neither injured my body nor my soul. Nor has it caused any one else to injure me. I have met with people that have used me ill, but the religion of the Bible never set them on. Sone have slandered me, but the gospel never taught them to do it: some have betrayed me, but I never found the gospel directing them in their treachery. My father was religious, yet it never made him unkind; my mother was religious, but it never made her forget me. My brothers and sisters are most of them religious: they read their Bible on purpose that they may do as it bids them; and yet their conduct towards me is full of tenderness. The most unhappy of all my kindred, and those who cause the greatest grief to their relations, are those who know the least of their Bible, or care the least for its laws. Ask my Father and mother in which of their children they have the greatest joy; and they will tell you, In those that are most religious. They had once a child that almost distracted them, a child that seemed born to fill their lives with sorrow, and bring them weeping and sobbing to the grave. But was that youth a christian ? No. Ask them what became of this youth, and what he is doing now; and they will weep for joy. became a Christian. My mother's heart was happy, my father's heart had rest. Brothers and sisters rejoiced together in the change, and he whom sin had made a trouble to them, religion made a comfort and a blessing.

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I have as many acquaintances and friends as most men, and they are almost all of them more or less under the influence of religion; but I never have had reason to complain of them on that account. When I have had reason to complain of any of them, I could any time perceive, that it was not because they were too much under the influence of religion, but too little. I know hundreds of families that are religious, but they are not less happy than others. I have known families before they were religious, and I have known those families after; but I never found that religion

did them harm; it always did them good. My father's family was always happy, in proportion as its members lived religiously. Those who have caused most uneasiness to the rest of the family, have been those who have least regarded religion; and those have been the greatest comforts, that have been most godly. Religion never did any harm in our family; it did a deal of good and I am persuaded it has been the same in other families. Did religion ever injure you, dear reader? Did it ever injure any of your family, or friends? It taught them to live soberly; but were they any poorer for it? It made them true and faithful; but were they less respected or less trusted? It would not suffer them to be proud, or wrathful, or envious, or unkind; but were their minds less easy ? It filled them with love to God, and with love to men; it made them less anxious about the world, and more thoughtful of eternity; it taught them to trust in the Lord, and to hope for the joys of heaven; but did it make them thereby less happy? You have parents perhaps, and brothers and sisters and friends; but did it ever teach you and prompt you to give them pain? You have sometimes been ill-treated most likely, by others; but you never found any thing in the gospel, surely, that taught people to use you amiss? I challenge the whole world to produce an instance, in which the religion of Jesus Christ has either injured a man, taught him to injure others. There is trouble enough in the country, I know, but point out any portion of it that is caused by religion. There are many wicked and cruel deeds done around us, but point to one that can be fairly traced to religion. There are persons famishing for want in the country, but is it the gospel that has robbed them of bread? There are persons in prison, but was it religion brought them thither? Shopkeepers have bad customers, who run into debt, and then change their market; but did the gospel teach them this plan? Some of you are not fairly used by your shopkeepers; you give the price of good

or

wares, and get only damaged ones; but where does the gospel teach your shopkeepers to use you sɔ? There are oppressors, and tyrants, and cheats in the land; there are partial magistrates, and severe judges; there are misers and drunkards, and liars and thieves; there are wicked statesmen and corrupt rulers; men who would sacrifice their country for a purse of gold, and sell the world for fame and power; but find me one that has been made either tyrant, or traitor, or thief by the gospel of Christ. We have wicked laws, and partial government; we have much want, and many crimes, and abundance of weeping, and brokenhearted, and friendless creatures; but produce one case in which the gospel is to blame. I know that persons are found who are called christians, who are not free from blame: nay some may bear the name of Christ, who are neither happy themselves, nor wishful to promote the happiness of others; but is it religion that makes them faulty, or is it the want of more religion? Some coals are called good, that burn very poorly; but do they burn poorly because they are good, or because they are not so good as they should be ? Some men are called wise, who act very foolishly; but is it wisdom that makes them act foolishly or is it for want of more wisdom? It is not enough to prove that men called christians do wrong, unless it be proved that it is christianity that causes them to do wrong. Men may be called christians, and not be christians; and men may be sincere christians, and yet not perfect; and in both these cases these men may do things evil; but christianity is not to be blamed in either case. Then only is christianity to be blamed for the evil actions of men, when it in someway or other sanctions them. But is there a single crime that christianity sanctions? Is there a single crime which christianity does not forbid and condemn ? Is there a single case in which an honest man can say ; "Here is a cruel and mischievous man, and it is the religion of Christ that has made him so?" Not one.

We would ask you to go round among the most drunken, and polluted, and unhappy of the people--we would have you visit those houses where brawls and strife and blows are frequent-where husbands and wives and children live in discord and malice,--where want and filth and rags are most abundant-we would have you examine those swarms of harlots and thieves, of vicious soldiers and sailors, to be found in some of our towns, and inquire into their characters and history, and see whether indeed it is religion, the religion of the Bible that has produced so much guilt and misery. Are those the characters that are most religious? Are those degraded and unhappy creatures those who read the Bible most, and those who pay the most attention to its laws and doctrines? Are those the persons that every sabbath crowd to our chapels, and that form our religious societies? Have they been reduced to beggary by living "soberly, righteously, and godly?" Is it in consequence of being brought to do justly, that they are so dishonest? Is it because they study to please God and do good to one another, that they are so quarrelsome and fierce? Why will men speak so wickedly against the gospel? They know that men are vicious and miserable, in proportion to their ignorance of God's word, and their contempt of his laws. They must know that the most miserable families are those that live without prayer, that read not the scriptures, that teach not and practise not the laws of Jesus Christ, They must feel that in charging the miseries and crimes of our country upon the gospel, they are speaking against truth, and uttering a wicked and aggravated slander, The darkest rooms in the house, are those into which the sun can find no way; and the most unhappy hearts, and the most distracted families in the land, are those into which the light of the gospel has shined the least. Those rooms in the house into which the light and breeze of heaven are admitted, are pleasant and wholesome and those are the most lightsome and joyous homes in our land, in which God's word is best known, and his heavenly and gracious laws the most

obeyed. Men cannot look at the Bible without seeing that it must be so; they cannot look at the homes of England, without seeing that it is so.

A WORD TO FEMALES.

Your obligations to the religion of Christ are infinite; it has made a wonderful revolution in your favour. Before the gospel prevailed amongst us, females were treated as an inferior order of beings. They were degraded and oppressed, they were wronged and insulted without measure and without mercy. All nations seemed to have agreed together, to make their women as wretched as they could be. The use of women was supposed to consist in performing the drudgeries of life, and in bringing forth and rearing sons that should forget them and set them at nought. In some countries all the work was left to the women. The women must gather the fruit, and catch the fish, and hunt the beast, and till the ground. She must kindle the fire, and gather the wood, and prepare the meal; and then stand by and watch her master feed. In some countries they were supposed to be without souls; and to be incapable of intellectual cultivation, and of rational enjoyment. In many countries at the present day, their lot is made up of affliction and degradation. When a male child is born, there is exultation; when a female is born, the unoffending little stranger is received coldly, and sometimes cast out to perish. The daughter is considered by her father as a burden, and the wife is regarded by her husband as a slave. Woman's love,-the tenderest and most devoted of all affections,-is trifled with and mocked; and that which should be repaid with unceasing kindness and attention, is made the instrument of torture and despair. Marriage laws are framed, in which no respect is paid to woman's comfort. One man is permitted to have two or ten or a hundred wives. The woman that was married yesterday, may be abandoned to-morrow. The man deserts the mother of his children, and leaves his wife and little ones to weep with one another. In some places they are sold as cattle,