GOPERNMENT, LAWS, 



which prevail here with the incessant anxieties, the miseries and 

 murderous works in England. In his search after causes he will 

 find them no where but in the government ; and, as to an 

 established church, if he find no sound argument to prove it to 

 be an evil ; at the very least he must conclude, that it is not a good : 

 and, of course that property to the amount of five millions a year 

 is very unjustly as well as unwisely bestowed on its clergy. 



437. Nor, let it be said, that the people here are of a better 

 natural disposition than the people of England are. How can 

 it be ? They are, the far greater part of them, the immediate 

 descendants of Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotsmen, Nay, 

 in the city of New York it is supposed, that a full half of the labour 

 is performed by natives of Ireland, while men of that Island make 

 a great figure in trade, at the bar, and in all the various pursuits 

 of life. They have their Romish Chapels there in great brilliancy 

 and they enjoy &quot; Catholic Emancipation &quot; without any petitioning 

 or any wrangling. In short, blindfold an Englishman and convey 

 him to New York, unbind his eyes, and he will think himself in 

 an English city. The same sort of streets ; shops precisely the 

 same ; the same beautiful and modest women crowding in and 

 out of them ; the same play-houses ; the same men, same dress, 

 same language : he v/ill miss by day only the nobility and the 

 beggars, and by night only the street- walkers and pickpockets. 

 These are to be found only where there is an established clergy, 

 upheld by what is called the state, and which word means, in 

 England, the Boroughmongers. 



438. Away, then, my friends, with all cant about the church, 

 and the church being in danger. If the church, that is to say, the 

 tithes, were completely abolished : if they, and all the immense 

 property of the church, were taken and applied to public use, 

 there would not be a sermon or a prayer the less. Not only the 

 Bible but the very Prayer-book is in use here as much as in 

 England, and, I believe, a great deil more. Why give the five 

 millions a year then, to Parsons and their w&amp;gt;ves and children ? 

 Since the English, Irish, and Scotch, are so good, so religious, 

 and so moral here without glebes and tithes ; why not use these 

 glebes and tithes for other purposes seeing they are possessions 

 which can legally be disposed of in another manner ? 



439. But, the fact is, that it is the circumstance of the church 

 being established by law that makes it of little use- as to real religion, 

 and as to morals, as far as they be connected with religion. Because 

 as we shall presently see, this establishment forces upon the people 

 parsons whom they cannot respect, and whom indeed, they must 

 despise : and, it is easy to conceive, that the moral precepts of 

 those, whom we despise on account of their immorality, we shall 

 never much attend to, even supposing the precepts themselves to 

 be good. If a precept be self-evidently good ; if it be an obvious 

 duty which the parson inculcates, the inculcation is useless to us, 

 because, whenever it is wanted to guide us, it will occur without 



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