injuriously affected. To take an oath to do a certain prescribed act, and then to do only just that which custom happens to prescribe, is to ensnare the conscience and practically to diminish the sanctions of veracity. The evil may be avoided either by disusing all previous promises to speak the truth, or to adapt the terms of the promise (if that can be done) to the duties which the law or which custom expects. "You shall true answer make to all such questions as shall be asked of you," is the form when a person is sworn upon a voir dire; and if this is all that the law expects when he is giving evidence, why not use the same form? If however, in deference to the reasonings against the use of any oaths, the oath in evidence were abolished, no difficulty could remain: for to promise in any form to speak the truth, is, as we have seen, absurd.

Whilst the oath in evidence continues to be imposed, it is not an easy task to determine in what sense the witness should understand it. If you decide by the meaning of the legislature which imposed the oath, it appears manifest that he should tell all he knows, whether asked or not. But what, it may be asked, is the meaning of a law, but that which the authorized expounders of the law determine? And if they habitually admit an interpretation at variance with the terms of the oath, is not their sanction an authoritative explanation of the legislature's meaning? These are questions which I pretend not with confidence to determine. The mischiefs which result from the uncertainty, are to be charged upon the legislatures which do not remove the evil. I would, however, suggest that the meaning of a form in such cases is to be sought, not so much in the meaning of the original imposers, as in that of those who now sanction the form by permitting it to exist. This doubtless opens wide the door to extreme licentiousness of interpretation. Nor can that door be closed.

There is no other remedial measure than an alteration of the forms or an abolition of the oath.

MILITARY OATH." I swear to obey the orders of the officers who are set over me: So help me God." And suppose an officer orders him to do something which morality forbids his oath then stands thus: "I swear to obey man rather than God." The profaneness is shocking. Will any extenuation be offered, and will it be said that the military man only swears to obey the virtuous orders of his superior? We deny the fact: the oath neither means nor is intended to mean, any such thing. It may indeed by possibility happen that an officer may order his inferior to do a thing which a courtmartial would not punish him for refusing to do. But if the law intends to allow such exceptions, what excuse is there for making the terms of the oath absolute? Is it not teaching military men to swear they care not what, thus to make the terms of the oath one thing and its meaning another? But the real truth is, that neither the law nor courts-martial allow any such limitations in the meaning of the oath as will bring it within the limits of morality, or of even a decent reverence to Him who commands morality to man. They do not intend to allow the Moral Law to be the primary rule to the soldier. They intend the contrary: and the soldier does actually swear that, if he is ordered so to do, he will violate the law of God. Of this impiety what is the use? Does any one imagine that a soldier obeys his superiors because he has sworn to obey them? It were ridiculous.

When courts-martial inflict a punishment, they inflict it not for perjury but for disobedience.

I would devote two or three sentences to the ob

So

servation that the military oath is sui generis. far at least as my information extends, no other oath is imposed which promises unconditional obedience to other men; no other oath exists by which a man binds himself to violate the laws of God. Why does the military oath thus stand alone, the explicit contemner of the obligations of morality?Because it belongs to a custom which itself contemns morality. Because it belongs to a custom which "repeals all the principles of virtue." Because it belongs to War.-There is a lesson couched in this, which he who has ears to hear will find to be pregnant with instruction.

OATH AGAINST BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS." I do swear I have not received, or had, by myself or any person whatsoever in trust for me, or for my use and benefit, directly or indirectly, any sum or sums of money; office, place, or employment; gift or reward; or any promise or security for any money, office, employment, or gift, in order to give my vote at this election." This is an attempt to secure incorruptness by extreme accuracy in framing the

oath.

With what success, public experience tells. No bribery oath will prevent bribery. It wants efficient sanctions-punishment by the law or reprobation by the public. A man who possesses a vote in a close borough, and whose neighbours and their fathers have habitually pocketed a bribe at every election, is very little under the influence of public opinion. That public with which he is connected, does not reprobate the act, and he learns to imagine it is of little moral turpitude. As to legal penalties, they are too unfrequently inflicted or too difficult of infliction to be of much avail. Why then is this nursery of perjury continued? Which action should we most deprecate, that of the voter who perjures himself for a ten-pound note, or that of the legislator who so tempts him to perjury by imposing an oath which he knows will be violated? If bribery be wrong, punish it; but it is utterly indefensible to exact oaths which every body knows will be broken. Not indeed that any thing in the present state of the representation will prevent bribery. We may multiply oaths and denounce penalties without end, yet bribery will still prevail. But though bribery be inseparable from the system, perjury is not. We should abolish one of the evils if we do not or cannot abolish both.

As to those endless contrivances by which electors avoid the arm of the law, and hope to avoid the guilt of perjury, they are, as it respects guilt, all and always vain. The intention of the Legislature was to prevent bribery, and he who is bribed, violates his oath whether he violates its literal terms or not. The shopkeeper who sells a yard of cloth to a candidate for twenty pounds, is just as truly bribed, and he just as truly commits perjury, as if the candidate had said, I give you this twenty-pound These men may note to tempt you to vote for me. evade legal penalties; there is a power which they cannot evade.

OATH AGAINST SIMONY.-The substance of the oath is, "I do swear that I have made no simoniacal payment for obtaining this ecclesiastical place: So help me God through Jesus Christ!" The patronage of livings, that is, the legal right to give a man the ecclesiastical income of a parish, may, like other property, be bought and sold. But though a person may legally sell the power of giving the income, he may not sell the income itself; the reason it may be presumed being, that a person who can only give the income, will be more likely to bestow it upon such a clergyman as deserves it, than if he sold it to the highest bidder. It may however be observed in passing, that the security for the judicious

And

UNIVERSITY OATHS.-The various statutes of colleges, of which every member is obliged to promise the observance on oath, are become wholly or partly obsolete; some are needless and absurd, some illegal, and to some, perhaps, it is impossible to conform. Yet the oath to perform them is constantly taken. A man swears that he will speak, within the college, no language but Latin; and he speaks English in it every day. He swears he will employ so many hours out of every twenty four in disputations; and does not dispute for days or weeks together. What remains, then, for those who take these oaths to do? To show that this is not perjury. Here is the field for casuistry; here is the field in which ingenuity may exhibit its adroitness! in which sophistry may delight to range! in which Duns Scotus, if he were again in the world, might rejoice to be a combatant! -And what do Ingenuity, and Casuistry, and Sophistry do? Oh! they discover consolatory truths; they discover that if the act which you promise to perform is unlawful, you may swear to perform it with an easy conscience; they discover that there is no harm in swearing to jump from Dover to Calais, because it is "impracticable;" they discover that it is quite proper to swear to do a foolish thing because it would be "manifestly inconvenient " and " prejudicial" to do it. In a word, they discover so many agrecable things that if the book of Cervantes were appended to the oath, they might swear to imitate all the deeds of his hero, and yet remain quietly and innocently in a college all their lives.

That nothing can be said in extenuation of those who take these oaths, cannot be affirmed; yet that the taking them is wrong, every man who simply consults his own heart will know. Even if they were wrong upon no other ground they would be so upon this, that if men were conscientious enough to refuse to take them, the "necessity" for taking them would soon be withdrawn. No man questions that these oaths are a scandal to religion and to religious men; no man questions that their tendency is to make the public think lightly of the obligation of an oath. They ought therefore to be abolished. It is imperative upon the legislature to abolish them, and it is impera tive upon the individual, by refusing to take them, to evince to the legislature the necessity for its interference. Nothing is wanted but that private Christians should maintain Christian fidelity. If they did do

this, and refused to take these oaths, the legislature would presently do its duty. It needs not to be feared that it would suffer the doors of the colleges to be locked up, because students were too consci entious to swear falsely. Thus, although the oblgation upon the legislature is manifest, it possesses some semblance of an excuse for refraining from reform, since those who are immediately aggrieved, and who are the immediate agents of the offence, are so little concerned hat they do not address even a petition for interference. That some good men feel aggrieved is scarcely to be doubted: let these remember their obligations: let them remember, that compliance entails upon posterity the evil and the offence, and sets, for the integrity of successors, a perpetual snare.

It is an unhappy reflection that men endeavour rather to pacify the misgiving voice of conscience under a continuance of the evil, than exert themselves to remove it. Unschooled persons will always think that the usage is wrong. In truth, even after the licentious interpretations of the oaths have been resorted to-after it has been shown what he who takes them does not promise, what imaginable security is there that he will perform that which he does promise that he will even know what he promises! None.

Being himself the interpreter of the oath, and having resolved that the oath does not mean what says, he is at liberty to think that it means any thing; or, which I suppose is the practical opinion, that it means nothing. If we would remove the evil we must abolish the oath.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

BISHOP CLAYTON said, "I do not only doubt whether the compilers of the Articles, but even whether any two thinking men, ever agreed exactly in their opinion not only with regard to all the Articles, but even with regard to any one of them."* Such is the character of that series of propositions in which a man is required to declare his belief before he can become a minister in a Christian community. The event may easily be foreseen; some will refuse to subscribe; some will subscribe though it violates their consciences; some will subscribe regardless whether it be right or wrong; and some of course will be found to justify subscription.

Of those who on moral grounds refuse to subscribe to that which they do not believe, it may be presumed that they are conscientious men-men who prefer sacrificing their interests to their duties. These are the men whom every Christian church should especially desire to retain in its communion; and these are precisely the men whom the Articles exclude from the English church.

As it respects those who perceive the impropriety of subscription and yet subscribe, whose consciences are wronged by the very act which introduces them into the church-the evil is manifest and great. Chillingworth declared to Shelden that "if he subscribed, he subscribed his own damnation," yet not long afterwards Chillingworth was induced to subscribe. Unhappy, that they who are about to preach virtue to others, should be initiated by a violation of the Moral Law!

With respect to those who subscribe heedlessly, and without regard to their belief or disbelief of the Articles-of what use is subscription? It is designed to operate as a test; but what test is it to him who would set his name to the Articles if they were exactly the contrary of what they are? If conscientiousness keeps some men out of the church, the

• Confessional, 3d Edit. p. 246.

want of conscientiousness lets others in. The contrivance is admirably adapted to an end; but to what end? To the separation of the more virtuous from the less, and to the admission of the latter.

A reader who was a novice in these affairs would ask, in wonder, For what purpose is subscription exacted? If the Articles are so objectionable, and if subscription is productive of so much evil, why are not the Articles revised, or why is subscription required at all? These are reasonable questions. They involve, however, political considerations; and in the Political Essay we hope to give such an enquirer satisfaction respecting them.

And with respect to the justifications that are offered of subscribing to doctrines which are not believed, it is manifest, that they must set out with the assumption that the words of the Articles mean nothing that we are not to seek for their meaning in their terms, but in some other quarter. It is hardly necessary to remark, that when this assumption is made, the enquirer is launched upon a boundless ocean, and though he has to make his way to a port, possesses neither compass nor helm, and can see neither sun nor star. Who can assign any limit to license of interpretation, when it is once agreed that the words themselves mean nothing? The world is all before us, and we have to seek a place of rest from pyrrhonism wherever we can find it. We are told to go back to Queen Elizabeth's days, and to find out, if we can, what the legislature who framed the Articles meant: always premising that we are not to judge of what they meant by what they said. How is it discovered that they did not mean what they said? By a process of most convincing argumentation; which argumentation consists in this, "It is difficult to conceive how" they could have meant it! These are agreeable and convenient solutions; but they are not true.

"They who contend that nothing less can justify subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, than the actual belief of each and every separate proposition contained in them, must suppose that the legislature expected the consent of ten thousand men and that in perpetual succession, not to one controverted proposition but to many hundreds. It is difficult to conceive how this could be expected by any who observed the incurable diversity of human opinion upon all subjects short of demonstration." Now it appears that the Legislature of Elizabeth actually did require uniformity of opinion upon these controverted points. Such has been the decision of the Judges." One Smyth subscribed to the said Thirty

allow private opinion the liberty of thinking some of them to be "against the Word of God." This was precisely the liberty which the legislature intended to preclude. The modern explanations affirm the Articles to be conditional, and in fact, that they impose only a few general obligations; but unconditional subscription was the very thing which the legislature required. If a person should now express the condition which Smyth, as reported by Coke, expressed, and should say, I believe the Articles so far as they are accordant with Christian Truth-it appears that his subscription would not be accepted; and yet this is what is done by perhaps every clergyman in England-with this difference only, that the reservation is secretly made and not frankly expressed. So that in reality, and according to the principles laid down by the apologists of subscription,* almost every subscriber subscribes falsely.

But what, it will be asked, is to be done? Refuse to subscribe. There is no other means of maintaining your purity, and perhaps no other means of procuring an abolition of the Articles. At least this means would be effectual. We may be sure that the legislature would revise or abolish them if it was found that no one would subscribe. They would not leave the pulpits empty in compliment to a barbarous relic of the days of Elizabeth. Perhaps it will be said, that although men of virtue refusea to subscribe, the pulpits would still be filled with unprincipled men. The effect would speedily be the same: the legislature would not continue to impose subscription for the sake of excluding from the ministry all but bad men. Those who subscribe, therefore, bind the burden upon their own shoulders and upon the shoulders of posterity. The offence is great: the scandal to religion is great: and even if refusal to subscribe would not remove the evil, the question for the individual is not what may be the consequences of doing his duty, but what his duty is. We want a little more Christian fidelity; a little more of that spirit which made our forefathers prefer the stake to tampering with their consciences.

CHAPTER IX.

IMMORAL AGENCY.

Libraries-Public-houses-Prosecutions-Political affairs.

This overthrows the convenient explanations of modern times. It is agreed by those who offer these explanations, that the meaning of Elizabeth's legislature is that by which they are bound. That meaning then is declared by all the Judges of England to be, that subscribers should believe the propositions of the Articles. The modern explanations + Id.

Mor. and Pol. Phil. b. 3 p. 1. c. 22.
Coke: Instit. 4 cap. 74. p. 324.

A GREAT portion of the moral evil in the world, is the result not so much of the intensity of individual wickedness, as of a general incompleteness in the practical virtue of all classes of men. If it were possible to take away misconduct from one half of the community and to add its amount to the remainder, it is probable that the moral character of our species would be soon benefited by the change. Now, the ill dispositions of the bad are powerfully encouraged by the want of upright examples in A man may deviate considerably from rectitude, and still be as good as his neighbours. From such a man, the motive to ex

those who are better.

These principles are, that the meaning of a promise or an oath is to be determined by the meaning of those who imwhether, in the case of antiquated forms, a proper standard of pose it. This as a general rule is true; but I repeat the doubt their meaning is not to be sought in the intention of the le This doubt, gislatures which now perpetuate those forms. Lowever, in whatever way it preponderates, will not afford a justification of subscribing to forms of which the terms are notoriously disregarded.

cellence which the constant presence of virtuous example supplies, is taken away. So that there is reason to believe, that if the bad were to become worse, and the reputable to become proportionably better, the average virtue of the world would speedily be increased.

One of the modes by which the efficacy of example in reputable persons is miserably diminished, is by what we have called Immoral Agency-by their being willing to encourage, at second hand, evils which they would not commit as principals. Linked together as men are in society, it is frequently difficuit to perform an unwarrantable action without some sort of co-operation from creditable men. This co-operation is not often, except in flagrant cases, refused; and thus not only is the commission of such actions facilitated, but a general relaxation is induced in the practical estimates which men form of the standard of rectitude.

Since, then, so much evil attends this agency in unwarrantable conduct, it manifestly becomes a good man to look around upon the nature of his intercourse with others, and to consider whether he is not virtually promoting evils which his judgment deprecates, or reducing the standard of moral judgment in the world. The reader would have no difficulty in perceiving that, if a strenuous opponent of the slave trade should establish a manufactory of manacles, and thumbscrews, and iron collars for the slave merchants, he would be grossly inconsistent with himself. The reader would perceive too, that his labours in the cause of the abolition would be almost nullified by the viciousness of his example, and that he would generally discredit pretensions to philanthropy. Now that which we desire the reader to do is, to apply the principles which this illustration exhibits to other and less flagrant cases. Other cases of co-operation with evil may be less flagrant than this; but they are not, on that account, innocent. I have read, in the life of a man of great purity of character, that he refused to draw up a will or some such document because it contained a transfer of some slaves. He thought that slavery was absolutely wrong; and therefore would not, even by the remotest implication, sanction the system by his example.* I think he exercised a sound Christian judgment; and if all who prepare such documents acted upon the same principles, I know not whether they would not so influence public opinion as greatly to hasten the abolition of slavery itself. Yet where is the man who would refuse to do this, or to do things even less defensible than this?

PUBLICATION AND CIRCULATION OF BOOKS.-It is a very common thing to hear of the evils of pernicious reading, of how it enervates the mind, or how it depraves the principles. The complaints are doubtless just. These books could not be read, and these evils would be spared the world, if one did not write, and another did not print, and another did not sell, and another did not circulate them. Are those then, without whose agency the mischief could not ensue, to be held innocent in affording this agency? Yet, loudly as we complain of the evil, and carefully as we warn our children to avoid it, how seldom do we hear public reprobation of the writers! As to printers, and booksellers, and library keepers, we scarcely hear their offences men

One of the publications of this excellent man contains a paragraph much to our present purpose : "In all our concerus, it is necessary that nothing we do may carry the appear. ance of approbation of the works of wickedness, make the unrighteous more at ease in unrighteousness, or occasion the injuries committed against the oppressed to be more lightly looked over."-Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind, c. 3, by John Woolman.

tioned at all. We speak not of those abandon ed publications which all respectable men condemn, but of those which, pernicious as they are confessed to be, furnish reading-rooms and libraries, and are habitually sold in almost every bookseller's shop. Seneca says, 66 He that lends a man money to carry him to a bawdy-house, or a weapon for his revenge, makes himself a partner of his crime." He, too, who writes or sells a book which will, in all probability, injure the reader, is accessory to the mischief which may be done; with this aggravation, when compared with the examples of Seneca, that whilst the money would probably do mischief but to one or two persons, the book may injure a hundred or a thousand Of the writers of injurious books, we need say no more. If the inferior agents are censurable, the primary agent must be more censurable. A printer or a bookseller should, however, reflect, that to be not so bad as another, is a very different thing from being innocent. When we see that the owner of a press will print any work that is offered to him, with no other concern about its tendency than whether it will subject him to penalties from the law, we surely must perceive that he exercises but a very imperfect virtue. Is it obligatory upon us not to promote ill principles in other men? He does not fulfil the obligation. Is it obligatory upon us to promote rectitude by unimpeachable example? He does not exhibit that example. If it were right for my neighbour to furnish me with the means of moral injury, it would not be wrong for me to accept and to employ them.

I stand in a bookseller's shop, and observe his customers successively coming in. One orders a lexicon, and one a work of scurrilous infidelity; one Captain Cook's Voyages, and one a new licentious romance. If the bookseller takes and executes all these orders with the same willingness, I cannot but perceive that there is an inconsistency, an incompleteness, in his moral principles of action. Perhaps this person is so conscious of the mischievous effects of such books, that he would not allow them in the hands of his children, nor suffer them to be seen on his parlour table. But if he thus knows the evils which they inflict, can it be right for him to be the agent in diffusing them? Such a person does not exhibit that consistency, that completeness of virtuous conduct, without which the Christian character cannot be fully exhibited. Step into the shop of this bookseller's neighbour, a druggist, and there, if a person asks for some arsenic, the tradesman begins to be anxious. He considers whether it is probable the buyer wants it for a proper purpose. If he does sell it, he cautions the buyer to keep it where others cannot have access to it; and, before he delivers the packet, legibly inscribes upon it Poison. One of these men sells poison to the body, and the other poison to the mind. If the anxiety and caution of the druggist is right, the indifference of the bookseller must be wrong. Add to which, that the druggist would not sell arsenic at all if it were not sometimes useful; but to what readers can a vicious book be useful?

Suppose for a moment that no printer would commit such a book to his press, and that no bookseller would sell it, the consequence would be, that ninetenths of these manuscripts would be thrown into the fire, or rather, that they would never have been written. The inference is obvious; and surely it is not needful again to enforce the considerat on, that although your refusal might not prevent vicious books from being published, you are not therefore exempted from the obligation to refuse. A man must do his duty whether the effects of his fidelity be such as he would desire or not. Such purity of

conduct might, no doubt, circumscribe a man's business, and so does purity of conduct in some other professions; but if this be a sufficient excuse for contributing to demoralize the world, if profit be a justification of a departure from rectitude, it will be easy to defend the business of a pickpocket.

I know that the principles of conduct which these paragraphs recommend, lead to grave practical consequences; I know that they lead to the conclusion that the business of a printer or bookseller, as it is ordinarily conducted, is not consistent with Christian uprightness. A man may carry on a business in select works; and this, by some conscientious persons, is really done. In the present state of the press, the difficulty of obtaining a considerable business as a bookseller without eirculating injurious works may frequently be great, and it is in consequence of this difficulty that we see so few booksellers amongst the Quakers. The few who do condact the business generally reside in large towns, where the demand for all books is so great that a person can procure a competent income though he excludes the bad.

He who is more studious to justify his conduct than to act aright may say, that if a person may sell no book that can injure another, he can scarcely sell any book. The answer is, that although there must be some difficulty in discrimination, though a bookselier cannot always inform himself what the precise tendency of a book is—yet there can be no difficulty in judging, respecting numberless books, that their tendency is bad. If we cannot define the precise distinction between the good and the evil, we can, nevertheless, perceive the evil when it has attained to a certain extent. He who cannot distinguish day from evening can distinguish it from night.

The case of the proprietors of common circulating libraries is yet more palpable; because the majority of the books which they contain inflict injury upon their readers. How it happens that persons of respectable character, and who join with others in lamenting the frivolity, and worse than frivolity, of the age, nevertheless daily and hourly contribute to the mischief, without any apparent consciousness of inconsistency, it is difficult to explain. A person establishes, perhaps, one of these libraries for the first time in a country town. He supplies the younger and less busy part of its inhabitants with a source of moral injury from which hitherto they had been exempt. The girl who, till now, possessed sober views of life, he teaches to dream of the extravagances of love; he familiarizes her ideas with intrigue and licentiousness; destroys her disposition for rational pursuits; and prepares her, it may be, for a victim of debauchery. These evils, or such as these, he inflicts, not upon one or two, but upon as many as he can; and yet this person lays his head upon his pillow, as if, in all this, he was not offending against virtue or against man!

excess

INNS.-When in passing the door of an inn I hear or see a company of intoxicated men in the " of riot," I cannot persuade myself that he who supplies the wine, and profits by the viciousness, is a moral man. In the private house of a person of respectability such a scene would be regarded as a scandal. It would lower his neighbours estimate of the excellence of his character. But does it then constitute a sufficient justification of allowing vice in our houses, that we get by it? Does morality grant to a man an exemption from its obligations at the same time as he procures his license? Drunkenness is immoral. If therefore, when a person is on the eve of intoxication, the innkeeper supplies his demand for another bottle, he is accessory to the immorality. A man was lately found drowned in a

stream. He had just left a public-house where he had been intoxicated during sixty hours; and within this time the publican had supplied him (besides some spirits) with forty quarts of ale. Does any reader need to be convinced that this publican had acted criminally? His crime, however, was neither the greater nor the less because it had been the means of loss of life: no such accident might have happened; but his guilt would have been the same.

Probity is not the only virtue which it is good policy to practise. The innkeeper, of whom it was known that he would not supply the means of excess, would probably gain by the resort of those who approved his integrity more than he would lose by the absence of those whose excesses that integrity kept away. An inn has been conducted upon such maxims. He who is disposed to make proof of the result, might fix upon an established quantity of the different liquors, which he would not exceed. If that quantity were determinately fixed, the lover of excess would have no ground of complaint when he had been supplied to its amount. Such honourable and manly conduct might have an extensive effect, until it influenced the practice even of the lower resorts of intemperance. A sort of ill fame might attach to the house in which a man could become drunk; and the maxim might be established by experience, that it was necessary to the respectability, and therefore generally to the success, of a public-house, that none should be seen to reel out of its doors.

PROSECUTIONS.-It is upon principles of conduct similar to those which are here recommended, that many persons are reluctant, and some refuse, to prosecute offenders when they think the penalty of the law is unwarrantably severe. This motive operates in our own country to a great extent and it ought to operate. I should not think it right to give evit dence against a man who had robbed my house, if I knew that my evidence would occasion him to be hanged. Whether the reader may think similarly, is of no consequence to the principle. The principle is, that if you think the end vicious and wrong, you are guilty of "Immoral Agency" in contributing to effect that end. Unhappily, we are much less willing to act upon this principle when our agency produces only moral evil, than when it produces physical suffering. He that would not give evidence which would take a man's life, or even occasion him loss or pain, would, with little hesitation, be an agent of injuring his moral principles; and yet, perhaps the evil of the latter case is incomparably greater than that of the former.

POLITICAL AFFAIRS.-The amount of Immoral Agency which is practised in these affairs, is very great. Look to any of the continental governments, or to any that have subsisted there, how few acts of misrule, of oppression, of injustice, and of crime, have been prevented by the want of agents of the iniquity! I speak not of notoriously bad men of these, bad governors can usually find enough: but I speak of men who pretend to respectability and virtue of character, and who are actually called respectable by the world. There is perhaps no class of affairs in which the agency of others is more indispensable to the accomplishment of a vicious act, than in the political. Very little-comparatively very little of oppression and of the political vices of rulers should we see, if reputable men did not lend their agency. These evils could not be committed through the agency of merely bad men; because the very fact that bad men only would abet them, would frequently preclude the possibility of their commission. It is not to be pretended that no public men possess or have possessed