15 



You will not deem me to have surpassed the province 

 assigned me, when I recommend to you the exercise of 

 that influence and authority, which are vested in an em- 

 ployer over those in his service, in suppressing all lewdness, 

 profanity, intemperance, lying, gaming, pilfering, and what- 

 ever is opposed to good morals, and a decent and orderly 

 behavior. Your interest, your self-respect, and your duty 

 to your domestics and to your country, demand this at your 

 hands. When a large portion of our population shall be- 

 come as debased and degraded as the great mass of the 

 people in the eastern hemisphere, our elections will be a 

 farce, and our political edifice will fall and bury us in its 

 ruins. He, therefore, who attempts to reclaim some who 

 begin to go astray, to prevent the fall of others, and to in- 

 spire all with a due sense of the value of character, and to 

 elevate them to a decent standing in society, performs the 

 best of charities to the individuals, and is a public bene- 

 factor. 



While we regard the moral deportment and welfare of 

 others, may we not neglect our own. While we till the 

 ground from which we were taken, and to which we must 

 return, let our treasures be deposited in that " better coun- 

 try," where flows " the river of hfe," where stands " the 

 tree of life," and where " the light of the sun and of the 

 moon" will be extinguished, in the brighter splendor of 

 God's eternal day. 



