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I 



fan£Honed by this Society, may poflibly hereafter 

 attract the attention of parliament j and if tried and 

 found to anfwer in fmgle parifties, may hereafter pave 

 the way for a general commutation aft. 



THE evils arlfing from the exaftion of tithes in 

 kind are too well known to require any additional 

 proof. 



They not only furnilh frequent occafions of dif- 

 putes between the receiver and payer, but in many 

 inftances they operate as a tax upon induftry, parti- 

 cularly in countries where the land requires expenfive 

 improvements. In both thefc cafes, they have an 

 undoubted tendency to injure agriculture, and there- 

 fore, however jufl the tax may be in itfelf, the policy 

 of it, in the prefent ftate of agriculture, is certainly 

 queflionable. 



In the dark ages of the world, when its inhabi- 

 tants depended folely on the labour of their hands 

 for the bread they ate^ the obligation of a payment of 

 part of that bread to a clafs of men fet apart from 

 the fecular concerns of the world, and devoted to 

 the religious and moral inftruftion of their fellow- 

 creatures, was an inftitution worthy of its divine 

 author ; and the progreffive improvements in civili- 

 zation and fcience, which thofe ages are univerfally 

 alio ."ed to have received from the clergy, are a flri- 

 king proof of the wifdom of that inftitution. 



In 



