatest evils in the land. It is one of the greatest causes of poverty, and crime, and wretchedness, and premature death. Solomon says, "One sinner destroyeth much good." This is emphatically true in reference to the drunkard. For he destroys his own prosperity, and reputation, and happiness, and that of his family, and is a burden and a nuisance to society, and a disgrace to the human race. Dr. Channing very wisely says, "That intemperance is tlie voluntary ex tinction of reason."

Intemperance blinds the mind, hardens the heart, and impairs and destroys all the moral sensibility of the soul. Let a man of the highest standing in society, of the greatest powers of mind, and of the most elevated attainments in science and literature, become intemperate, a drunkard, and he is soon brought down below the brutal creation. And remaining in that state until death, he cannot have the least well founded hope that he shall ever" inherit the kingdom of God." Then how wretched is the situation of the drunkard for time and how deplorable for eternity. "O my soul come not thou into their secrets; unto their assemblies, mine honor, be not thou united!"

In proportion as men destroy good, they produce evil. And if one sinner destroys much good and produces much evil, then what a vast quantity of good will fifty thousand drunkards destroy, and what a vast quantity of evil will they produce in the United States. And have men a natural right to destroy good and produce evil to gratify an unnatural taste, a corrupt inclination, a froward mind and a depraved heart? Most certainly they have nct. The right that the intemperate man claims for himself is not a natural, but an assumed and superficial right. And who has been, and now is, instrumental in destroying such an infinite quantity of good, and of producing such an infinite quantity of evil in this land? Answer. The dealers in ardent spirits, the distillers, the importers, the whole-sale dealers, the retailers and the dram-sellers. And no man has any more right to be accessory to the committal of a crime than he has to commit it. One man has as good a right to be intemperate, and get drunk every day of his life, as another has to be instrumental in making him so. And all that have been, and now are, engaged in the traffic of ardent spirits, have been and now are instrumental of making drunkards. And no man that has been or now is concerned directly or indirectly in making drunkards, can with the least propriety find the least

fault with any man for being a drunkard. There is not the least right in either case.

No man has any more right to keep a grog shop than he has to keep a brothel; for they are both sinks of iniquity and pollution, and the way of those that visit them leads down to death and their steps take fast hold upon hell. And those that keep either are no better than those that visit them. "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." Every man that keeps a grop-shop is deceived, and is a deceiver of others. And the deceiver and the deceived are the Lord's. I challenge any man in the community to prove fairly and conclusively, that any man ever had a natural right to be intemperate, or of being instrumental in making men drunkards. This Col. Gibbens and others of the committee ought to have done before they made their Report of June 5th, 1838, against the license law of April 19th, of the above year, and "stirred up the people" and "set all the city in an uproar."

The Report purporting to come from the Old Common Council Room in Boston, no doubt was written in the counting-room of a certain distil-house, not far from Distil-House Square. And of course the writer of it was encompassed if not filled with its fumes. From thence it was carried perfumed to the "Old Common Council Room," and there received, and approved of, and signed by twelve men, and there offered by them to the great goddess Diana, of the dealers and drinkers of ardent spirits, not only there assembled, but all others in this Commonwealth.

The committee that received and presented the Report and offered the seven resolutions following it, are responsible to the public for every word found therein. And every man in the community has a just right to put a fair and full construction on all their terms. Questions are often as full of import, as positive assertions are. And no doubt the writer of the Report designed

that all his questions should be so received and considered, and have as much influence upon all the members of that meeting, and the whole public, as though he had used plain and positive declarations, and all that is contained in those questions was strictly true.

No man has the least right, either natural or moral, to say one word directly or indirectly against any other man that is not strictly true. Nor has any man any ́ more right to say any thing directly or indirectly against the government under which he lives and by which he is protected, that is not strictly true, than he has against an individual. And if this is correct and true, then if the writer of the Report has said any thing directly or indirectly, either by asking questions or making positive assertions against the authors and advocates of the license law or the government that is not strictly true but false, then he is a libeler; and those that approve of a libel against an individual or against the government, must have a libelous spirit. The command of God is, "Thou shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people." This command is of a moral nature and is binding upon all men in all nations under heaven.

As Col. Gibbens was the chairman of the committee that signed and presented the above named Report, at the Old Common Council Room, on the evening of the 5th of last June, I shall know him and him only in what I have to say upon this subject. If Col. Gibbens' moral character before he presented this Report, stood as fair as Adam's did before he eat "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil," it would not have the least to do with the subject of his Report. If Col. Gibbens is a man of high standing in society, and of great influence among men, he has not the least right to make use of the least portion of his great influence against the public good to favor his own interest, for he is bound to love his neighbor as himself.

Čol. Gibbens' Report reminds me of the Report that Demetrius made to the silver-smiths at Ephesus, who