5. I should fail in my duty and I doubt not do injustice to 

 your feelings, not less than to my own, if I omitted to remark, 

 that it is still more important, that, we labor, so far as opportu- 

 nities may permit, to disseminate the principles, and promote 

 the practice, of sound morality. In this respect, societies as 

 well as individuals, have their character, and exert their in- 

 fluence. Whether the influence to be exerted by this Insti- 

 tute be extended and permanent, or narrow and ephemeral, 

 let us see to it, that it may be an influence on the side of 

 virtue and religion. 



I am the more anxious on this point, because attempts 

 have recently been made to diffuse among our people, un- 

 der the names of science and free inquiry , a bold spirit of 

 infidelity and atheism — a spirit, which if it gain currency 

 among us, must ultimately prove fatal to our national char- 

 acter and prosperity. I cannot think this assertion too 

 strong; because all agree that morality is indispensible to 

 public and private happiness, under any form of government, 

 and above all in a republic ; and to me, nothing is plainer, 

 than that the surest basis of sound morality is to be found in 

 the religion of the Bible. 



More than this. I have no hesitation in saying, that in my 

 humble judgment, the superiority of Europeans and their de- 

 scendants, in the sciences of government and jurisprudence ; 

 in the arts of social life ; and in the means of public and pri- 

 vate happiness ; is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of 

 Christianity. On this point it seems to me there is no room 

 for doubt or cavil. We know from authentic history, what 

 the state of Europe was, before the introduction of the Chris- 

 tian faith : we can trace its subsequent progress ; and we can 

 see what it now is. On reviewing the progress of society in 

 that quarter of the globe, we perceive that Christianity has 

 banished from it the institutions of idolatry, and their absurd, 

 licentious and inhuman rites — that she has wholly suppressed 

 the shows of the gladiator, the exposition of infants, the capi- 

 tal punishment of children by their parents, and the abandon- 

 ment of parents by their children, the evils of polygamy and 

 of unlimited freedom of divorce, and the curse of domestic 



