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CHRISTIAN RADICALISM, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM WITHINGTON. 
 
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 BOSTON: 
 PRINTED BY PERKINS & MARVIN. 
 
 1836. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1836, 
 
 By William Withington, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the DistrictCourt of Massachusetts. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following work is partly original, and partly con- 
 sisting of articles before published. It seemed necessary 
 to republish these, in order to present fully the author's 
 views; or else, to write anew the substance in another 
 form ; in which no important advantages were seen. 
 
 Some may think, I have discordantly mingled theolog- 
 ical doctrines with other things. I can only say in self- 
 defence, that 1 have endeavored to state what seemed to 
 me truth, according to its connections in my own mind — 
 to present my conclusions according to the trains of 
 thought, by which I had arrived at them. The truth 
 revealed by God in his word, and the truth disclosed by 
 man's conduct as created for this life, seem to me to 
 reflect the clearest light on each other : and I am con- 
 scious, that I should have apprehended neither with my 
 present satisfaction, but for the help derived from a com- 
 parison of the two. I have endeavored to read the word 
 of God, and to mark human conduct, for myself, unham- 
 pered by systems of divinity, or systems of philosophy. I 
 have expressed my own sentiments fearlessly ; without 
 expecting to find any party ready to respond to them 
 fully. Unless therefore the work should fall into the 
 hands of an isolated reader, here and there, prepared for 
 this ; in consideration of what the reader may find to 
 approve, 1 must crave his indulgence for the rest. I 
 claim no peculiar credit for venturing upon such a work. 
 If anywise fitted for it, it is because few, who ha^ve de- 
 voted much attention to passing objects of interest, have 
 been kept less connected with, or less pledged to, any 
 sect, party, or denomination ; and this by that overruling 
 
IV 
 
 Divinity, which so often thwarts our wills, to shape our 
 rough-hewn ends. 
 
 After all, my views of human conduct coincide with 
 those, which the shrewdest observers have adopted inde- 
 pendently of revelation. He who can talk with Brown 
 of human virtue, must be acute only for the speculations 
 of the closet. 1 know not, whether governor McDuffie 
 be a very devout student of the Scriptures : for the fol- 
 lowing sentiment in his inaugural speech, might either 
 have been learned from them, or from general history and 
 observation. 
 
 " However melancholy the fact may be, all history is 
 but a bloody testimony to establish it, that no community 
 of men on the face of the earth, in any age, or under any 
 dispensation, political or religious, ever has been governed 
 by justice in its negotiations or conflicts with other states. 
 No, gentlemen, it is not justice and magnanimity, but in- 
 terest and ambition — dignified and disguised under the 
 name of State Policy — that ever has governed, and ever 
 will govern masses of men, acting as poUtical communi- 
 ties." 
 
 His excellency's design did not lead him to speak of 
 " masses of men," otherwise than as " political communi- 
 ties." But neither reason nor observation demands the 
 restriction of the sentiment to masses acting in that ca- 
 pacity. His anticipation that it " ever will " be so, 
 seems to justify the surmise, that he came to his conclu- 
 sion more from the study of secular history, than of that 
 volume, which declares, that " a king shall reign in 
 righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment." 
 
 The fact of this supreme preponderance of the selfish 
 principle is quite consistent with another, that men gen- 
 erally are not conscious of designedly sacrificing all the 
 best interests of others to their own selfish ends. The 
 consciousness of so doing is too painful : they therefore 
 generally contrive, but too successfully, to hide the plain 
 truth from themselves. But though selfishness may 
 generally operate first to pervert the judgment, it is not 
 the less a reality. Did men love their neighbor as them- 
 selves, it would not be so. For the want of such love, 
 and the consequences, they are fully responsible. Only 
 in this negative or constructive sense, I suppose, did the 
 
apostle mean to characterize men, till born again, as 
 «' hateful and hating one another." 
 
 But here, men who asjree upon the fact, differ as to the 
 moral construction. They who will not admit the perfect 
 reasonableness of God's demand to be loved with all the 
 heart, and strength, and mind, and that man love his 
 neighbor as himself, plead the incompetence of human 
 infirmity to exercise fully such love, in mitigation of the 
 sentence of condemnation. In accordance with this, 
 there is a vast deal of loose popular reasoning, as if, so 
 far as the conduct of men may be certainly calculated on, 
 so far as it may be resolved into laws invariably acting — 
 they are not perfect moral agents — they cannot rightly 
 be held strictly accountable for every deviation from the 
 perfect law of God. But this resolving of transgression 
 into the excusable necessity imposed by our constitution 
 and circumstances, is really to throw the guilt upon God ; 
 unless I have exerted my closest powers of analysis in 
 vain. 
 
 May the time soon come, when it shall be generally 
 and fully admitted, that the word of God contains the 
 soundest and most practical philosophy of the human 
 mind; how m.iserably short-sighted selfishness overlooks 
 the truest interest and the truest honor,* in its groveling 
 search and eager grasp ; and how miserably we consult 
 for the dignity of human nature, when we strive to exalt 
 it, by evading the charges, which our Sovereign brings 
 against us. This strife has ever resulted in our worse 
 degradation. We accordingly see, that the men most 
 actively and ardently engaged in vindicating man's true 
 dignity, have been the men, who most scorned to glory 
 in aught, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ — who 
 most fully. admitted the conclusion, that if one died for all, 
 then were all dead. Such have been the principles of 
 the leading spirits in the capital revolutions for rescuing 
 
 * " He said to me after his return from abroad, that he had at some 
 periods indulged hopes of such honors as our profession could afford, 
 but that he had totally renounced all such hopes and wishes for that, 
 which he deemed of much more importance, the beinsj truly useful 
 to his fellow men." — Memoir of James Jackson^ Jr., M. D. 
 
 Alas ! that in any profession the highest honors should be consid- 
 ered as so distinct from the being truly useful to one's fellow men. 
 
VI . 
 
 mankind from superstition and bondage. And however 
 one may speculate, he hardly doubts, that such are the 
 principles of him, who, to vindicate man's true dignity, 
 forsakes kindred and home, and braves a polar winter, or 
 a tropical sun, to raise intellects debased almost below 
 the brutes to the dignity of reasonable, thinking, and 
 adoring beings. 
 
 I must now request the reader to adopt practically the 
 following sentiment from the Quarterly Christian Spec- 
 tator, Vol. VI. p. 546. " He who loves truth will not be 
 fastidious of the quarter whence it comes : and though it 
 may seem contrary to his prejudices, though it may in- 
 fringe on some venerable form of belief, or be opposed to 
 much that passes for knowledge in the world ; yet it will 
 be welcomed, and its influence felt and allowed on the 
 judgment and the life." 
 
 The remarks which follow in the Spectator, on the 
 connection between holiness and independence of thought 
 and advancement in truth, are well worthy of every 
 reader's consideration. 
 
 I have discussed topics calculated to be exciting. Had 
 it been my object to rouse popular indignation against 
 men interested in the perpetuation of old abuses, and to 
 pufF myself into notoriety as a popular leader, I see abun- 
 dant evidence, how easy would have been the under- 
 taking: and this is only saying, that whoever undertakes 
 to raise the bad passions of men, has a very easy task 
 before him. If I have not less, I have not such ambition. 
 I have been ambitious, (if such be the term,) to arouse 
 public sentiment to demand some radical reforms, without 
 cherishing viler passions than a sincere desire to see those 
 by education the adherents of conservative principles 
 brought into circumstances safer to their moral principles, 
 and better for their ultimate welfare, even for this life. 
 Whether I have made the attempt too early, remains to 
 be seen. For the credit of the age, I hope not. As to 
 my own credit in the attempt, I can cheerfully appeal to 
 the ultimate decision of an intelligent people ; and still 
 more cheerfully to that tribunal, whither we are all 
 hastening. 
 
[UKIVEESr 
 
 CHRISTIAN RADICALISM. 
 
 BODY AND SOUL. 
 No. I. 
 
 One principle pervading the institutions of 
 Moses is, that there is an intimate connection 
 between body and soul — that a foundation for 
 moral and religious improvement should be laid 
 in a careful attention to the constitution of the 
 human body, and the external agents affecting 
 it. I believe, that a vast number of his regula- 
 tions, w^hich generally have been treated as ca- 
 pricious and frivolous, or more piously resolved 
 into the good pleasure and inexplicable will of 
 the Deity, or with more show of reason, referred 
 simply to the necessity of establishing some 
 arbitrary distinctions between the people of God 
 and the surrounding idolatrous nations, have 
 their foundation in the soundest philosophy of 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 human nature. I propose to show in a few in- 
 stances, how institutions, generally considered 
 as of temporary or inexplicable expediency, rest 
 upon reasons as lasting as the constitution of 
 nature. 
 
 Moses forbade to eat blood or fat. Nothing 
 need be said of the former. As to the latter, it 
 is found that disease in an animal affects the 
 fat before the lean. The former may be dis- 
 eased, while the latter may be eaten with com- 
 parative impunity. The regulation, too, was 
 calculated to discourage the artificial and vicious 
 manner of fattening animals now almost univer- 
 sally practised. Where such a regulation was 
 in force, people would be little likely to stall- 
 fatten their cattle on a fermented mixture of 
 chopped vegetables and meal, or have recourse 
 to the various expedients for creating an artifi- 
 cial appetite, in order to load the animal speedily 
 with artificial fat. Animals thus fattened are in 
 fact diseased : and the owner calculates his 
 immediate interest closely enough, to kill them, 
 before sudden death intervenes, or the false ap- 
 pearance of good-liking gives place to emaciation. 
 The penalty, which is to follow, for departing 
 from the organic law, is not thought of; though 
 it is matter of common observation, that the 
 
11 
 
 flesh of wild animals, which live after nature's 
 intention, is of much easier digestion than that 
 of our domestic cattle — an observation, which 
 might have led sooner to the inquiry, what in- 
 juries we are bringing on ourselves, through the 
 vicious manner in which we are treating them. 
 
 The prohibition of fat almost includes that of 
 swine's flesh. A further reason might be found 
 in the animal's filthy habits of feeding. Fed as 
 these creatures generally are among us, on 
 animal and vegetable substances in a state of 
 incipient putrefaction, their flesh must be any 
 thing but wholesome, and, I believe, is a fruitful 
 source of scrofula, and other diseases. In 
 warmer climates the consequences must be still 
 worse, as in leprosy, of which, I believe, it is the 
 most common cause. 
 
 The great amount of holy-day season, en- 
 joined on the Israelites through Moses, doubtless 
 seems to be a great drawback on the great busi- 
 ness of life, to those political economists, who 
 (in the language of Combe) " appear to conceive 
 man's chief end, in Britain at least, to be to 
 manufacture hard-ware, broad-cloths, and cotton 
 goods for the use of the whole world, and to 
 Btore up wealth." * But the multiplication of 
 * Lectures on Popular Education, p. 69, 
 
12 
 
 holy-day seasons tended to save the Israelites 
 from the very evil, which Combe so deeply la- 
 ments in his countrymen — " the excessive culti- 
 vation of Acquisitiveness." It tended to secure 
 the good, which this philosopher and his associ- 
 ates are aiming at, in urging the necessity of 
 gradually reducing the time of work for the labor- 
 ing classes to about eight hours per day ; that 
 they may have sufficient time for intellectual 
 and moral improvement, that the whole man 
 may be duly cultivated. At a time when books 
 were scarce, and lyceums and lectureships 
 not the order of the day, the assembling of the 
 whole country three times a year at the great 
 festivals, afforded substantially the advantage of 
 these modern improvements : it afforded oppor- 
 tunity to compare ideas with men of other pro- 
 vinces, and to improve by an interchange of 
 knowledge. How different must the populace 
 of such a country have been, from the tasked 
 and confined operatives and peasantry of Eu- 
 rope ! 
 
 Again, it was enjoined in the Mosaic institu- 
 tions, that the land should rest every seventh 
 year. In addition to what has just been stated, 
 I venture to say, after paying not a very little 
 attention to agriculture both theoretically and 
 
13 
 
 practicaHy, that land ought to rest this propor- 
 tion of time : that by forcing a crop each year 
 through a long series, we exhaust and disease 
 the soil : the produce on the whole is less, and 
 becomes ill-fitted for food of man or beast. 
 During the fallow year, time might have been 
 taken to free the land from various noxious 
 weeds. Or it might have l?een trenched, in 
 order to bring uppermost a new portion of the 
 Ksoil for cultivation the coming six years : and 
 there is some testimony to prove, that such was 
 actually the practice of the Jews. 
 
 I can select only a few specimens bearing 
 upon the point in question. I have a strong 
 suspicion, that a thorough examination of the 
 subject would satisfy €very fair inquirer, that 
 Moses could have so well anticipated views, to 
 which the most practical inquirers of this late 
 age are coming, only through divine inspiration. 
 He did not prescribe morality and religion alone. 
 He knew that it was in vain to look for manly 
 piety, honorable to God, among a people who 
 neglected to observe in due proportion the 
 physical and organic, as well as the moral laws. 
 He encouraged the cultivation of intellect, and 
 of the social affections. In reward for observing 
 his statutes, God promised to bless their bread 
 
 2* 
 
14 
 
 and their water, and to take sickness away from 
 the midst of them. (Ex. xxiii. 25.) There is 
 no need of supposing, this was to be done by 
 any extraordinary providence : we may consider 
 it as the natural result of due attention to clean- 
 liness, proper cultivation of the soil, judiciously 
 interchanging labor with recreation and cultiva- 
 tion of the intellectual and moral faculties ; of 
 not pursuing wealth as life's whole aim and end ; 
 of being temperate in all things. I intend to 
 pursue further the thoughts now suggested. 
 
 BODY AND SOUL. 
 No. II. 
 
 We boast of the improvements of the age — of 
 the excellence of our civil and domestic institu- 
 tions. Let us just consider some particulars, in 
 which w^e profess to have improved on the 
 wisdom of former ages. 
 
 Our agriculturalists exact of the soil an annual 
 return. It is in vain, that God has so consti- 
 tuted it as to require septennially or thereabouts 
 
15 
 
 a year of rest. Acquisitiveness will not be so 
 restrained. Artificial manuring must supply 
 what God intended should be effected by other 
 means. Mark the cattle feeding. How luxu- 
 riant and beautiful to the eye is the herbage, 
 where their manure is dropped.* But the animals 
 avoid it, and crop again and again the scanty 
 grass which intervenes. Instinct teaches them, 
 that the grass so fair to the eye is bad for the 
 stomach. But man goes right counter to the 
 important lesson thus taught him. He covers 
 his whole field with a top-dressing of rank ma- 
 nure ; and compels his cattle to eat the grass 
 and hay thus grown, or starve. His milch cows 
 escape with comparative impunity : for 4iature 
 has provided, that noxious particles taken in the 
 food shall be secreted by the milk-vessels : and 
 the heaviest part of the penalty falls on those, 
 who feed on the milk, or on the butter and 
 cheese manufactured out of it. 
 
 I venture to affirm, that around our cities 
 especially, by far the largest part of the land is 
 diseased by forced cropping, over manuring, and 
 noxious weeds. But it would require a volume 
 to treat of bad husbandry as a source of disease. 
 Perhaps we should trace the evil back to the 
 ceasing to yield to agriculture that pre-eminence 
 
16 
 
 among the arts, which God indicated in appoint- 
 ing Adam to till the ground, and in constituting 
 his chosen people so eminently an agricultural 
 people. Now, if one son in the family is sup- 
 posed to give indications of superior parts, it is 
 thought a pity to •retain him on the farm ; he is 
 sent to the counting-room ; and it s^ems to me, 
 as if the conscious earth resented the indignity. 
 We may expect wiser conduct, when it shall be 
 better understood, how much agriculture requires 
 to be reformed by the light of science truly so 
 called. 
 
 Again, the wisdom of the world thinks to have 
 relieved itself of a great burden, in throwing off 
 the impositions of priestcraft. So indignantly 
 does it resent the waste of time spent for honor- 
 ing the Lord, that it will not yield him one day 
 in seven. In most parts of our country, stages 
 and steam-boats make no distinction between 
 the days of the week ; and worldly business and 
 recreations are as rife on the Lord's day, as on 
 others. 
 
 So in fancied freedom, men smile at the tithed 
 dupes of other days, and at those who voluntarily 
 tax themselves for the support of the gospel. A 
 scanty portion of the support allotted to the 
 Levites is allowed even to the teachers of litera- 
 
17 
 
 ture and science. Let us just glance at the 
 evils we are suffering for departing so widely 
 from the spirit of the social institutions, which 
 God once granted to his people. 
 
 The average duration of human life among 
 the Israelites, seems to have been reckoned at 
 about seventy years : (Ps. xc. 10. )• With us it 
 is only about half that sum, or something less. 
 Their diseases were few and simple ; such as 
 hardly required a distinct profession for their 
 cure. With us they have been multiplied and 
 aggravated with fearful rapidity; notwithstand- 
 ing the expense of money and talent, at which 
 about a third part of our educated men are set 
 apart to study their origin and remedies. They 
 who land on our shores from foreign countries, 
 speak with surprise of the sickly forms, which 
 every where meet them, so different from the i. 
 healthy countenances common in Europe. I 
 am told, that Dr. Jackson, in a recent public 
 lecture to the citizens of Boston, adverted to this 
 fact in proof of the bad quality of the water of 
 our cities. But I believe, that " water " is only 
 one article among many, in which we have for- 
 feited the divine blessing, by being wise in our 
 own conceits. (Ex. xxiii. 25.) The superiority 
 of the German students to our own, in uniting 
 
18 
 
 intense study with vigorous health, is well 
 known. 
 
 Again, the mortality among our young chil- 
 dren vastly exceeds what takes place among the 
 young of any of the more perfectly organized 
 animals. They have instinct alone for their 
 guide ; and following it simply, fulfil the end of 
 their being. It is derogatory to the divine good- 
 ness, to suppose, that man may not generally fill 
 the number of his days indicated by his organi- 
 zation, as well as the inferior animals. But 
 man, in addition to instinct, has for guides, 
 reason, experience, the word of God. These 
 teach him, that he was created for nobler ends, 
 than to lay up wealth, as life's supreme good. 
 If he will not listen to the admonition, he must 
 suflfer loss in the very good at which he so 
 eagerly grasps. 
 
 A case now in my eye, though an extreme 
 one, still represents too justly the case of our 
 country at large. A farmer cultivated his farm 
 like one resolved to make the most of it. He was 
 esteemed as a thrifty man. Besides a fine stock 
 of cattle, he had money to some considerable 
 amount, accumulated by his own industry, at 
 interest. But he had no thoughts for the other 
 world, or even for the more ennobling concerns 
 
of this. His Sabbaths were spebr^in looking ^ 
 
 after the business of his farm. He has now^T***^ 
 
 been for several years the tenant of a retreatTfo? 
 the insane. I have no doubt, that his insanity 
 was contracted by his unbending concentration 
 of thought upon one grovelling pursuit : and 
 that, had his Sabbaths been devoted to Him who 
 claims them as. his own, and had the instruction 
 of his children and the operations of evangelical 
 benevolence duly entered into his every day 
 calculations, he might now have been in the full 
 enjoyment of all his powers. 
 
 BODY AND SOUL. 
 No. III. 
 
 Sana mens in corpora sane. 
 
 If there was in the institutions of Moses a 
 divine wisdom, which aimed at a sound body as 
 essentially requisite in order to the sound mind, 
 we need not go far to find a sufficient reason for 
 some obvious defects in the religious character 
 of our age, and especially of our country. Ob- 
 scurely as truths were revealed under the ancient 
 
20 
 
 dispensation, there appears an evenness and a 
 completeness in the character of the Old Testa- 
 ment saints, for which at the present day we 
 might long seek in vain.'*' Among Christians, 
 what sectarian rancor do we witness ! what irri- 
 tability of temper ! what transient heats and 
 long languors in religious zeal ! The remedies 
 most urgently recommended are, intenser prayer, 
 stricter keeping of the heart, more self-distrust, 
 greater activity in the service of God and men's 
 souls, and others of like character. All these 
 things ought to be done : but while some other 
 things are left quite undone, I have no expecta- 
 tion of seeing the end attained. I hold, that the 
 bodies of Christians have become so unfit resi- 
 dences of the Holy Spirit, that we need seek no 
 stronger reason, why his influences are so feeble 
 and variable there — so hardly distinguishable 
 from animal heats and irregularities. 
 
 It is eminently a time, when we may complain, 
 *' O the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in 
 time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a 
 stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man 
 
 * If there is any thing in the church at this time in 
 which there is a greater deficiency than in any other, it is 
 this, that there is so little completeness of Christian 
 character. — Memoir of Anna Jane Linnard^p. 87. 
 
21 
 
 ^" that turneth aside to tarry for a night ? Why 
 shouldest thou be as a man astonied, as a mighty 
 man that cannot save ? " — Jer. xiv. 8, 9. It is 
 pretty evident, that the means hitherto chiefly 
 relied on for sustaining religion in the church, 
 are losing their efficacy. Protracted meetings, 
 and the kindred system of operations, have served 
 their turn and done good. True, their enemies 
 have objected, that religion was represented as 
 a periodical or occasional thing, rather than as 
 a steadily governing principle. I hold the ob- 
 jection about as reasonable, as to maintain, that 
 a dead body is better than a living one, the 
 latter being subject to feverish heats and convul- 
 sive throes. Still, we should not rest content 
 with entertaining the Saviour " as a stranger in 
 the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth 
 aside to tarry for a night." And he now seems 
 warning us to prepare for his steady abiding 
 with us, or to calculate on his utter withdrawal. 
 Now I firmly believe, that the point, to which 
 the attention of Christians needs most particu- 
 larly to be directed, is the study of the elements 
 of physiology, and the influence of the body on 
 the mind. I expect only a puny, inefficient, in- 
 constant race of Christians, where the soil is 
 cultivated so little on scientific principles, and 
 
 3 
 
22 
 
 such food is eaten as such a soil produces. Few 
 seem to trace intemperate sallies of passion, 
 blunted senses which require to be taught once 
 and again the first principles of the oracles of 
 God, feverish contentions about hair-breadth 
 varieties of opinion or mere verbal differences, 
 to a physical cause. Few, I believe, justly esti- 
 mate, how much may be traced to stomachs 
 long irritated by ill-digestible materials, where, 
 to keep down acid fermentations, resort has long 
 been had to tea, coffee, tobacco, brandy, opium, 
 cayenne or hot drops, according to the individ- 
 ual's fancy. 
 
 Much has been said of ardent spirit as the 
 great source of vice and misery : and I believe, 
 it has not been condemned too utterly. At the 
 same time, to banish alcohol entirely, both in the 
 form of distilled and fermented liquors, and there 
 stop, I should consider an achievement about 
 as important, as to dip a bucket of water out of 
 Charles river, when our object was to dry up the 
 stream. It is not the single article that is work- 
 ing so much mischief; it is a thousand. Let 
 any one judge for himself, after feeding awhile 
 on the sponge-balls sold from our bakeries ; or 
 after looking into some pf the total abstinence 
 families who have lived several years on the 
 
23 
 
 produce of some of our farms, which have been 
 well forced ipto good liking by the rank mate- 
 rials carted out from the city, and not well 
 tempered with lime, or other corrective. I fully 
 believe, that much of the milk so produced for 
 the market, is a more pernicious beverage than 
 pure brandy and water. But perhaps it is unfair 
 to specify any instances, when there are so 
 many, too numerous to mention, equally de- 
 serving. 
 
 As things are, the temperance cause labors 
 under a vast disadvantage. Indeed, I know, 
 that some of its earliest and warmest friends, 
 men too of curious observation, have lately ex- 
 pressed the opinion, that in some of our cities 
 the total abstinence men suffer more than the 
 moderate drinkers. I can easily believe the 
 fact possible. I can easily believe that the re- 
 moval of one item from such a frightful round 
 of unsuspected evils, would produce disarrange- 
 ment and dissension, worse, apparently (at least) 
 than the forced quiet kept up before; even if 
 this should not be restored by worse means than 
 that for which they were substituted. 
 
 By the researches of the wise men of this 
 world, God is again revealing with fresh light 
 the truth so constantly implied in ancient reve- 
 
24 
 
 lation, that body and soul are intimately united, 
 and that it is in vain to expect one worthily to 
 reflect the image of its Maker, while the culti- 
 vation of the other is sadly neglected. The 
 church must no longer neglect a truth so im- 
 portant. This neglect has already cost her the 
 loss of too many of her brightest ornaments and 
 ablest defenders in the midst of their usefulness. 
 It is vain under such loss to talk of the mys- 
 teries of Providence. There is no mystery about 
 the matter, except so far as it is mysterious how 
 the infatuation of men takes place under the 
 providence of God. The plain truth is, (enough 
 for us to know,) through careless ignorance or 
 wilful obstinacy, we have been living in flagrant 
 violation of laws open to our investigation in the 
 works of nature, and not obscurely intimated 
 (many of them) in the word of God ; and we 
 have only suffered the penalty consequent on 
 such transgression. We have talked enough 
 of the depressed state of religion, the increase of 
 vice, error and infidelity, the activity of the 
 agents of darkness, and the need of God's inter- 
 posing Spirit. I hope tfie heart-searchings and 
 the prayers of the closet have corresponded. If 
 so, then I expect also to see Christians generally 
 making it a matter of conscience to inquire. 
 
25 
 
 how they shall render their bodies more fit 
 temples for the Holy Spirit's residence ; to 
 make an effort to provide themselves with plain 
 and wholesome food ; and to encounter the self- 
 denial of bringing stomachs accustomed to a 
 most vicious mode of living to crave no other 
 stimulus. I forbear to enter into detail on these 
 and kindred points ; because my end is better 
 answered, if the reader is sufficiently convinced 
 of the importance of the views I have suggested, 
 to subscribe for the Moral Reformer, a work too 
 cheap, too good in its design (as I am confident 
 it will be in its execution) to be a stranger in 
 any Christian family. 
 
 BODY AND SOUL. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 I HAVE before remarked, how an acknow- 
 ledgment of the intimaie connection between 
 body and soul — of the necessity of thoroughly 
 cultivating each in order to the perfection of the 
 other — pervades the Mosaic institutions. After 
 
 3* 
 
26 
 
 long neglect, the principle is again attracting 
 the attention of thinking men. Like all new 
 thoughts especially, it is liable to be extrava- 
 gantly and erroneously applied. A sound mind, 
 in the apostolic sense, is eminently needed here. 
 I hope, it is not anti-spiritual to say, that the 
 sound mind is so hardly to be expected apart 
 from the sound body, that we may well suspect 
 the judgment of those, who think to set off the 
 celestial genius of their idol, by contrasting it 
 with its feeble, trembling bodily frame. I fear,, 
 we shall too generally find in such geniuses, a few 
 prominent sparkling traits of mind, with a sad 
 want of harmonious balance between its powers. 
 1 hail the progress of phrenology, so far at 
 least as recognizing the principle in question; 
 and this without at all committing myself to 
 maintain, that the science is as sure or as prac- 
 tical, as its decided votaries profess. I find no 
 objection to its truth in the fact, that the ac- 
 knowledged leaders of the public mind have 
 generally been disposed to treat it with ridicule 
 and contempt. If it be really founded in truth, 
 and more than a very little in advance of 
 thoughts previously admitted, nothing else was 
 to be expected, judging from all past history. 
 The fame of Columbus and Galileo is purchased 
 
27 
 
 at the cost of first being treated as a madman or 
 driveler. 
 
 If the truth of phrenology should come to be 
 generally acknowledged, no doubt, it will share 
 the fate of astronomy and geology, in being 
 pressed into the service of irreligion : nor need 
 we doubt, that the attempt will again be worse 
 than a failure. Indeed while yet to illustrate 
 religion by the light of phrenology has hardly 
 been thought of, its truth being admitted seems 
 to afford one of the best vindications of two of 
 the doctrines, which the wisdom of the world 
 has most labored to philosophize out of the 
 Bible. First, it entirely overturns the Arminian 
 notions of moral agency, as if this implied con- 
 tingency, absence of bias, a self-determining 
 power of the will — as if the voluntary acts of 
 free agents could not be calculated on with 
 moral certainty. Again, phrenology falls in 
 completely with what seems to be implied in the 
 apostle's reasoning, 1 Cor. xv., as well as other 
 Scriptures ; namely, that man was originally 
 created body and soul, each being essential to 
 perfect man; that "immortality was the condi- 
 5tion of creation, and death came in as a surprise 
 upon nature;"* and that the redemption of 
 • Sherlock. 
 
28 
 
 Christ is not perfect, till man be restored to im- 
 mortality of both body and soul. I shall in this 
 number use the language of phrenology. It will 
 save circumlocution, and render the sense 
 plainer and more satisfactory to one class of 
 readers: while they who recognize only the 
 general principle of the sound mind and the 
 sound body contributing each to either, will be 
 able, I hope, to change the language, and find 
 no substantial fault of argument. 
 
 Nothing seems at present better established, 
 than that religion thrives best left to its own 
 energies, unhampered by the professed protec- 
 tion of state establishments. A plausible objec- 
 tion may hence be derived against the ecclesi- 
 astical constitution of the Hebrews. But we are 
 hardly driven to the necessity of maintaining, 
 that God committed the superintendence of 
 religion among them to a privileged order, pur- 
 posely to show, by preserving a goodly religious 
 influence through a series of ages, that there 
 was a superior unseen power at work, reversing 
 the results, which have uniformly come forth, 
 wherever human wisdom has committed a gen- 
 eral interest to the like keeping. As with other 
 general interests, so with religion, there seems 
 to be a stage in the progress of society, before 
 
29 
 
 
 which, purely republican principlesN^^qP^reS-vfr L 
 ceed ; and after which, aristocracy antt*-«Qa^ 
 nopoly invariably work the like ill effects. 
 
 Now, if man is furnished with an organ of 
 Veneration, to be cultivated in common and in 
 harmony with others ; before spiritual views of 
 God come to be generally and strongly appre- 
 hended, other means for the exercise of venera- 
 tion seem requisite. Philosophers, nay. Chris- 
 tian doctors, have accordingly justified the 
 imposition of image-worship on the populace. 
 With more wisdom, God, as a temporary expe- 
 dient, and during the early development of 
 human thought, established a splendid ritual, 
 and holy priesthood. So too, in detesting the 
 impositions almost every where practised on the 
 multitude by the splendor of royalty and nobility, 
 we ought not to overlook the consideration, that 
 where God is not spiritually apprehended, the 
 welfare of man requires some object for the 
 exercise of his Veneration : and so far at least, 
 these pageants may serve a good purpose. 
 
 Here comes in a consideration peculiarly in- 
 teresting to our countrymen. From among' us 
 the habit of venerating an institution for its an- 
 tiquity or unknown origin, or an order of men 
 as invested with some mysterious science or 
 
30 
 
 divine right, has entirely disappeared ; unless 
 some shreds of it still hang around medical 
 science : and these are fast disappearing before 
 the inquiring spirit of the age, which is hasten- 
 ing to the conclusion, that the essential princi- 
 ples, on which health depends, are few and 
 intelligible to the mind generally enlightened ; 
 and that so far as cures are wrought by medical 
 skill beyond the patient's comprehension, the 
 physician was not very wide from the truth, who 
 defined his art to be " the art of amusing the 
 patient till nature works a cure." It is said, 
 that the heads of Americans generally exhibit 
 the organ of Veneration less than in almost any 
 other people. Now, if the mental faculty is 
 really connected, as here supposed, with physical 
 organization, its disuse must tend directly to 
 the deterioration of the whole physical frame, 
 since, for the perfection of each part, every 
 other must be duly exercised. Here may be 
 one cause of our physical ills adverted to in a 
 former number. And here too we see in a new 
 light why, all inferior objects of veneration 
 having lost their power, we need especially the 
 power of genuine religion to save us both body 
 and soul. 
 
 There is apparently at least a great difficulty 
 
31 
 
 in reconciling peace principles, as often taught, 
 with the divine commission given to the Israelites 
 to exterminate the nations of Canaan. Let us 
 try to hope for the universal reign of peace and 
 pacific principles, without leaving a shadow of 
 suspicion on any thing which God has enjoined. 
 If Combativeness and Destructiveness are essen- 
 tial parts of the human constitution, they too 
 should be exercised in their own turn and pro- 
 portion. They had been restrained by the 
 bondage in Egypt. It might have been nec- 
 essary to call them into exercise, to give edge to 
 the mind, and decision to the character of the 
 people ; controlling their exercise at the same 
 time by Conscientiousness and Benevolence. 
 Accordingly, though commissioned to combat 
 and destroy, they were expressly informed, that 
 they were used as instruments in the hands of a 
 just God to exterminate the devoted nations for 
 their abominable iniquities ; and warned, that 
 themselves should suffer the like, if they fell into 
 the like practices; while a promise was given, 
 that in the seed planted in the place of the ex- 
 tirpated race, all the nations of the earth should 
 be blessed. 
 
 At the period of the reformation, the world 
 was in a state to afford exercise to Combative- 
 
32 
 
 ness and Destriictiveness in another and nobler 
 way, than through feats of physical courage. 
 There were enormities of doctrine and abuses 
 of practice to be assailed and overcome by argu- 
 ment and ridicule. Combativeness and De- 
 structiveness were called into action together 
 with the intellectual and moral faculties. The 
 result was an awakening of thought — a devel- 
 opment of intellectual vigor — such as the world 
 had not witnessed before. 
 
 If there is any justness in the views now 
 presented, the true way to establish universal 
 and perpetual peace, is not to deny the legitimacy 
 of the faculties, which war calls into exercise, 
 but to provide for their activity in a way more 
 accordant with the improved condition of the 
 world. The work of reform is not completed. 
 Errors still swarm, which need to be refuted. 
 There are still faults abundant in our systems 
 of education, and in our social institutions, 
 which require a master's correction, or we 
 should not be so far behind the ancient people 
 of God, in physical vigor, and in completeness 
 of religious character. To search out and put 
 down the immediate and remote causes of evils 
 so obvious and so oppressive, will afford ample 
 range for all lawful gratification of the propensi- 
 
33 
 
 ties to combat and to destroy, while love to God 
 and good-will towards man shall be more vigor- 
 ous, for the harmony with which faculties so 
 often set in opposition, can now act together. 
 
 BODY AND SOUL. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 I DO not think that a thorough physical 
 education would require of students a very great 
 proportion of time for bodily exercise. On the 
 contrary, I believe that a good acquaintance 
 with the various agents affecting our health, and 
 a practical regard to the corresponding laws, 
 would save many hours spent in bodily exercise, 
 required not by the necessity of our constitution, 
 but as the penalty of infringing its laws in the 
 misuse of the stomach, brain, skin, and other 
 organs. I believe that the German students 
 secure their better health with less time spent in 
 exercise, than ours generally employ. I might 
 urge then the importance of physical education 
 on the very ground of redeeming more time for 
 
 4 
 
34 
 
 intellectual pursuits ; though I can hardly give 
 him credit for the art of thinking, who has never 
 found his best intellectual efforts to have been 
 made on days, when ten or twelve hours were 
 spent in bodily labor, and an hour employed in 
 the evening to put into form the result of the 
 day's thoughts. 
 
 In making education practical, there is no 
 need of dispensing with intense or abstract 
 thinking — no need of vindicating the thought- 
 saving scheme, on which it has become so fash- 
 ionable to compose school books. We need not 
 rob Greek, Latin and Mathematics of their due 
 importance, in requiring that into our systems of 
 education should enter some instruction of the 
 young into the constitution of their own bodies, 
 and the agents affecting them. It is shameful 
 to fill the heads of youth with the knowledge of 
 names, perhaps in half a dozen different lan- 
 guages, while they are left profoundly ignorant 
 of almost all the things around them. A large 
 majority probably of those among us who are 
 supposed to have received a finished education, 
 know how to distinguish some five or six of the 
 most common rocks ; about twice that number 
 of our common birds ; know as much of the 
 properties of plants, as suffices not to substitute 
 
35 
 
 ivy or henbane for any of the garden esculents ; 
 and as little of the Linnaean system of classifi- 
 cation as they do of the geography of Saturn ; 
 while their knowledge of other things corres- 
 ponds. Or, if this is an account of what has 
 been, rather than what is, the change is quite 
 recent, and very imperfectly effected. 
 
 A system of education claiming the name of 
 liberal, ought to embrace such instruction in 
 the elements of physiology, in the Materia 
 Medica too, especially the botanic department, 
 as to qualify each to practice la plus salutaire 
 des medecineSj cells qui s' attache plus a prevenir 
 les maux qv! a les guerir ; and even to know 
 how to exercise some discrimination on emer- 
 gencies, when professional advice cannot be 
 seasonably called. The knowledge I would re- 
 commend, tends neither to undervalue more 
 profound professional skill, nor to dispense with 
 the necessity of professional advisers ; any more 
 than the Protestant doctrine of the right of 
 private judgment supersedes the necessity of 
 extraordinary biblical research, or of the Chris- 
 tian ministry. But it is desirable that every 
 one should be able to decide, when to call in 
 medical advice is necessary, and then to listen 
 to it like a rational being. The liberal-minded 
 
36 
 
 and benevolent physician would feel a satisfac- 
 tion in administering to such patients, superior 
 to that of being blindly reverenced for the exer- 
 cise of some mysterious, incomprehensible art ; 
 as the evangelical pastor finds a purer pleasure 
 in enlightening and guiding souls inquiring the 
 way of salvation, than the Romish priest can 
 know in exacting a surrender of reason and 
 conscience, from the dupes, who, content with 
 the opus operatunij have no general principles 
 for their direction in cases where specific direc- 
 tions from their superior are wanting. Protes- 
 tants as we boast to be, there is too much popery 
 among us, in regard to the body at least. Let 
 us aim to be Protestants in regard to this also. 
 I mean, as we expect every Christian to have 
 an enlightened conscience for a sufficient guide 
 in all ordinary circumstances, and to have his 
 understanding in difficulties enlightened, not 
 dictated to, by his pastor ; as we expect him to 
 exercise repentance as a free, intelligible act, 
 and not to do a penance, for which he can give 
 no more rational account than that Father Con- 
 fessor so prescribes ; so, unless the body with its 
 functions is more difficult to comprehend than 
 the soul, let us aim to make such instruction 
 general, that men shall not continually err 
 
37 
 
 grossly in diet and regimen, or be at a nonplus 
 under every little ailment ; that on the great 
 and rare occasions when that knowledge which 
 few can possess is really necessary, they may 
 not submit to it so blindly, that the result is 
 pretty sure to be life or death, as Veneration and 
 Hope, or as Cautiousness is most active. 
 
 I know that good books and good professors 
 are extremely scarce for the instruction I am 
 recommending ; just because public sentiment 
 has been so silent as to demanding any thing of 
 the kind. Let its tone change, and the deside- 
 ratum will soon be supplied. Our Saviour acted 
 on the principle of doing good to the bodies of 
 men, to win the way for advice as to their souls. 
 Though miracles have ceased, there is a vast 
 field for inquiry into the art of preserving 
 health, so unoccupied, nor yet requiring very 
 much time for coming to some satisfactory 
 results, that a new generation of ministers may 
 fairly resolve on qualifying themselves for ren- 
 dering such advice to their people, as, for pre- 
 paring the way for religious instruction, and as 
 a pledge of seeking their good, — shall be next 
 to the power of working miracles. 
 4* 
 
38 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE THREE LEARNED 
 PROFESSIONS. 
 
 It is in vain to attempt concealing that there 
 is at work a spirit of ultraism, radicalism, anti- 
 ism, and infidelity, which is aiming to bring 
 your professions into discredit, as the threefold 
 band which binds in slavery the human mind, 
 and stays the progress of general improvefnent. 
 Men so affected argue thus : The legal profes- 
 sion, by its education and constitution, is made 
 to flourish best in a quarrelsome community. 
 Legislation very much, and jurisprudence alto- 
 gether, fall into the hands of men, whose 
 interest it is to render law complicated and 
 obscure, and entangle people in difficulties. 
 The medical profession likewise is not consti- 
 tuted to teach people the art of preserving 
 health, but to take advantage of the errors com- 
 mitted through ignorance of such art. And 
 though the Reformation did away the former 
 
39 
 
 constitution, by which the priests were made 
 inevitably to " eat up the sin of the people, and 
 set their heart on their iniquity," [connive at the 
 vices, which were filling their own coffers,] yet 
 the men, whose mode of arguing we are review- 
 ing, choose to overlook this fact, and fix atten- 
 tion rather on another, namely, that the three 
 professions are educated at the same colleges, 
 and are apparently firmly united in maintaining 
 each other's acknowledged rights. Hence the 
 indiscriminate assault upon the whole. 
 
 Now whatever qualifying considerations men 
 of discrimination may oppose to the sweeping 
 conclusion, we can hardly show, that there is 
 not truth enough in the reasoning, to render it 
 a powerful engine with a people so restlessly 
 inquisitive, so given to change, as ours. I 
 would propose the means of averting the ca- 
 lamity which threatens. My proposal is briefly 
 this, not to await the outbreaking of the tempest, 
 but now, while you can do it with credit, to 
 give your hearty concurrence to doing away the 
 constitution of things, on which the objections 
 are raised, and introducing such a change, that 
 people shall pay for knowledge, rather than be 
 taxed for ignorance. 
 
 I will give a specimen of the evils requiring 
 
40 
 
 correction. It was lately asked of a lawyer in 
 one of the principal manufacturing towns of 
 New England, how many of his profession 
 would be wanted in his town, if they acted on 
 evangelical principles ? ('^ Blessed are the 
 peacemakers.") He answered Jive. The ex- 
 isting number is about twenty-five. What a 
 waste of talent, just because we do not make it 
 the interest of our lawyers to be peacemakers ! 
 while we are daily assailed with the cry of the 
 want of educated teachers at the West. 
 
 I will give an instance of what I mean by 
 having people pay for knowledge, rather than 
 be taxed for ignorance. Suppose the city of 
 Boston should employ two physicians (more if 
 necessary) to each Ward, to be paid competent 
 salaries for administering to all the sickness, 
 more or less, within their respective Wards, with 
 one gener^-l superintendent. These would keep 
 their eyes wide open, to watch for disease in its 
 causes. They would watch the bakers, whether 
 they were using bad flour, or mixing pernicious 
 articles with their bread. They would watch 
 the market in all its departments. They would 
 lecture people publicly on the means of preserv- 
 ing health. They would be instant in season and 
 out of season, to enforce these means. Thus 
 
41 
 
 nine-tenths of the existing sickness would be 
 prevented. For it is acknowledged, that thus 
 much of our diseases, at least, arises from violat- 
 ing the laws of our being; and people could 
 much better pay the same sum for instruction in 
 these laws, than as a penalty for their violation. 
 
 Such a change would be the best of all de- 
 fences against quackery. We have tried what 
 legislation, and argument, and ridicule could do, 
 under the present constitution of things. But 
 so easy is it in this country to throw odium upon 
 whatever looks like monopoly, chartered rights, 
 and exclusive privileges, that the very force, 
 which has been arrayed in defence of the regular 
 practice, bids fair to recoil on the same with 
 destructive force, for its anti-republican aspect. 
 Let scientific physicians concur to bring about 
 such a change, that people shall pay for health, 
 and not for sickness — let them thus do away all 
 cause for suspicion, that they are jealous of real 
 improvements in medicine, and there will remain 
 little cause of complaint, that men of influence 
 countenance unscientific pretenders. 
 
 There is one aspect of the community, which 
 seems to me to demand the serious consideration 
 of medical practitioners, and those looking for- 
 ward to the profession. In regard to temper- 
 
42 
 
 ance, society is separating into two divisions. 
 On the one hand are those, who mean to carry 
 out the principle of being temperate in all 
 things ; who consider, that God in his word has 
 repeatedly promised health and long life as the 
 rewards of keeping the whole of his law ; who 
 are making it a matter of conscience to inquire, 
 how we have violated, his law, moral or physiolo- 
 gical, that the average number of our days is 
 only about half that granted to the ancient 
 Israelites ; who will not be satisfied, till they 
 have discovered the error and corrected it. On 
 the other hand is the reckless portion of the 
 community, who mean to give the reins to ap- 
 petite ; and when the constitution runs down, 
 wish to wind it up, as quick as possible, and 
 give the reins to appetite again. This class are 
 fast falling into the Thomsonian practice, as the 
 best of any thing for their purpose. Neither of 
 these classes affords much encouragement to 
 those, who are anticipating to practice medicine 
 according to the present system. That this 
 state of things is so little regarded at the fountain 
 heads of lore and wisdom, I can only resolve 
 into the general fact, that they have ever been 
 the last practically to regard changes well un- 
 derstood every where else. But it really seems 
 
to me, as if our medical profes%Ai^re acting' Oj^ \ 
 very much like the hen, when sh^ hides her^^- *, ^ 
 head, and seems to think herself secttre ir6m'*'^ ^^^IX^ 
 danger. 
 
 Let a beginning be made (as I have instanced 
 above) of substituting the purchase of knowledge 
 for the tax of ignorance, and its advantages 
 would soon become so apparent as best for all 
 concerned, that I think the principle would soon 
 be carried into every department, where it is yet 
 wanted. It would so increase the love of know- 
 ledge, and the means of purchasing it, as to 
 increase, I verily believe, the encouragement 
 held out to thoroughly educated men. 
 
 I cannot now go into the details of the plan I 
 propose ; but I think I have sufficiently ex- 
 plained its fundamental principles. Some may 
 be disposed to smile at it, as a pleasing but im- 
 practicable speculation. Let such reflect how 
 rapidly in these times public sentiment has been 
 revolutionized on many points. Let them reflect 
 again, that so changeable are all things now, 
 that which was in repute yesterday being an 
 abomination to-day, that he who regards but his 
 own comfort, has small inducement to trim his 
 sails to the popular gale, but seems cast by 
 Divine Providence on a sort of necessity, to take 
 
44 
 
 his stand firmly on what he honestly believes to 
 be truth and right, and leave the world to come 
 into his views at its leisure (rather in its haste.) 
 Let the clergy especially consider, that they 
 have already been so well sifted, (not thoroughly, 
 I confess,) that the independent course now ex- 
 acted of them need cost very little indeed. 
 
 One word more. The change now proposed, 
 by making it the interest of lawyers to keep 
 people peaceable, and of physicians to keep 
 them healthy, would not only promote their own 
 quiet by screening them from jealousy, but 
 would render them very acute for their own 
 interest to discern, what system of religious 
 teaching best renders people orderly and tem- 
 perate ; and they would throw their influence 
 accordingly. And now, good reader, do you 
 not see that all this would be just so much clear 
 gain to your own denomination 1 I expect, 
 therefore, that you at least will consider of my 
 proposal, and favor its adoption. 
 
45 
 
 A SECOND APPEAL 
 
 TO THE THREE LEARNED PROFESSIONS. 
 
 A FEW weeks since the writer took the liberty 
 to address a Circular to the presidents of most of 
 the New England colleges, expressing views 
 kindred to those of his last Appeal, but in a 
 manner, which seemed to him more proper for 
 private suggestion, than for publication at 
 present. He complained that our social institu- 
 tions and our systems of education, were based 
 on a practical denial of some truths, admitted by 
 Aiost Christians to be fundamental principles of 
 revelation ; and urged the necessity of an im- 
 mediate effort for some changes, going to a depth, 
 which some might stigmatize as radicalism. 
 He is happy to acknowledge the receipt of an 
 answer from the president of one of our colleges, 
 (second to none for furnishing thorough scholars 
 and practical men,) acknowledging the necessity 
 #f applying radicalism (in its legitimate meaning) 
 5 
 
46 
 
 at all the sources of moral influence, more in- 
 dustriously than the times have yet permitted : 
 declaring the increasing interest, with which he 
 had long revolved the subjects suggested in the 
 Circular ; and the harmonious concurrence of 
 the Corporation and Faculty, with which he is 
 associated, to correct the glaring discrepance 
 existing between the Christianity professed in 
 our colleges and the mode in which education 
 has been there conducted ; of which correction 
 he gives a good account of the beginning there 
 made. I cannot doubt, that the change there 
 begun, will so manifest its advantages in furnish- 
 ing superior men for every exigency, that our 
 other colleges must follow the example, or be 
 left " like hulks anchored in the stream of time, 
 serving to show how fast the current of general 
 improvement is passing by/' * 
 
 * I have no intent of representing this comparison as 
 really applicable to our colleges in their present state ; 
 still 1 cannot but agree with many of the best friends of 
 education, that there is no necessity, why, after one has 
 completed what is nominally his education, his real edu- 
 cation should be hardly begun. The managers of our 
 colleges and professional schools need to be reminded, 
 that the world is fast discovering the evils incident to 
 the possession of funds, to the habit of going in a pre- 
 scribed track, and to being venerated as wisdom's and 
 
 % 
 
41 
 
 The writer several years since engaged some- 
 what zealously in inculcating some sentiments, 
 which sounded new to most ears, the leading 
 principles of which were, that to carry forward 
 reform and improvement, we ought to abolish all 
 monopolies * and mysteries, make the interest 
 and duty of every class of men coincide, and 
 have people pay for knowledge rather than be 
 taxed for ignorance. In urging the immediate, 
 full, and practical admission of these principles 
 
 learning's highest seats. The only remedy 1 would 
 now propose for these evils is, the encouragement of 
 other seminaries founded on a juster estimate of human 
 nature and the wants of the American people ; and that 
 private or 5eZ/-education be more duly appreciated. I 
 would not discredit our theological seminaries. They 
 certainly possess some advantages over the old way of 
 studying with a parish minister ; while this also has its 
 advantages for introducing the student into the practical 
 duties of his profession. I would have a class educated 
 both ways, that by comparison, each might learn better 
 its own defects, and be excited to a holy emulation. 
 
 * A great step towards perfection, would be the full 
 and practical admission of the principle, that every one 
 has the right to employ his talents to the utmost for his 
 own benefit, as far as he can do it without injuring 
 others. This system of government is certainly far su- 
 perior to that of exclusive privileges of any kind. ^ * * 
 Monopoly impedes improvement in every thing.-^ Spurz* 
 beim on Education, pp. 182, 190. 
 
48 
 
 as the great desidei^atvm for giving an impulse 
 onward to the human mind, like that created by 
 the Reformation, though at the cost of being 
 pitied as a fanatic, a visionary, and a dreamy 
 speculator, he was conscious of being entitled to 
 no peculiar credit for independence : so fully 
 was he satisfied, that by the mutation of these 
 times, Divine Providence was casting us on a 
 sort of necessity to take our stand firmly on what 
 we honestly believe to be truth and right, and 
 let the world give in its accordance, when it is 
 ready : so clearly did he see, that this restlessly 
 inquiring and novel-seeking age must before 
 long pay some attention to his principles ; and 
 so sure was he, that once firmly grasped, their 
 truth and importance would be so fully felt, that 
 they never would be abandoned. He is now 
 happy to acknowledge the testimonials coming 
 in from all quarters, and from men generally 
 acknowledged as of sound judgment, giving in 
 their accordance with the writer's views. Thus 
 with confirmed confidence, he invites all, by the 
 manifest folly of steering by a breath so change- 
 able as the popular gale, to inquire freely, and 
 decide firmly. 
 
 I believe I have never written or uttered any 
 thjing, and hope I never shall write or utter any 
 
49 
 
 thing, in regard to my favopte views, to require 
 a formal protestation, that, as I know my own 
 heart, I am not actuated by anger or hatred 
 towards any class of men. I am confident, that 
 they who are familiar with my writings and con- 
 versation, will not suspect me of being otherwise 
 actuated, than by a desire to promote the best 
 temporal and eternal welfare of the members of 
 each of the three learned professions, as well as 
 of society at large. And if any should under- 
 take the defence of my principles by writing or 
 orally, I hope they will take care, not only so to 
 feel, but so to express themselves, as never to be 
 suspected of feeling otherwise. Especially I pray, 
 that these principles may never be made hobbies 
 for party organization. I honestly think them 
 too pure and respectable for such prostitution. 
 
 One very much neglected principle of Chris- 
 tianity and of sound philosophy is, that ''He who 
 is not for me is against me ; " or, that whoever 
 loves not his neighbor as himself — has not an 
 ardent desire, like Howard, to promote the wel- 
 fare of mankind — a decided determination for 
 this end to sacrifice ease and interest, profes- 
 sional pride and whatever else — he is fairly 
 construed as an enemy of his species ; and 
 will manifest himself as decidedly such, when 
 
 5* 
 
50 
 
 placed in circumstances of open conflict between 
 his interest and theirs. (Comp. Rom. vii. 
 7 — 13^ viii. 7.) Equally clear is it, that such 
 philanthropy is comparatively rare among men ; 
 and very peculiarly must that body of men be 
 constituted, in which it is the ruling principle. 
 Of course whatever body is not so peculiarly 
 constituted, is constructively at enmity with the 
 welfare of mankind in such a sense, that it will 
 be sure to sacrifice that welfare to its own 
 present interest, when they come into conflict. 
 This simple principle, and this only, fully ex- 
 plains, why aristocracies, monopolies, and mys- 
 teries, have so completely contradicted in fact 
 all that their friends have theorized in their 
 favor ; and why the wisdom of this world has so 
 often reasoned so sadly amiss, when it seemed 
 only to be taking hold of the certain advantages 
 of the division of labor. 
 
 That the wise of this world have not more 
 fully attended in practice to the curse pro- 
 nounced on him that trusteth in man, (Jer. xvii. 
 5.) has arisen, I think, from a desire to evade 
 the corresponding charge of deceit and wicked- 
 ness, (v. 9.) and to find generally prevalent a 
 powerful counteracting force of humane feeling 
 and sense of honor. Vain effort ! we may say. 
 
51 
 
 without adopting the peculiarities of any sect. 
 So have said men the most diverse in their 
 sectarian theolo^. Says Spurzheim,* "The 
 members of the ordinary professions do not think 
 it necessary to conceal, that the end and aim of 
 all their exertions is selfishness." Says the Rev. 
 Mr. Walker, *' I fear, we have been a little too 
 eloquent in our praises of human virtue : I 
 believe, that generally and practically speaking, 
 men are just as good as they are required to be 
 by public opinion, and no better.'' f 
 
 I have spoken of the evils which seem to 
 threaten your professions more or less from the 
 revolutionary character of the age. My best 
 advice is, as God has promised all other things 
 to them who seek first the kingdom of heaven, 
 take him at his word. Resolve in good earnest 
 to seek above all things the advancement of his 
 kingdom, by doing away, as your education and 
 talents have fitted you, the evils, which hinder 
 men from reflecting clearly in body and soul the 
 image of their Maker. You may then fairly 
 expect him to add all things necessary for this 
 life, as a pledge of the safety of trusting his 
 word for the life which is to come. 
 
 * On Education, p. 271. 
 
 t Election Sermon, (quoted from memory.) 
 
52 
 
 A THIRD APPEAL 
 
 TO THE THREE LEARNED PROFESSIONS. 
 
 Suppose the ancient legislators of this Com- 
 monwealth had incorporated a company of mer- 
 chants with the exclusive privilege of dealing in 
 merchandize, to admit whom^ they pleased int6 
 their own number, to enact their own by-laws 
 and fix their own prices. Suppose the people 
 had been persuaded that this was all right and 
 proper, and that they were deeply indebted to 
 these merchants for furnishing them with the 
 means of living. We can easily imagine, how 
 much might have been argued in favor of such 
 a course. It might have been defended as 
 necessary to maintain the respectability of the 
 mercantile profession ; to protect the public from 
 the impositions of incompetent and knavish 
 traders. We might have been told of the long 
 apprenticeship necessary to instruct one in all 
 the mysteries of trade ; and of the advantages of 
 
63 
 
 a regularly organized body, to check the circu- 
 lation of pernicious articles : especially the in- 
 ducement they would have from self-interest, to 
 check such a free use of ardent spirits, as would 
 render thousands unable to pay their debts, or 
 provide their families with the necessaries of 
 life. But after all that might have been thus 
 reasoned, I believe we shall pretty well agree, 
 that the evidence of experience would have fully 
 refuted the reasoning^that the scheme would 
 have produced far worse evils than those arising 
 from the present free competition, and the ex- 
 cessive spirit of speculation. 
 
 Let us suppose moreover the above imagined 
 scheme to be an anomaly in our social institu- 
 tions, monopolies and exclusive pretensions to 
 be generally odious, the people to be as now 
 restlessly inquisitive, and jealous of their repub- 
 lican rights. Suppose they have tolerated the 
 anti-republican anomaly some centuries,, because 
 their attention has not been directed towards it ; 
 because they have been so busily engaged in 
 fighting the cause of freedom, and establishing 
 republican principles in other departments ; 
 because they have been so proud of their achieve- 
 ments in the cause of liberty and independence, 
 that He " whose service is perfect freedom," has 
 
54 
 
 justly permitted * the delusion, to reserve its ex- 
 posure to be brought out for the mortification of 
 their pride, whenever he sees fit. Suppose 
 again, that in the natural progress of free in- 
 quiry, attention begins to be excited towards the 
 anti-republican anomaly ; hints are thrown out 
 pretty freely, that from the general selfishness of 
 mankind, and the known tendency of privileged 
 bodies to be very barren of fruits for the public 
 good, it would be strange indeed, if behind the 
 veil a good deal of imposition were not practised 
 on popular credulity. Now, from the habit of 
 resting on their privileges, and the implicit def- 
 erence of the community, would not the incor- 
 porated merchants be in great danger of hot 
 anticipating the change in public sentiment 
 seasonably enough, to yield their antiquated 
 pretensions with such good grace as to save their 
 credit with the public? Would not he who 
 warned them so to do, very probably be treated 
 with contempt, or as an impertinent troubler of 
 undisputed rights ? By a little excess of obsti- 
 nacy in not yielding to the changes of the times, 
 would they not run the risk of being over- 
 whelmed at last by an undeserved torrent of 
 public contempt or public indignation ? In 
 short, would they not be in imminent hazard of 
 
55 
 
 incurring a fate like that of Charles and of Louis 
 in political life, who, for not yielding a little to 
 the popular current in season, found at last all 
 concessions vain, and were plunged ten thou- 
 sand fathoms beneath the flood ? 
 
 As I write for men accustomed to compare 
 and infer, I do not think it necessary to detail 
 where, and how nearly may be found parallels 
 to the supposition above made. I think some- 
 thing more or less like it might be found in 
 more than one or two departments. 
 
 If your three professions were fully based 
 upon those principles of human nature, which 
 Christianity and republicanism teach, (and in 
 my view they closely harmonize,) I think we 
 should be rid of some such evils as the following. 
 Attention would be less directed towards vice 
 and wretchedness in their specific forms, and 
 more to the root and principle. We should be 
 spared the abundance of disgusting details laid 
 before the public of the abuses of the repro- 
 ductive function, and see more effort made to 
 resist the pernicious and expensive fashions, 
 which render it so hard for young men to enter 
 the domestic relation, and to correct the errors of 
 diet, which unnaturally stimulate the appetites. 
 We should not have one editor denouncing the 
 
56 
 
 distilleries, and another the confectioners' shops, 
 as almost the only fountain-heads of vice, poverty 
 and disease. We should not have a party 
 w^ith their attention riveted on one form of sin, 
 that in which it appears in a class of men a 
 thousand miles off, and denouncing that class of 
 sinners with a vehemence and self-complacency, 
 as if they saw in others nothing but disinterested 
 benevolence. We should not hear so much said 
 of depraved appetites, and so little of the causes 
 of such depravity. It would have been generally 
 understood before this, how appetites are de- 
 praved, by the bread which is baked for the 
 public; by the vicious manner in which animals 
 are fatted for the market, by vicious modes of 
 agriculture — by fields exhausted of their strength, 
 or forced into overbearing by rank manure, or 
 overrun with noxious weeds. We should not 
 have the highest authorities in agriculture, 
 recommending the exclusive use of green 
 manure, because it yields a greater crop, as if 
 there were no room for the inquiry, whether the 
 crop so yielded be not a fruitful source of dis« 
 ease. We should not see on some of our 
 apparently most thriving farms, and in most 
 healthy situations, whole families wasting away, 
 just because the blind have been leading the 
 
57 
 
 blind, till both are fast falling into the ditch 
 together. 
 
 In the blunders committed by people in regard 
 to such matters, I seem to see plain indications, 
 that left to themselves, they will blunder right at 
 last. For the honor of learning, I wish to see 
 the professions which are specially dignified 
 with her name, do what remains to be done to 
 set public sentiment right. Let not the mali- 
 cious remark be too fully verified, that heads 
 filled with Latin and Greek, mathematics and 
 professional lore, are the last to admit the evi- 
 dence of their own eyes, and the suggestions of 
 plain, practical, common sense. 
 
 A FOURTH APPEAL 
 
 TO THE THREE LEARNED PROFESSIONS. 
 
 It has been objected to the supposition of the 
 incorporated merchants in my last Appeal, that 
 it is not exactly parallel to some cases to which 
 it might be intended to be applied ; that of the 
 qualities of merchandize, which people buy for 
 
 6 
 
68 
 
 their own consumption, they are far better qual- 
 ified to judge, than they are competent to reason 
 aright in regard to other interests, which have 
 been committed to privileged orders or faculties. 
 Thus the Spanish Priest would probably argue, 
 So complicated is the structure of the human 
 soul, so vast the scheme of religion, that very 
 few individuals in our communities know, when 
 they need discipline or penance ; hence " they 
 can never properly estimate the effects of these 
 remedial measures, and are constantly exposed 
 to be the dupes of ignorance." 
 
 I reply, first, suppose it had been beat into 
 people from their earliest days, that trade is 
 such a mysterious art, and so complex the con- 
 siderations, on which the value and proper use 
 of articles of merchandize depend, that they 
 must not exercise their own judgment on the 
 case. Suppose it had always been inculcated, 
 that to deal in articles of food, requires such a 
 minute acquaintance with the internal -structure 
 of the body, its functions of digestion, assimila- 
 tion, &c., with the Latin ;iames of every article, 
 and of every part of the body to be nourished 
 thereby, that the art must be committed to a 
 corporation strictly defended from intruders. 
 Suppose law and public sentiment had long 
 
59 
 
 stigmatized as fortunately we have no 
 
 word to express what I was going to say ; but if 
 the wisdom of our legislators and public senti- 
 ment had taken the course supposed, we should 
 doubtless have had to express the occupation of 
 the independent trader in despite of law, a word 
 as opprobrious, as is heresy or quackery, to ex- 
 press independency in religion or medicine. If 
 these suppositions had been realized, would not 
 our people generally have been as incompetent 
 judges of articles of merchandize, as they are to 
 judge in regard to any of their interests ? as in- 
 competent as the people of Spain are to judge of 
 religious doctrines ? 
 
 I reply, secondly, supposing the people to be 
 thus ignorant in regard to merchandize, would 
 such ignorance probably render the imposition 
 of the incorporated merchants more or less op- 
 pressive? Or, supposing religion to b.e indeed 
 so complicated and mysterious a subject, that 
 people generally cannot exercise any rational 
 judgment upon it, but must surrender reason 
 and conscience to their priests, and detest all at 
 variance with what they are taught by their 
 authorized guides, as spiritual quackery ; would 
 this be an argument, why the priests should or 
 should not live on the vices of the people? 
 
60 
 
 Would it render it more or less dangerous to 
 have the people pay for spiritual disease, rather 
 than for spiritual health? 
 
 I am aware, there are qualifying considera- 
 tions in regard to the conclusion to which these 
 remarks tend. First, there are in every profes- 
 sion, men, in whom the gospel has implanted a 
 principle opposite to that selfishness, which is 
 the general ** end and aim." To overlook the 
 exceptions would be as unphilosophical as to 
 deny the general rule. There have always been, 
 too, unlicensed pretenders in medicine, gaining 
 more or less the confidence of the populace, to 
 keep licensed practitioners from going quite to 
 sleep. Then again the jealousy generally enter- 
 tained towards the legal profession, has had its 
 salutary influence. Many more qualifying con- 
 siderations in regard to this profession might be 
 suggested ; but to do so would only be to repeat 
 the substance of what one has already said in a 
 Temperance Address delivered before the Bar 
 of Oxford County, Maine. But after all, the case 
 is very different from what it would be, if the 
 members of the three professions generally were 
 impelled by fervent charity to spend and be 
 spent, for bringing about the perfection of 
 society ; or, in defect of such impulse, if interest 
 
and duty were everywhere m^0Jx} coftfe^^ r,^ 
 and the principle of maintainingSj^f d^^ live "^ X 
 on the ignorance, vices, and distress ^ntt|T Qs« 
 community, universally and forever abandoned. 
 
 If the clergy have not raised their voice 
 against this practical absurdity of our social 
 system, it must be remembered in palliation of 
 their fault, how jealous people have been of their 
 interesting themselves in things political or civil, 
 or anywise aside from their more appropriate 
 province. Bat I can say, from ample acquain- 
 tance, and particular inquiry, that a feeling has 
 taken strong hold, and is fast gaining with them, 
 that the Reformation and our own Revolution, 
 were but different acts in the great drama of the 
 Mind's Emancipation from profession-craft and 
 superstition, the last and greatest of which is yet 
 to follow. It cannot long escape acute ob- 
 servers, that the issue, to which I as their 
 herald am urging matters, is but the last great 
 battle between republican and aristocratic prin- 
 ciples. This contest has been so often agitated 
 on other grounds, that no doubt can remain of 
 the result. Or rather, so weary am I of all con- 
 tention, I would fain hope, that the merits of the 
 question at issue may be so fully and forcibly 
 urged upon the minds of those, whose unfortu- 
 
 6* 
 
62 
 
 nate education has set them in opposition to 
 popular rights and the perfection of the social 
 system, that they may be induced to decline the 
 contest as hopeless, and come over voluntarily 
 to the side of freedom. 
 
 But if this result cannot be brought about 
 without a degree of agitation, I believe there is 
 yet enough of the spirit of '76 among the clergy, 
 to furnish a host, not to shrink from responsi- 
 bility. The very agitation, I believe, will serve 
 to distinguish, who have at heart the bringing 
 about of the best welfare of the community, and 
 the vindication of Eternal Providence from the 
 foul aspersions cast upon it by the present prev- 
 alence of bodies loaded with disease, and of pre- 
 mature death. 
 
 I have been happy to find the feeling to which 
 I have alluded, chiefly among those, who have 
 learned wisdom from observing, how often the 
 cause of truth and right has been dishonored by 
 having enlisted on its side personal animosity, 
 party spirit, and egotism ; who do not relieve 
 people from the irksomeness of contemplating 
 their own sins, by rousing their indignation 
 against the sins of others ; who would not have 
 an outcry raised against slavery at a distance, to 
 divert attention from the slavery existing nearer 
 
63 
 
 home ; who, whether they contemplate the pros- 
 titution of the sacred names of liberty and 
 humanity to the gratification of senseless passion 
 and unhallowed ambition, or the wide spread 
 havoc of human life made by the combined 
 operation of superstition and professional pride, 
 seem incapable of any stronger emotion, than 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
 they do." 
 
 Such clergymen, having acted their part well 
 in the closing scene of the Mind's Emancipation, 
 may expect to find the word of God quick and 
 powerful in their hands to reach the hearts of 
 men, as they had scarcely dared hope to witness 
 — a change, as if the sword of the Spirit had 
 recovered its lost edge ; or as if the Sun of 
 righteousness had emerged from the misty hori- 
 zontal air, no longer shorn of his beams. 
 
64 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSIONT, 
 ESPECIALLY TO THOSE BELONGING TO THE 
 PRESENT* LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 It appeared strange to some that the attempt 
 made in our last legislature to abolish the mo- 
 nopoly enjoyed by your profession, should have 
 been defeated, after the precedent adopted in 
 regard to the medical profession. The fact, 
 however, is readily explained, when we recollect 
 your preponderance in our legislative assemblies, 
 and the known reluctance of privileged bodies 
 to yield their antiquated pretensions. I shall 
 not canvass the arguments with which you re- 
 sisted the late attempt to give free access to the 
 bar. They were just those which have been 
 used in every contest with republican principles 
 by aristocrats and monopolists, learned ignorance 
 and professional pride. But I wish just to call 
 
 * January, 1836. 
 
66 
 
 your attention to the effect which the continu- 
 ance of the present state of things will have on 
 your own profession. 
 
 Human vvisdom has ever sought to secure the 
 respectability of its favored professions, by giving 
 the privilege of refusing admission to those 
 judged incompetent. I'he inevitable result of 
 all such indulgence uniformly is, that the pro- 
 fession most securely defended by mystery and 
 exclusive privileges, becomes a refuge for the 
 college graduates, and other ambitious young 
 men, who want talents and character to stand 
 an open and honorable competition. If I wished 
 to render a profession not respectable, I would 
 take just the course which has ever been pur- 
 sued so confidently for securing the opposite 
 result. 
 
 Every practical man will admit at once the 
 general proposition, that our best securities for 
 rendering men faithful and efficient are, to 
 watch them narrowly, to leave competition free, 
 and to make interest and duly coincide. Strange 
 that what appears so plain, should be so long in 
 obtaining full admission in practice. I need 
 not tell you how religion fared, when people 
 yielded implicitly their confidence to their spir- 
 itual guides, who were constituted the sole 
 
66 
 
 judges whom to admit into their number, and 
 whose revenues flowed from the vices of the 
 people. In regard to the clergy, we have come 
 fully into the admission of the principles above 
 stated, and their respectability has risen and is 
 rising accordingly. 
 
 People did not see at once, that principles 
 evident enough in regard to religion, were 
 equally applicable in regard to medicine. Ac- 
 cordingly, legislative wisdom and popular senti- 
 ment long sought to promote the respectability 
 of the medical profession, and the efficacy of 
 medical practice, by sustaining a monopoly, 
 yielding implicit confidence, and stigmatizing all 
 independence as quackery and empiricism. It 
 was seen at last, that to legislate against quackery, 
 is just as foolish as to legislate against heresy. 
 Our last legislature consequently abolished the 
 old restrictions, and so far as legislative enact- 
 ments can do it, left medical practitioners to be 
 estimated like other men, as they can satisfy 
 people of their fidelity and skill. The result 
 will inevitably be, that the profession will cease 
 to be a refuge for aspiring youths, who seek to 
 hide ignorance and inefficiency, behind profes- 
 sional mystery and professional privileges. 
 The character of the profession will rise, as 
 
67 
 
 much as that of the clerical profession has risen 
 under like treatment. 
 
 Meanwhile, how is to fare the character of the 
 legal profession? Will you insist on being 
 alone in the privileges of a monopoly — of admit- 
 ting, at your own discretion, your members ? 
 Your profession now (from late charges) pre- 
 sents the most alluring opening to ambhious 
 ignorance and incompetence. Will you con- 
 tinue it thus, or will you voluntarily throw it 
 open to that fair competition, acknowledged to 
 be so important in all other interests ? 
 
 I know that, in the debates of the last legis- 
 lature, you represented the question at issue to 
 be, whether, in practising law, a thorough pre- 
 paration should be made, just as people are ex- 
 pected to prepare themselves competently for 
 other business. This is not the question at all. 
 It is, whether you, as a close corporation, shall 
 decide, or whether the people shall be permitted 
 to decide for themselves, who are competent to 
 manage their causes, just as they decide in 
 regard to their other interests. 
 
 These suggestions are made from the sincere 
 desire of seeing your profession not lose, but 
 gain, in respectability ; and from the firm con- 
 viction*, that the course suggested is the sole 
 way to such result. 
 
68 
 
 THE CIRCULAR * 
 
 The following is the circular to the presidents 
 of the colleges, referred to in the second Appeal. 
 Its publication may seem inconsistent with pro- 
 fessions therein. But it has been thought best 
 for the following reasons. 
 
 1. An answer from only one college has been 
 received. It is therefore concluded, that as to 
 the rest generally, the old rule is not to be vio- 
 lated, that it does not lit their dignity to notice 
 any thing of prime importance to the welfare of 
 the community, till public sentiment decides for 
 it. 
 
 2. I wish to bring fully and plainly before the 
 members of each profession, the evils among 
 themselves requiring correction. There seems 
 more hope of influencing those who come most 
 
 * See A Word to the Wise, &c., Moral Reformer, 
 Vol. I. p. 258. 
 
69 
 
 into contact with general society, than those whose 
 duties ^re more confined within college walls. 
 
 3^. Though it would be mere affectation to 
 suppose, that other than professional men will 
 not read what is published for them especially, 
 or that they will read it without sensation ; yet 
 I have judged, it might be best to lay it before 
 the public: first, judging. from all past experi- 
 ence, it is hardly to be expected, that any body 
 of men will seriously set itself thoroughly to 
 remove its own deep-rooted and long tolerated 
 evils, till pretty closely urged by the general 
 voice. Secondly, I have thought, that the 
 manner, in which the cause of the people is 
 here stated, would rather give precision and 
 temper to their demands, than exasperate their 
 passions. 
 
 Dorchester, Mass, June 11, 1835. 
 Sir, 
 
 I have some thoughts, the result of the obser- 
 vation and reflection of years, on the subject of 
 general reform and social improvement, which 
 seem to me important enough, to justify me in 
 departing from ordinary rules, thus to address 
 you. That temperance, and every kindred 
 cause, are very much at a stand, I find pretty 
 
70 
 
 generally acknowledged. Their friends seem to 
 be aware, that the root of the evil has not been 
 reached, and at a loss, where to strike next. 
 Without further preface, I beg leave to suggest 
 to you, whether the radical difficulty be not pre- 
 cisely here, that about one half of pur liberally 
 educated men are educated to get their living 
 on the ignorance, the vices, and the miseries, of 
 the community. Our lawyers are educated, not 
 to instruct people in the constitution and laws of 
 the land, their rights and obligations, and to 
 keep them out of difficulty, but to profit by the 
 errors committed for lack of such knowledge. 
 Our physicians are educated, not to teach people 
 the art of preserving health, but to profit by 
 people's ignorance of such art. 
 
 In allowing these interests to remain so much 
 in opposition to the best welfare of the commu- 
 nity — in confiding so much to the disinterested 
 benevolence of men, whom, generally speaking, 
 we cannot suppose to be animated with the spirit 
 of Paul, to encounter evil report or good report, 
 to spend and be spent, for the welfare of man- 
 kind — we are practically setting at defiance the 
 divine warning, " Cursed be the man that 
 trusteth in man ; " and practically denying the 
 corresponding declaration, that "the heart is 
 
71 
 
 deceitful above all things and desperately 
 wicked." (Jer. xvii. 5, 9.) As a community, I 
 believe, we are suffering a tremendous penalty, 
 for not simply taking God's word here as sober 
 truth, and an awful reality. The present con- 
 stitution of things render , it inevitable, that the 
 professions in question should not come into 
 measures of reform, (generally speaking,) faster 
 than they are driven by the force of public sen- 
 timent. I complain not of them particularly. 
 The fault belongs to the whole body of society 
 — it exists in the general conspiracy to contra- 
 dict God's charge of the all-powerful principle, 
 by which natural men are governed. I acknow- 
 ledge a qualifying consideration, so far as in 
 every profession there are men constrained by 
 the disinterested love of Christianity : and could 
 the whole number be brought under the same 
 influence, it would be the best of all remedies. 
 But as a supplementary one, we need so to 
 modify our social institutions, that people shall 
 pay for knowledge, rather than be taxed for 
 ignorance — ignorance of the organic laws, and 
 the laws of the land. That the necessity of this 
 will be generally seen before long, I most firmly 
 believe : and I hold it as a thought of great im- 
 portance, to be inculcated on the young men 
 
72 
 
 coming forward for professional life, that times 
 are changing, and it behoves them not to cal- 
 culate on finding people pj^y the tax of ignorance 
 so submissively as in times past but on being 
 the enlighteners and reformers of the aj:e. I 
 wish, for the credit of learning, to see its sacred 
 seats directing public movements in regard to 
 this matter ; and not resting, till public senti- 
 ment decides it; as has too often been the case 
 with questions of great general interest. I wish 
 to engage in the cause men, who will take an 
 enlarged, candid, and Christian view of it; and 
 keep clear of the anti-ism and party spirit, with 
 which almost every thing now is managed. 
 There is here no occasion for personal animosity 
 towards the men, whose present interests stand 
 in the way of the general welfare. I am but 
 looking ahead for difficulties, with which they 
 must by and by be encompassed, in this repub- 
 lican community, and in this restlessly inquiring 
 age. If the truth is not told soon by men, who 
 will do it kindly and candidly, it will be thun- 
 dered out by men, who will make it a hobby for 
 party organization. I wish to anticipate such 
 men. All my habits and feelings incline me to 
 shrink from coming forward as a popular leader. 
 For this reason precisely, I wish to see the ac- 
 
73 
 
 knowledged leaders of the public mind begin- 
 ning to move. But if they will refuse, I am 
 determined, at no distant day, to appeal directly 
 to the people — to tell them plainly, Here is the 
 evil, and you must arise in your strength for its 
 correction. Flectere si nequeo superos, Ache- 
 ronta moveho. 
 
 I am not alone in the views now expressed. 
 Several men, eminent as editors, and otherwise, 
 have testified to me their cordial interest and 
 acquiescence in the same. To prepare the public 
 for what I consider as a just view of the subject, 
 I have, since the commencement of the year, 
 published an Address delivered before the 
 Union Temperance Society, of Oxford County, 
 Maine, and lately in the Boston Recorder a 
 series of articles headed Body and Soul ; which 
 may be continued further. Yours, 
 
 WM. WITHINGTON. 
 
74 
 
 AN ADDRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNION TEMPERANCE 
 SOCIETY OF OXFORD COUNTY, MAINE. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 The common ground of remark on occa- 
 sions like this, has been traversed so often, that 
 I purpose to deviate a little from it, and to speak 
 on the part taken in the Temperance Reforma- 
 tion by the three learned professions respectively. 
 And intending to express my sentiments some- 
 what freely, I would premise distinctly, that I 
 mean to speak of neither in the language of 
 boasting, or compliment, or reproach. My 
 object is to show, how the events of this reform- 
 ation are developing some of the principles of 
 human nature, — principles which we shall find 
 always govern men taken in a body. If, there- 
 fore, in unfolding my views, I seem to speak of 
 any class of men as deficient in that vigilance 
 and energy which might have been expected of 
 them in staying the plague which was desolating 
 the land, I shall do it with the design of showing, 
 
7§ 
 
 that their conduct calls for no particular cen- 
 sure ; that it is resolvable into the motives, or 
 principles, which govern mankind generally. 
 
 One who had never reflected particularly on 
 the principles of human nature, which I intend 
 to illustrate, if required to predict, where the 
 crusade should originate, to be waged so justly 
 against the destroyer, — who would lead the van 
 in the holy warfare, would probably say, The 
 authorized guardians of the public health, the 
 profession which introduced alcohol as a medi- 
 cine, whose prescriptions more than any thing 
 else had given it currency, as an article of com- 
 mon necessity ; the profession to which so 
 implicit deference was paid by the community 
 generally in matters within their own province ; 
 who should have best known, what evils the 
 article was working in society, and were under 
 so many obligations first to sound an effectual 
 alarm, as faithful sentinels of the public health. 
 The fact however was different. Medical books 
 indeed told the truth plainly enough as to the 
 evils of alcohol ; and medical practitioners were 
 not wanting to repeat the same : but the truth 
 was generally told as some ministers tell sinners 
 their danger and their duty, as if they expected 
 not to be attended to. It was left to others to 
 
76 
 
 originate, and put into action, a bold system of 
 measures, like men determined to do something. 
 Not the credit, but the happiness of thus taking 
 the lead, I believe, must be assigned to the 
 clerical profession. Gentlemen of the bar may 
 claim the next place in the enterprise. I know 
 not how the case may be in this vicinity, but, I 
 believe, no one extensively acquainted with facts 
 will deny, that the other profession, as a body, 
 have been manifestly behind these two in 
 promptness and energy to discourage altogether 
 the use of spirituous liquors. And if this be 
 questioned, the fact that they have not been so 
 prominently the leaders in the cause, as might 
 have been expected of them, considered simply 
 as the authorized guardians of the public health, 
 will sufficiently justify the substance of what I 
 shall say, as serving to show that what an igno- 
 rant or uncharitable observer might tax as a 
 flagrant neglect of duty, is to be resolved simply 
 into the universal principles of human nature. 
 
 One principle of human action thus brought 
 to view, is, that in order to secure in men quick- 
 sightedness and efficiency in bringing out great 
 practical results it is all-important to make it 
 their interest so to do, and their present interest 
 too. Now the clerical profession had a present 
 
77 
 
 interest in devising an efTec&al jjerifeoy fe ihe 
 evils of intemperance^ (apart X^lj^l^3.t love of i P 1^ 
 God and man, which alone shoure^ioye an all-- k 
 constraining motive,) because the i m-a mjilaje^^^^^ . 
 tendency of men's becoming temperate, is to 
 show more respect for religion, and to support 
 its institutions more liberally. I say a present 
 interest ; because, though I hope it will appear, 
 •that the worthy part of the other tv/o professions 
 are to find in this reformation the promotion of 
 their interest calculated on a large scale, yet 
 their present interest is receiving a check. For 
 in proportion as temperance prevails, an inl- 
 mense source of litigation, and of disease, is cut 
 off. Therefore the first view of things is, that 
 the temperance reform is to prove detrimental to 
 the legal, and to the medical profession ; and 
 the injury threatened to each seems about equal. 
 We must look then further for the cause, why 
 the legal have gone before the medical profes- 
 sion in the cause now before us : and I seem to 
 find it in the principle of human action, that 
 men as a body are efficient and discerning, in 
 proportion as they are held responsible for re- 
 sults to public opinion ; released from which, 
 they have a strange tendency to run wild in 
 their speculations, to act without efficiency, or 
 
78 
 
 regard to plain fact and common sense ; and in 
 the fact that lawyers, much more than physi- 
 cians, have always been compelled to feel, that 
 they are responsible for the results of their 
 practice. 
 
 Accordingly we see what a baneful influence 
 mystery and exclusiveness have exerted on every 
 science or subject of human thought, into which 
 they have been carried. It has often been at- 
 tempted to promote science by rich endowments 
 and exclusive privileges, that the professors 
 might devote themselves to the pursuit inde- 
 pendently, without want of books or apparatus, 
 or fear of competition, or care of providing for 
 their daily bread. But the greatest results have 
 been brought about, not by such means, but 
 against the whole array of them, — in despite and 
 in defiance of them — by men thrown on their 
 own resources, compelled to feel that they could 
 not sustain their credit on their books, or on 
 their privileges ; — -but that all their hope was in 
 thinking for themselves, and in bringing out 
 some great result.* 
 
 When we review the corruptions so early in- 
 
 * Thus it is as true in philosophy as it is in religion, 
 that God chooses the foolish things of the world to con- 
 found the wise, and the weak things of the world, to 
 confound the things that are mighty. 
 
79 
 
 troduced into the Christian church, so gross 
 and so long continued, we seem at a loss, how 
 Christianity could so soon become so totally 
 changed from what it was. At one time, we 
 are indignant at the villany, which could impose 
 such senseless doctrines and practices on the 
 people. At another, we wonder at the assur- 
 ance, which could utter such tales, and expect 
 to be believed. At another, we are at a loss, 
 how ambition itself, cunning and aspiring as it 
 is, could be gratified with leading a multitude 
 degraded so nearly to a level with the brutes. 
 But in very truth the clergy of those days de- 
 serve no peculiar reproach for insincerity, har- 
 dihood, or stupidity. They were only acting 
 upon the principles, which are common to man. 
 The beginning of mischief was, that from the 
 manifestly superior learning and superior piety 
 of the clergy, the people respectfully yielded up 
 to them the sole right of deciding on religious 
 subjects. This easily passed into the sole right 
 of thinking on such subjects. The conse- 
 quences were such as inevitably result from 
 leaving to a privileged body to reason , and 
 decide on a subject of general interest. Not 
 bein^ responsible for results to public opinion, 
 they reasoned awry more and more : and thus 
 
80 
 
 were introduced all the corruptions, which de- 
 formed and disgraced religion. 
 
 And as the people honored and compensated 
 their spiritual guides, not in proportion as they 
 were made better by their influence, but just the 
 reverse ; as the vices of the people filled the 
 coffers of the priests with money paid for the 
 exercise of the pardoning and dispensing power; 
 interest was set against duty : it was not the 
 interest of the clergy to reform abuses, and 
 return to a simple and direct method of admin- 
 istering to the spiritual ills of mankind. In- 
 terest, and the short-sightedness consequent 
 upon long irresponsibility, so perverted the 
 judgment of the clergy, that it remained for 
 others to discover truths so obvious, as that the 
 kingdom of Christ is not of this world ; and that 
 the working out of one's salvation is not so mys- 
 terious a business, that the understanding and 
 conscience must be surrendered to a profes- 
 sional guide. 
 
 As religion in the church, so fared philosophy 
 in the schools, while public curiosity pried not 
 into its secrets. Nothing can be more inge- 
 nious than the discussions there agitated about 
 virtue and vice, entities and quiddities and the 
 predicaments; and nothing more barren of 
 
81 
 
 useful results; till Bacon, (not a philosopher by 
 profession but a statesman,) following the leading 
 of the times, dragged philosophy from its re- 
 treats, to answer at the bar of public opinion, 
 for the good it was effecting in the world. 
 
 Just so has fared politics, while left in the 
 hands of a privileged body. And the constitu- 
 tions of government best promoting the general 
 welfare, have been formed, not by men born^to 
 the privilege, and trained to the art of govern- 
 ing; but by men selected from almost every 
 calling, self-taught in the art of government. 
 
 Again we have an illustration of the stimulat- 
 ing power of responsibility, and of the paralyzing 
 influence of exclusive privileges, in the acknow- 
 ledged fact, that the clergy of an establishment 
 are always less efficient men, than the dissenting 
 clergy. No matter what the creed, or the form, 
 avowed by the establishment ; the result is the 
 same. So confessedly in England. The estab- 
 lished clergy have far the advantage as to edu- 
 cation. (I mean scAoo/ education ; fox education 
 includes much more, even all I shall mention as 
 making the dissenters what they are.) They 
 have the countenance of the great, and the sup- 
 port of .government. Yet the dissenting clergy 
 are the efficient men, (generally speaking, of 
 
 8 
 
82 
 
 course.) The reason is obvious : they are under 
 greater responsibility. They depend on their 
 efficiency for their support. Unless too they 
 maintain a better state of morals and religion, 
 than exists in the establishment, the question is 
 at once raised ; What are you gaining by 
 dissent ? The clergy v/ithin the establishment 
 may suffer religion and morals to fall some 
 degrees below the level without, and not attract 
 public animadversion : but not too far below, or 
 they become subjects of general remark. Thus 
 dissent reacts on the establishment : and what 
 vigor exists in that, is mainly owing to the great 
 vigor existing without. 
 
 We see the same principle brought to view, 
 when, reviewing the history of our ancestors, 
 we find that law, or the administration of justice, 
 has never been so widely diverted from its 
 proper end, as have other things of like general 
 interest. No doubt it has been and may be still, 
 unnecessarily complicated and mysterious. 
 Judges under the influence of the crown have 
 perverted justice. Juries have been intimidated, 
 or bribed, or swayed by popular phrenzy, into 
 an unrighteous verdict. Still, law has never been 
 corrupted like religion. We may find a time in 
 the history of our ancestors, when we may well 
 
83 
 
 doubt, whether no churches would not have 
 been better, than the churches existing as they 
 were. But at no period can we reasonably 
 suppose, that the public would have been bene- 
 fited by the abolition of the courts of justice. 
 
 An explanation may be found in the early 
 institution of juries. This truly republican in- 
 stitution kept the business from becoming 
 wholly a mystery in the hands of a privileged 
 irresponsible body, or faculty. The common 
 sense of twelve plain men had a mighty influence 
 to keep professional learning from running wild. 
 If the institution has proved useful as furnishing 
 a guard to the honesty of judges ; I believe, it 
 has proved equally so, as a guard against judges* 
 being bewildered in their own learning. 
 
 Another comparison between the church and 
 the court will illustrate the power of responsi- 
 bility. It will be acknowledged by careful 
 observers, that generally speaking lawyers in 
 their pleading, show more common sense, than 
 ministers in their preaching. We shall hardly 
 find a lawyer attacking any prejudice in the 
 minds of the jury, without a plain and pressing 
 cause for so doing ; who, for instance, in ad- 
 dressing a jury that believed in witchcraft, would 
 attack their belief with argument or ridicule, 
 
84 
 
 unless the success of his client's cause required 
 that belief to be subverted. He would be 
 thought strangely unskilled in his profession, 
 who should thus arm prejudice against himself. 
 But a clergyman thus attacking some opinion of 
 his hearers, without thinking what he expects to 
 persuade them to or from doing, is not a thing 
 unheard of. Thus I have known one to belabor 
 himself to bring his hearers to accord with him in 
 the opinion of some speculators, that the demo- 
 niacs of the gospels were possessed of only natural 
 maladies, spoken of as possessed of devils, in 
 accommodation to popular opinion. What prac- 
 tical decision he expected them to make from 
 the opinion, I presume, he never thought to 
 inquire. 
 
 We shall hardly find a lawyer addressing a 
 jury in the style of his college orations, soaring 
 above their level, not thinking why, or under the 
 pretence of elevating their taste. Would that a 
 like remark might be made of the clerical pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Now the cause of this difference is not, that 
 in the one profession we find better native sense, 
 better scholarship, or more honesty, than in the 
 other ; but because the lawyer is under a more 
 pressing responsibility. When he addresses a 
 
85 
 
 jury, every one knows what he has to do — to 
 bring them to a present decision in favor of his 
 client. If he fails of this, no matter how fine a 
 speech he may have made — how much he may 
 have pleased his hearers ; he has failed of his 
 main object. And' if he so fails a few times, 
 with reasonable means of success, he loses his 
 professional reputation, and loses his support. 
 Now, a clergyman ought never to address a 
 congregation, without feeling his object to be, to 
 bring them to decide a question more important, 
 than any that can come before a jury. But he 
 is not compelled so to feel. He* may preach to a 
 people month after month, or even year after 
 year, and perhaps not an individual has done a 
 single important act in consequence of anything 
 he has said. But if he has met the theological 
 views of the people, if his sermons have been 
 handsomely written, and well delivered ; if he 
 has been agreeable in his social intercourse, — 
 the people may think he has quitted himself 
 well ; and almost of course he takes up the 
 same conclusion. 
 
 The principle I have been endeavoring to 
 illustrate is, that classes of men are quick- 
 sighted to discern what the exigencies of the 
 times require, in proportion as their profession is 
 
 8* 
 
86 
 
 not veiled in mystery, nor defended by exclu- 
 sive privileges, and themselves consequently re- 
 sponsible to public opinion for results. Such 
 are led to calculate their own interest on a large 
 and liberal scale. Whereas the opposite state 
 of things, while it may consist with a short- 
 sighted cunning, seems to deprive men of the 
 faculty of calculating their own interest on an 
 extended scale. Thus it is that privileged 
 orders, whether their privileges were political, 
 religious, or scientific, have so generally failed 
 to yield their antiquated pretensions to the 
 changes of the times, as their own interest obvi- 
 ously requires. The case of Charles I., of Louis 
 XVI. and his nobility, and of many other privi- 
 leged exclusives, enjoying political privileges, or 
 whatever else, may be described in the same 
 words. A mighty current began to move be- 
 neath them. Had they yielded to it in season, 
 they might have exerted a full share of influence 
 on its direction, saving their credit mostly or 
 wholly, perhaps, even with increase. But they 
 would not. They struggled against yielding an 
 inch, till the last gasp. And then, when they 
 would gladly have turned, and swum with the 
 stream, it was too late : and they were plunged 
 ten thousand fathoms beneath the surface. 
 
87 
 
 The principle thus far illustrated I believe 
 sufficiently shows, why the profession which I 
 have the honor to address, has seized on the 
 decision, required by the exigency of the times, 
 in regard to ardent spirit, with more promptness 
 generally, than has been manifested by the 
 faculty of medicine. I find the cause in the 
 fact, that your profession is eminently calculated 
 to render you practical men. It is not wrapped 
 up in mystery. It is your daily business to clear 
 up its intricacies and mysteries to the apprehen- 
 sion of common men. And your employers can 
 calculate very exactly how well you execute 
 your trust. 
 
 The medical faculty have wanted this exercise 
 for keeping open eyes, to mark the signs of the 
 times, and seize the present exigency. The 
 profession has long been considered as so mys- 
 terious, and submitted so exclusively to the 
 judgment of its professors, as to require implicit 
 deference on the part of the employer. Whether 
 there are radical defects in the prevailing prac- 
 tice, whether in any instance a patient has died 
 through wrong treatment, or recovered with a 
 constitution so impaired by medicine, that it 
 would have been safer on the whole to have 
 trusted wholly to nature and nursing, to work a 
 
88 
 
 cure, have been considered as questions, which 
 it would be presumptuous for the uninitiated to 
 ask. And we have very absurdly withheld from 
 medical practitioners the strong stimulus of self- 
 interest to devise a simple, safe, and thorough 
 method of curing disease. For instead of secur- 
 ing our bodies against disease, as we secure our 
 houses against fire ; paying the physician a 
 premium to v/arrant our health and requiring 
 him to forfeit a prescribed sum for every day's 
 sickness, we have done just the reverse : we 
 have paid for sickness, and not for health. And 
 it would be very strange, if interest set against 
 duty did not here exert the paralyzing influence 
 so manifest in all other cases. 
 
 The wisdom of our legislators also has thought 
 to secure the efficiency of medical practice by 
 laws giving exclusive privileges to the regularly 
 licensed practitioner ; as in some countries the 
 like has been attempted in regard to religion, by 
 establishing a church with its law-supported, 
 law-protected clergy ; the same reason being 
 assigned in both cases, the necessity of protect- 
 ing people against ignorant pretenders. Well 
 there is a period of society when it may be best 
 to have an established church defended by some 
 exclusive privileges. But the time comes, when 
 
89 
 
 this must be thrown aside, all denominations put 
 on a level, and every one left free and unre- 
 strained to think on the subject of religion. 
 And although at such a time we may expect 
 many to abuse their liberty to licentiousness, 
 many wild errors to be broached, and have their 
 vogue, and many to be imposed upon by false 
 pretenders ; yet we may expect, that such errors 
 will soon reach their maturity and die away, and 
 that all things are hastening to the ultimate 
 purity of truth, and to the full development of 
 the energies of undefiled religion. 
 
 I think, that a parallel may here be found be- 
 tween the science relating to the health of our 
 souls, and that which relates to the health of our 
 bodies. If I mistake not, it is the misfortune of 
 physicians of our day, to live at a period, when 
 public sentiment is loudly demanding a great 
 change in the means of preserving health ; and 
 that like all classes of men, accustomed to ex- 
 clusive privileges, and implicit deference, they 
 have been a little slow in discerning what the 
 exigency of the times requires. Thus I explain, 
 why they have been somewhat behind the legal 
 . profession in the temperance cause. 
 
 As an instance of this falling behind the 
 general sense of the community, I might men- 
 
90 
 
 tion the fact, that after public sentiment became 
 pretty decided against the use of ardent spirit, it 
 began to be seriously inquired by some of the 
 medical faculty, whether it might not be wholly 
 dispensed with in medicine; and for a substitute, 
 opium seems to have been chiefly depended on. 
 Opium however is more decidedly a poison than 
 alcohol. But is it liable to the same abuse as 
 an intoxicating drug ? Let Turkey, or almost 
 any nation of Southern Asia answer. Let China 
 answer, how rapidly within a few years, in 
 despite of the severest interdicts of the emperor, 
 it has there come into general use, slaying and 
 debilitating beyond even the pretensions of 
 alcohol here in the days of its glory. 
 
 I think, we here have an instance, how apt pro- 
 fessional reasoning, not accustomed to submit 
 itself to the plain common sense of mankind, is to 
 run counter to that sense. This says, resist the 
 beginnings of evil. When spirit was introduced 
 as the occasional cordial, or the exhilarating 
 pledge, O that the men of that day could have 
 been aware of its true character and tendency, 
 and crushed the serpent still young. A little 
 effort then might have availed more than a great 
 deal of labor now. All mischief resembles strife 
 in its likeness to the letting out of water. At 
 
91 
 
 first, one man with his shovel, can easily stop 
 the breach ; it is soon a flood, and to repair its 
 ravages, costs the labor of years. 
 
 But professional reasoners have not been want- 
 ing, who should seem to argue thus : Now that 
 the evils of ardent spirit, have been fairly laid 
 before the public, and it is not found in reputable 
 society as a beverage ; since they who drink it 
 betray, by their manner of So doing, their con- 
 sciousness of degradation ; and since its enter- 
 ing into a medical prescription raises the query, 
 is it necessary '? since, in short, the whole truth 
 as to the use of spirit is so well understood, that 
 evil example can hardly be called dangerous ; 
 now it is time seriously to agitate the inquiry, 
 whether it may not be banished from medicine. 
 But as people are not generally awar« of the 
 nature of opium, of its dreadful ravages 
 wherever men have acquired that taste for it, 
 best acquired by often taking it as a medicine ; 
 therefore no danger is to be apprehended, from 
 silently introducing it to supply the place of 
 spirit in medicine, lest it come to supply its 
 place as the desolating scourge of our land. 
 
 Such reasoning would hardly escape from 
 men accustomed to have their arguments can- 
 vassed before a jury. It may very well be com- 
 
92 
 
 pared with theirs, who in an age, when the evils 
 of clerical dominion have been fully discussed 
 and pointed out, and in a country, all whose 
 institutions are levelled against such dominion, 
 are sounding an alarm against the strides of the 
 clergy towards power, and against a union of 
 Church and State. Or to make the parallel 
 perfect, the acuteness of these alarmists should 
 be united with the simplicity of the early be- 
 lievers, who, in yielding all power to the clergy, 
 saw only its safety from abuse in so holy hands. 
 I hope, I have rendered myself sufficiently in- 
 telligible ; and that you see, how the fact as to 
 the standing of the two secular professions with 
 regard to the temperance cause affords no 
 ground for compliment on the one hand, or for 
 reproach on the other ; that it is but the devel- 
 opment of one of the universal principles of 
 human nature, — the principle, that however ex- 
 clusive privileges may foster any science or 
 subject of human thought in its infancy ; before 
 it reaches its perfection these must be done 
 away ; it must be stripped of mystery, left to free 
 thought, free discussion, free action ; or in other 
 words, it must be based on true republican prin- 
 ciples ; that real republicanism is not more the 
 
93 
 
 perfection of civil government, than of religion, 
 and every other subject of general interest. 
 
 I have entered upon this discussion, because 
 I think it affords some suggestions, especially to 
 men young in the practice of law or medicine, 
 or to those about entering on professional studies, 
 which suggestions I offer from the sincerest 
 conviction of their importance to your welfare. 
 You see, how fast the progress of temperance is 
 diminishing the business of managing the litiga- 
 tions, and of administering to the diseases of 
 men ; while at the same time ample fields for 
 the exertion of talent are opening in other direc- 
 tions. We have too long talked of the three 
 learned professions, as if there were no other 
 worthy men of collegiate education. But as 
 men, by becoming more temperate, save in the 
 expenses of litigation and of sickness, they will 
 become more able, and more willing, to encour- 
 age talent in other directions. The expense 
 saved by totally disusing ardent spirit, would 
 make annually many miles of railroad and canal. 
 Here is one of the most fit objects, to which to 
 appropriate the money so saved. Thus a way 
 is opening for the employment of a body of civil 
 engineers. Is not the occupation worthy the 
 attention of more of our liberally educated men ? 
 
 9 
 
94 
 
 And then again, people are waking up to the 
 importance of the general extension of a more 
 thorough system of education. The business of 
 teaching youth has been too long made a step- 
 ping stone to something else; and it seems to 
 me as if Providence were diminishing the call 
 for men in two of the professions, on purpose, 
 that more of our college graduates might devote 
 themselves for life to the business of teaching. 
 
 None need fear wanting employment, who 
 will only throw themselves on the current of the 
 times, and be up to what the spirit of the age 
 demands, A few years have produced a great 
 change in the clergyman's situation. He no 
 longer stands on undisputed ground, able to get 
 along pretty well, by composing and delivering 
 his two sermons a week, and not notoriously 
 violating the proprieties of his calling. He is 
 obliged to keep a. good look out, lest others go 
 before him in a practical understanding of what 
 the exigencies of the church require. He must 
 find his happiness, if at all, in forgetting his 
 private concerns, and identifying his desires 
 with the best happiness of his people. 
 
 A call to do the like, seems now to be made 
 by the providence of God on each profession. 
 If so, he who makes it, will not disappoint those 
 
95 
 
 who accept it in sincerity and in truth. Perhaps 
 the time is not distant, when much of the learn- 
 ing, which has been acquired for the purpose of 
 pleading causes, and of administering to disease, 
 will be demanded for lyceums in lectures. And 
 a town which should so reform its morals as to 
 aftbrd an inadequate support for its lawyer and 
 its physician, we may presume would have in- 
 tellectual appetite enough, and means abundant, 
 to maintain a lyceum, and employ and compen- 
 sate a lecturer on constitutional law and kindred 
 subjects, and another on natural history and the 
 means of preserving health.* 
 
 There are signs of the times, which indicate, 
 that such suggestions are more especially deserv- 
 ing the attention of young men engaged in the 
 study of medicine or contemplating so to do. 
 Medical writers have abundantly confessed their 
 doubts, whether, after all the discoveries made 
 in their art for centuries, diseases are better 
 cured, than when the art was in its infancy ; 
 and this question people are beginning to decide 
 for themselves. The opinion is fast gaining 
 ground, that if we mean to enjoy health, our 
 main dependence under God must be in carry- 
 
 * I might add, to be employed also at a fixed salary to ad- 
 ministej to the sickness, more or less, in a given district. 
 
96 
 
 ing out the principles of the temperance refor- 
 mation, in banishing from our tables their accu- 
 mulated luxuries, and returning to a simple and 
 moderate diet; and in a proper attention to ex- 
 ercise, clothing, and guarding against indiscreet 
 exposure ; in becoming temperate in all things. 
 The opinion is gaining ground, that as in other 
 things the wants of nature are easily and obvi- 
 ously met, and truth on subjects of general 
 interest found at last to be simple and intelligi- 
 ble to common capacities, so if we will return to 
 a natural mode of living, our diseases will be 
 such as common experience can prescribe for, 
 from a knowledge of the simples of our own 
 woods and fields ; and that we shall be under no 
 necessity of ransacking the bowels of every land 
 for drugs of dangerous character and doubtful 
 operation. 
 
 I can anticipate nothing else from the increas- 
 ing notoriety of the fact familiar to all who have 
 looked into medical history, that new diseases 
 have been originated, and old diseases aggra- 
 vated, pretty nearly in proportion as medical 
 science has become refined, and as new and 
 deadlier poisons have been introduced into the 
 practice, till the matter found its ne plus ultra 
 in the cholera. There are many striking facts 
 
97 
 
 of this kind in medical history, upon which 
 people are beginning to put their own construc- 
 tion. For instance, there is a disease peculiarly 
 the object of horror, and for which mercury is 
 eminently considered as a specific. But no 
 mention of that disease is found in history, till 
 just about the time when mercury was intro- 
 duced into medicine. I need not enlarge on 
 such a fact, or suggest the importance of the 
 inquiry, how far the disease has been created by 
 mercury. A word to the wise is sufficient. 
 
 There is another fact too much in point, and 
 too deeply concerning all interested in the do- 
 mestic relation, to allow me to refrain from 
 alluding to it through a false delicacy. So far 
 as I have inquired, the fact is confirmed by the 
 testimony of all, who are old enough to be com- 
 petent witnesses. In our country fifty or sixty 
 years ago, a branch of medical practice pecu- 
 liarly interesting to the fairer half of our race 
 was wholly in the hands of their own sex. It 
 was then comparatively easy and safe ; while it 
 has become difticult and dangerous in proportion 
 as it has fallen into the hands of professional 
 men, and as they have refined in their art. The 
 experience of the whole world coincides with 
 this tale j and I speak after careful examination, 
 
 9* 
 
98 
 
 when I say, that a suspicion is fast spreading 
 through the community, that the present melan- 
 choly frequency of death and debilitated consti- 
 tutions among our ladies from the sufferings 
 peculiar to their sex, has been the legitimate 
 result of committing so great an outrage on 
 common sense and common decency, as to sup- 
 pose, that the most universal of nature's opera- 
 tions cannot be performed without other assist- 
 ance than the delicate hands, to which it so 
 appropriately belongs.* 
 
 The opinion is thus gaining currency, that 
 there is a radical fault in the present method of 
 giving poisonous drugs for restoring health, im- 
 planting one disease to expel another, and 
 making devil cast out devil. It is beginning to 
 be suspected, that this is to the body, what the 
 principle always assumed by the heathen moral- 
 ists was to the soul, namely, that one evil passion 
 must be encouraged and strengthened, to coun- 
 ieract another. And as Christianity, in opposi- 
 tion to this, inculcates a few simple principles 
 
 * God has promised, that women ^' shall be saved in 
 child-bearing, if they continue in faith, and charity, and 
 holiness, with sobriety." (1 Tim. i. 15.) Surely a want 
 of these graces is too plainly indicated by the present 
 state of society. 
 
99 
 
 as the sole and sufficient remedy for sin and 
 vice of every kind ; a like simplicity, it is sus- 
 pected, will be developed in medicine ; that the 
 art of treating the diseases of the body will be 
 found as simple and easy, as to administer to 
 the diseases of the soul ; Wash and be clean ; 
 Believe and be saved ; as simple and easy, as 
 administering to the ills of the body politic ; 
 Leave to an enlightened people the whole control 
 of affairs, and away with standing army and 
 v-established church, crown and coronet together. 
 If the case be not found to be so, I do not readily 
 see, how we shall free the Author of nature from 
 the charge of forgetting for once the usual anal- 
 ogies of his wisdom and goodness. 
 
 It is not long since I heard the opinion 
 avowed by a gentleman, who had regularly 
 studied the profession of medicine, and practiced 
 the art, that the strong medicines, so called, 
 however they -may remove disease, do it at so 
 great an expense to the constitution, that it 
 would be a saving of life, on the whole, to dis- 
 pense with them entirely, and use no means but 
 common nursing. The gentleman is well known 
 to the public as a writer and popular editor : and 
 if I mistake not, his opinion is so fast gaining 
 currency, that at no distant period many drugs 
 
100 
 
 in our apothecaries' shops will go down, to seek 
 the shades of brotl er Alcohol, in the tomb of 
 the Capulets. 
 
 I am sensible that I have called up questions 
 which some may think, might better be suffered 
 to rest. I reply, there is no possibility of leaving 
 them at rest ; the spirit of the times is calling 
 them up. I have thought it an act of kindness 
 to warn those who are expecting to spend their 
 lives in the practice of medicine, that the spirit 
 of popular inquiry which has been overhauling 
 everything else, and stripping away mystery and 
 exclusive pretensions, will not long leave their 
 profession at rest, on its old foundations ; it 
 will subject it to the scrutiny, which has been 
 applied to every other subject of general interest, 
 and with such salutary effect ; for it begins to be 
 considered as a law of the human mind, that no 
 science will be brought to anything like perfec- 
 tion, while made a mystery in the hands of a 
 privileged order.* 
 
 * In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for 
 Sept. 17, 1834, is the following passage ; ^^ Are tea and 
 coffee injurious ? — A person who has been some twenty, 
 thirty, or forty years in the habit of taking these bever- 
 ages, would probably lose more than gain by abandoning 
 them. — It would be a question however, whether the 
 former (the milk and water drinker) would be a happier 
 
101 
 
 I invite you then, young physician, medical 
 student, or whoever is contemplating to study 
 the science, to consider whether the indications 
 of the times do not require something else, than 
 going the old round of dealing out calomel and 
 opium to broken down constitutions; whether 
 your only hope does not lie in aiming whither 
 the tendencies of the age tend, to bring people 
 
 or more useful man; whether, in fact, he would not be a 
 milk and water character." In the same work for Oct. 
 5th, 1824, the following information is given for literary- 
 men ; ^' In hot weather when the system is subjected to 
 the relaxing influence of continued heat, a little brandy 
 and water with dinner will be salutary." Again (Sept. 
 7th, 1824.) *' By the continued heat of summer we are 
 predisposed to diseases of the bowels, and these diseases 
 can only be prevented, and that disposition overcome by 
 a warm and bracing diet, and the occasional use of good 
 old wine, or weak brandy and water." When public 
 sentiment shall have become sufficiently decided for that 
 conclusion in regard to tlie common narcotic and stimu- 
 lating drinks, to which practical men are everywhere 
 coming, perhaps some seventy-five physicians of Boston 
 may venture upon the united declaration, that Tea and 
 Coffee, as drinks, are never useful for men in health. 
 Thus among the Principles of the Temperance Reforma- 
 tion, I include as a most important one, the assertion of 
 a right on the part of the people to go before their au- 
 thorized guardians in matters of reform. Let them ac- 
 cordingly beware, lest Alcohol be made a scape-goat to 
 bear away the sins of all his fellows. 
 
102 
 
 generally so to understand the art of preserving" 
 health, that it shall be seldom impaired beyond 
 their own knowledge to administer the means of 
 cure. 
 
 Having had some occasion to look into medi- 
 cal history, to mark the contradictory theories, 
 which have risen and fallen, one before another, 
 in such rapid succession, the darkness which 
 broods over the subject by the confession of all ; 
 I cannot but greet the growing disposition to 
 regard the extension of the principles of the tem- 
 perance reformation into all things as the great 
 means of forestalling and resisting dyspepsy and 
 other diseases. I greet it in the language of 
 Milton, 'Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first 
 born.' I greet it, as a meet accompaniment of 
 the operations which are tending to restore the 
 jarring elements of the world, to the rule of the 
 Prince of peace ; as an indication of the ap- 
 proach of the time, of which it is promised, that 
 " As the days of a tree shall be the days of my 
 people ; " no longer like the grass of the field, 
 no longer like the fading flower ; when the in- 
 habitants of the land shall no more say, I am 
 sick, and when the infant shall die an hundred 
 years old. And as one remarkable phenomenon 
 of the religious world now is, that the frequent 
 
103 
 
 occurrence of premature death 
 lost its tendency to affect the survive? 
 salutary sense of their own mortality, but too "* 
 frequently to tend to just the reverse; so as 
 friends of Christianity we seem invited to wel- 
 come any means, which promise to free us from 
 the necessity of pronouncing so often prema- 
 turely that farewell 
 
 Which ends all earthly friendships, 
 And closes every feast of love. 
 
 If my suggestions are worth nothing, let them 
 pass by. 1 speak as to wise men. Judge ye 
 what I say. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Since this address has been in the hands of the 
 publisher, I have read, for the first time, Spurz- 
 heim on Education. A few extracts will show, 
 how well some of his sentiments accord with mine. 
 
 " Among the abuses concerning rewards and 
 distinctions, I mention only the fault to give to 
 regular professors the exclusive right of teaching. 
 Monopoly impedes improvement in everything." 
 p. 180. 
 
 " A great step towards perfection, would be the 
 full and practical admission of the principle, that 
 
104 
 
 eveiy one has the right to employ his talents to the 
 utmost, for his own benefit, as far as he can 
 do it without injuring others. This system of 
 government is certainly superior to that of exclu- 
 sive privileges of any kind." p. 182. 
 
 " This study (Materia Medica) will not require 
 great extension, if we attend more to the art of 
 healing than to the display of knowledge. The 
 most skillful practitioners use a small number of 
 drugs m curing their patients, and they use still 
 less for themselves, being indisposed." p. 202. 
 
 " The members of the ordinary professions do 
 not think it necessary to conceal, that the end and 
 aim of all their exeriions is selfishness. The same 
 anti-social principle is visible m all worldly affairs, 
 —This overwhelming flood of selfishness must 
 abate, or the general happiness of mankind remain 
 an impossibility." p. 271. 
 
 If further authority of like import is wanted, the 
 following may serve as a specimen out of an abun- 
 dance. 
 
 " By w^hat unaccountable perversity in our frame 
 does it appear, that w^e set ourselves so much 
 against any thing that is new ? Can any one be- 
 hold, without scorn, such droves of physicians, and 
 after the space of so many hundred years experi- 
 ence and practice of their predecessors, not one 
 single medicine has been detected, that has the 
 least force directly to prevent, to oppose, and expel 
 a continued fever? Should any, by a more sedu- 
 lous observation, pretend to make the least step 
 towards the discovery of such remedies, their 
 hatred and envy would swell against him, as a 
 legion of devils against virtue, the whole society 
 will dart their malice at him, and torture him with 
 all the calumnies imaginable, without sticking at 
 anything that should destroy him root and branch. 
 
105 
 
 For he who professes to be a reformer of the art of 
 physic, must resolve to run the hazard of the martyr- 
 dom of his reputation, Hfe and estate." — Dr, Harvey. 
 
 " As matters stand at present, it is easier to cheat 
 a man out of his hfe than of a shilling, and almost 
 impossible either to detect or punish the offender. 
 Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, 
 and take everything upon trust that is administered 
 by any pretender to medicine, without daring to 
 ask a reason for any part of his conduct. Implicit 
 faith, every where else the subject of ridicule, is 
 still sacred here. Many of the faculty are no doubt 
 worthy of all the confidence that can be reposed in 
 them ; but as this can never be the character of 
 every individual in any profession, it would cer- 
 tainly be for the safety, as well as the honor of 
 mankind, to have some check on the conduct of 
 those, to whom they intrust so valuable a treasure 
 as health." 
 
 " Very few of the valuable discoveries in medi- 
 cine have been made by physicians. They have 
 in general either been the effect of chance or of 
 necessity, and have been usually opposed by the 
 faculty, till every one else was convinced of their 
 importance. An implicit faith in the opinions of 
 teachers, an attachment to systems and established 
 forms, and the dread of reflections, will always 
 operate upon those who follow medicine as a trade'. 
 Few improvements are to be expected from a man, 
 who might ruin his character and family, by even 
 the smallest deviation from an established rule." 
 
 " ' No argument,' continues he,* ' can be brought 
 
 * The author of Observations on the Duties and 
 Offices of a Physician, just quoted. 
 
 10 
 
106 
 
 against laying open medicine, which does not 
 apply with equal, if not greater force, to religion ; 
 yet experience has shown that since the laity have 
 asserted their right of inquiry into these subjects, 
 theology, considered as a science, has been im- 
 proved, the interests of real religion have been pro- 
 moted, and the clergy have become a more learned, 
 a more useful, and a more respectable body of 
 men, than they ever were in the days of their 
 greatest power and splendor.' 
 
 " Had other medical writers been as honest as 
 this gentleman, the art had been on a very different 
 footing at this day. Most of them extol the merit 
 of those men, who brought Philosophy out of the 
 schools, and subjected it to the rules of common 
 sense. But they never consider, that Medicine, at 
 present, is in nearly the same situation, that philos- 
 ophy was at that time, and that it might be as 
 much improved by being treated in the same man- 
 ner." — Dr. Buchan, 
 
 "There has been much difFei-ence of opinion 
 among philosophers in regard to the place, which 
 medicine is entitled to hold among the physical 
 sciences ; for while one has maintained, that it 
 ' rests upon an eternal basis, and has within it the 
 power of rising to perfection,' it has been distinctly 
 asserted by another, that 'almost the only resource 
 of medicine, is the art of conjecturing.' ' The fol- 
 lowing apologue,' says D'Alembert, ' made by a phy- 
 sician, a man of wit and of philosophy, represents 
 well the state of the science. " Nature," says he, 
 " is fighting with disease ; a blind man armed with 
 a club, i. e. the physician, comes to settle the differ- 
 ence. He first tries to make peace ; when he 
 cannot accomplish this, he lifts his club, and strikes 
 at random ; if he strikes the disease, he kills the 
 
107 
 
 disease ; if he stHkes nature, he kills nature." ' 
 ' An eminent physician,' says the same writer, ' re- 
 nouncing a practice which he had exercised for 30 
 years, said, I am weary with guessing.'" — Dr, 
 Ahercromhie, 
 
 "Medical science is like a temple unroofed at 
 the top, and cracked at the foundation." — Dr, Rush, 
 
 " If we take a retrospective view of the science 
 of medicine, with its alterations and improvements 
 in the last two centuries, the niedical annals of this 
 period will present us with a series of learned dis- 
 sertations by authors, whose names alone are now 
 remembered ; while their writings, under the spe- 
 cious name of improvement^ have left us only the 
 deplorable consolation of knowing, that their works 
 have heaped system upon system, prescript upon 
 prescript, error upon error, each in turn yielding to 
 its follower. Year after year produces a new 
 advocate for a new theory of disease, each con- 
 demning its predecessor, and each alike to be con- 
 demned by its successor. We wish a more rational 
 mode adopted for the promotion of medical know- 
 ledge, than hair-brained theories and doubtful facts. 
 Observation must take the place of scholastic 
 learning and hard names. We must have facts 
 instead of opinions, reason instead of theory, know- 
 ledge instead of titles and certificates." — JsTew York 
 Medical Inquirer, Vol, L JVo, 1, 
 
 " Wealth may purchase the honor [of a medical 
 diploma], the influence of friends may secure it, or 
 dogged resolution, in attending three or four courses 
 of lectures, will at length weary out the patience of 
 professors, and enable the veriest dunce in the 
 universe to carry off the prize — it [the diploma] 
 
108 
 
 amounts simply to show, that the persons who 
 wear this distinguished honor, have been able to 
 raise the means to attend two courses of lectures. 
 
 " This is a fair representation of that system of 
 instruction, that is pursued in every medical college 
 in the United States. * * ^ * We appeal to 
 the public to say, if it is not one of the greatest im- 
 positions ever palmed upon an enlightened age ; if 
 it is not perfectly inadequate to the object in view, 
 and at least ^ve centuries behind the present con- 
 dition of literary improvement." — Western Journal 
 of the Medical and Physical Sciences, 
 
 " The abuses of these [the heroic] remedies, and 
 the abundant use of even mild articles in endless 
 combinations, too often witnessed among us, cannot 
 be too openly, nor too loudly reprobated. These 
 errors are disgraceful to our profession. But if 
 that were all, one might be silent. They cause 
 endless, and often great suffering to those, who 
 are already afflicted enough." — Dr. Jackson, 
 
 " To a certain extent I have seen demonstrated 
 the actual benefit of certain modes of treatment in 
 acute diseases. But is the benefit immense ? 
 When life is threatened do we often save it ? When 
 a disease is destined by nature to be long, do we 
 often very materially diminish it? I doubt not 
 that we sometimes do under certain circumstances. 
 But on the other hand, I must acknowledge, that 
 what I have seen here,* of disease and its issues, 
 has rather inclined me to believe, that / individually 
 overvalued the utility of certain modes of treatment 
 in America. 
 
 " I believe, that we admit many things in 
 America as axioms, which are very far from being 
 
 * In Paris. 
 
109 
 
 proved. We have too long believed, that, because 
 demonstration on many points was impossible in 
 medicine, it was not worth while to study it like 
 an exact science. 
 
 " For shame upon us, that the antiquarian can 
 spend years of toil and labor to decypher an Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphic, the naturalist a life of hardship 
 and privations to ascertain minute points of no 
 practical interest, and that we should pass our lives 
 getting money, when, by study and devotion to what 
 is intrinsically of equal interest, simply as an exer- 
 cise of the human mind, we could reach such re- 
 sults of essential importance, to the happiness of 
 millions. 
 
 " The reason that medicine * * * is so de- 
 spised as a science is, that it has never yet been 
 studied as a science. 
 
 " Is it enough for me to know what the books 
 can teach me ? They contain more falsehood than 
 truth ; and I cannot distinguish between them 
 without studying nature." — James Jackson, Jr., 
 M.D. 
 
 Such is medical science and medical practice, 
 according to the authority of those most interested 
 to make a favorable report ; such the jugglery 
 played off upon fashion and legislative wisdom, 
 popular ignorance and science falsely so called. 
 Truly poor human wisdom seems destined to go 
 the same round of folly in regard to every general 
 interest, before hitting upon the right course, 
 namely, the full and practical admission, that 
 " equal rights should be secured to all, and exclu- 
 sive privileges to none "^ — that our best securities 
 for rendering men faithful and efficient are, to watch 
 
 * Governor Davis's Speech to the Legislature of Mas- 
 sachusetts, January 13, 1835. 
 10 * 
 
no 
 
 them narrowly, to leave competition free, and to 
 make interest and duty coincide. 
 
 It is common indeed, to represent the confessed 
 darkness of medical science as necessarily attached 
 to the inherent difficulties of the subject ; one in- 
 stance among a million, in which men charge upon 
 God the consequences of their own fault, for the 
 alternative is simply, whether God in constituting 
 the human body, with the means of its health, has 
 compelled the sons of jEsculapius to float forever 
 on the dark sea of uncertainties, or whether human 
 folly and wickedness have attempted to make a 
 complicated and mysterious art out of what God 
 had made plain and simple. 
 
Ill 
 
 TRUE CHRISTIANITY TRUE RADI- 
 CALISM. 
 
 " In theorizing on the subject before us, even wise and good men 
 have often mistaken first principles j and hence the disappointment 
 of their fondest hopes, hence the failure of their best endeavors to 
 mitigate the evils of" society. " They have not taken man as he is, a 
 fallen, depraved creature, naturally proud, indolent, evil and unthank- 
 ful ; but as he should be, holy, humble, industrious, conscientiously 
 disposed to do every thing in his power to " mitigate the sufferings of 
 his fellows, — President Humphrey. 
 
 Cuique in sua arte crtdendam^ is the maxim 
 of ordinary minds. It is an epitome of the con- 
 servative creed. Cuique in sua arte credendum : 
 how should an obscure German monk pretend 
 to understand the Scriptures better than all the 
 learned doctors and endowed universities of the 
 church ? Cuique in sua arte credendum : 
 whether God has made the sun to revolve round 
 the earth, or the earth round the sun, who should 
 best know, the upstart Galileo, or God's own 
 vicegerent on earth — the infallible interpreter of 
 
 * Every one to be trusted in his own trade. 
 
112 
 
 his will ? Cuique in sua arte credendum : how 
 should a poor self-taught Genoese pilot presume 
 to make discoveries to put to shame all the 
 learned heads, which have gone before him ? 
 Cuique in sua arte credendum : how should the 
 lawyers, merchants, and yeomen of America, 
 pretend to reverse the decisions of the heads of 
 the mother country, born to the right, and 
 trained to the art of governing ? Cuique in sua 
 arte credendum : if the old institutions of Eu- 
 rope require reforming, leave the work to those 
 practised in the business of government ; and 
 let not others be agitated by the discussion of 
 matters which they do not understand. 
 
 Such are the true principles of the conservative 
 creed. Thank God, a spirit like Luther, Co- 
 lumbus, or Jefferson, occasionally arises, to set 
 its fundamental maxim at defiance: and in defi- 
 ance of it every radical improvement and capital 
 discovery has been brought about. Did I not 
 know, from the record of all past history, how 
 deeply rooted are conservative principles in 
 human nature, how slow mankind are to learn 
 the simplest practical truths, and to open their 
 eyes upon the most glaring practical absurdities, 
 with which they have always been familiar ; I 
 should now stand in astonishment at the spec- 
 
113 
 
 tacle of a people exulting in their freedom from 
 the impositions of past ages, and tremblingly 
 sensitive to vindicate their right, in all things to 
 think and act for themselves ; yet sustaining 
 two powerful interests to thrive on their own 
 degradation ; and in regard to one of them es- 
 pecially, acting as if it were a shame to exercise 
 their own judgment. 
 
 I would not excite ill will towards any class of 
 men, as if they were governed by worse princi- 
 ples than are common to man. But while I 
 regard the Bible as containing the truest philos- 
 ophy of human nature, and while I behold this 
 philosophy verified by all history, all observation, 
 and all experience ; I expect to see every ex- 
 periment verify the general proposition, that, 
 men acting in a body, no degree of learning and 
 ingenuity, sense of honor and feeling of hu- 
 manity, is sufficient to set them right, while it is 
 their interest to go wrong, and while they can 
 hide ignorance, inefficiency and dishonesty be- 
 hind professional mystery, professional rules, and 
 professional privileges. The proposition is so 
 mortifying to human pride, that I do not wonder 
 it has been so often practically denied ; and 
 hence the results so grievously different from 
 the anticipations, when human wisdom has 
 
114 
 
 thought to secure the obvious advantages of the 
 division of labor. 
 
 In accordance with 'the forestated principle, 
 if I knew, that in any state religion was treated 
 as a subject too difficult for people to exercise a 
 free judgment upon, but was committed exclu- 
 sively to the care of priests, and the priests to 
 receive their compensation in the penalties paid 
 by the people for vices, and that independency 
 in religion was stigmatized as heresy or schism ; 
 I should expect the priests to present the most 
 formidable obstacle to the improvement of the 
 people in morals beyond a certain point. I 
 should expect them to labor heartily to keep the 
 people from sinking to the lowest depths of de- 
 pravity, lest their moral sense should become so 
 extinct, that they should not care to atone for 
 their sins, by purchasing peace of their spiritual 
 guides. I should expect them, in short, to keep 
 alive just so much sensibility of conscience, as 
 would best render themselves objects of blind 
 veneration and most bountifully fill their coffers. 
 And though the priesthood might originate in 
 men of a self-sacrificing spirit, whom the confi- 
 dence reposed in them would only render more 
 tremblingly conscientious not to abuse that con- 
 fidence ; I should still expect no different ulti- 
 
115 
 
 mate result, from the temptation held out to men 
 of an opposite spirit, to insinuate themselves into 
 the office. All this I should so unhesitatingly 
 anticipate from leaving implicitly trusted spirit- 
 ual physicians to find their account in the mul- 
 tiplication of spiritual disease, that I should 
 hardly think it necessary to examine, whether 
 the result verified the anticipation. 
 
 If I knew that in any country, legislation very 
 much, and jurisprudence altogether, fell into the 
 hands of men, who lived on^the quarrels of the 
 people, and the difficulties into which they fell 
 from the perplexities and uncertainties of law ; 
 I should not expect such men to go far ahead of 
 public sentiment for reforming manners, and 
 bringing about the perfection of the social 
 system : I should expect to find the '* uncer- 
 tainty of the law " tenfold more ** glorious" than 
 necessity requires. 
 
 If I knew that in any country the people paid 
 their physicians for sickness, and not for health ; 
 and that the physicians were a regularly organ- 
 ized body, governed by their own rules ; that all 
 independency in medicine was stigmatized as 
 quackery ; and that the best prepared for death 
 or life were afraid to die and ashamed to survive 
 from a disease not treated by those supposed to 
 
116 
 
 have a divine and exclusive right so to do. I 
 
 should expect I should expect, in short, 
 
 that where people were papists in regard to the 
 body, the results would exactly correspond with 
 those, which spiritual popery has everywhere so 
 legitimately produced. 
 
 So I should reason a priori, I might add, 
 that when I reason in the contrary direction, all 
 my observation brings me to the same conclu- 
 sion. So stubborn and multiplied do the plain 
 facts appear, that I should be obliged to admit 
 the conclusion, however confounded by it, and 
 unable to reconcile it with known laws of the 
 human mind. 
 
 But it has been objected to a part of the con- 
 clusion, that though disease confessedly rages 
 worse, and proves more unmanageable, than 
 when medical science was in its infancy ; yet 
 the science has really been advanced towards 
 improvement, only vicious habits of living have 
 more than counteracted the advantages of im- 
 proved skill. The objection, however just, 
 affects not my main end. The case is as if a 
 New England clergyman should visit Cuba for 
 the improvement of his health, and witnessing 
 the low state of morals, should remonstrate with 
 one of the priests to this effect. Don't you see, 
 
117 
 
 that the accumulated rites, v/hich you have been 
 adding to religion, have been v^^orse than useless? 
 People are evidently less conscientious «^nd virtu- 
 ous, than when the ordinances of religion were 
 administered to them in their primitive simplicity. 
 The priest admits the fact, but still insists, that 
 the multiplied rites and accumulated mystery 
 have had a salutary tendency, only they have 
 been more than counteracted by bull-lights, con- 
 cubinage, and other devices of Satan for corrupt- 
 ing the people. The New Englander inquires, 
 whether the priests have remonstrated against 
 these Satanic devices ; and finds, that they have 
 indeed done so, but for the most part formally 
 and officially, and as if they expected not to be 
 regarded. Further investigation shows him, 
 that the priests are about as often at bull-fights, 
 and keep about as many concubines, as the 
 people themselves. 
 
 In neither case does the objection affect my 
 main end : because I am not determining, 
 whether, where conscience is seared and intel- 
 lect blinded, as in most papal countries, the ac- 
 cumulated rites and mysteries of religion increase 
 or diminish the evil, or which way the evil is 
 affected by the popular medicines, where it is 
 fashionable for people to live in gross ignorance 
 
 11 
 
ns 
 
 of the laws of their being. My main end is to 
 expose the mischief (wherever precisely it may 
 lie) of sustaining monopolies, and having people 
 taxed for ignorance, rather than pay for know- 
 ledge. 
 
 But it is objected, such delusion, as here seems 
 supposed, cannot be in this enlightened age — 
 this age of unlimited inquiry and independent 
 thought — this age of overhauling the decisions 
 of other days. Not quite so fast. In this very 
 vaunting of liberality, freedom, and independence, 
 I see a sign that the clear day of emancipation 
 from superstition and prejudice, has but half 
 risen upon us : for true independence of mind, 
 like true charity, " vaunteth not itself" I have 
 seen in our day, something very like the account 
 which Paul gives of some would-be liberals at 
 Corinth. Let us attend a moment to the history 
 of their case. 
 
 Among the people converted from heathenism 
 to Christianity at Corinth, different views pre- 
 vailed as to the gods, which they had formerly 
 worshipped. Some regarded them as evil spirits ; 
 their idols as the images and representatives of 
 such evil spirits : and consequently all respect 
 shown to such idols, by eating meat offered to 
 them, or in any other way, as an acknowledg- 
 
119 
 
 ment of the divinity and dominion of such evil 
 spirits, and consequently an act of rebellion 
 against Jehovah. 
 
 Others took a different view of their former 
 gods : they said, that an " idol is nothing in the 
 world : " that the so-called gentile gods were not 
 evil spirits, but no existences — mere creatures 
 of the imagination. As was very natural, they 
 prided themselves on taking a more philosophical 
 view of the matter, than that entertained by their 
 weaker brethren, who retained a ^^ conscience of 
 the idol," or regarded the idols as representing 
 real beings — demons — evil spirits. An infer- 
 ence from this philosophy was, that they might 
 safely eat meat offered in sacrifice to an idol, 
 even in the idol's temple ; because in their 
 hearts they paid no respect to false gods, believ- 
 ing, that the so-called false gods were no exist- 
 ences — that an idol was nothing in the world. 
 
 They overlooked the obvious consideration, 
 that however safe such conduct might be for 
 themselves considered alone, it was wrongly 
 laying a dangerous snare for their weaker breth- 
 ren, as they regarded them, thus tempted to 
 violate conscience by eating also, what they 
 could only regard as meat offered to real de- 
 mons. When men began thus to impose on 
 
120 
 
 themselves by false reasoning — to enter upon 
 forbidden ground, it was not singular, if they 
 erred from Christian simplicity to an extent, 
 which might seem hardly credible. At the 
 worship of the heathen temples, scenes were 
 acted, in reference to which Paul well says, that 
 it is a shame even to speak of the things, which 
 are done of them in secret : and of all places, 
 Corinth was noted for such licentious abomina- 
 tions. Is it possible, that in the searching times 
 of Apostolic preaching, any could have yielded 
 to a temptation so gross ? Yes : when men 
 once swerve from Christian simplicity, by listen- 
 ing to the refinements of a false philosophy, the 
 downward course is rapid to the very filth and 
 dregs of corruption. They come to justify gross 
 guilt by investing it in smooth language. Thus 
 it was with some called Christians at Corinth. 
 " Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats :" 
 said they. (1 Cor. vi. 13.) I need not say, 
 which of the appetites, and what mode of gratifi- 
 cation, they meant to plead for by such language. 
 The apostle's answer, which immediately fol- 
 lows, sufficiently explains the meaning. 
 
 The obscenities practised in almost all hea- 
 then religions, have had their origin too, in phi- 
 losophic speculations. They have been intro- 
 
121 
 
 duced as apt representations of the fructifying 
 powers of nature. Thus it is supposed, that the 
 fable of the wounding* of Adonis, (called 2W/2- - 
 muz in Scripture,) and the consequent grief of 
 Venus, (commemorated by the women weeping 
 for Tammuz,) was originally intended to repre- 
 sent the sun deprived of his generating power by 
 his southern declension, and the consequent sad 
 appearance of nature during the winter months. 
 And a modern philosopher, t speaks very con- 
 temptuously of the abhorrence expressed by the 
 Christian missionaries for the obscenities exhib- 
 ited in the heathen riles, because these were 
 first introduced as mystic representations of the 
 fructifying power of the sun, and the correspond- 
 ing capacities of the earth : just as if the original 
 pretence were more important, than the actual 
 effect of such exhibitions on the imaginations of 
 man's heart, which are evil from his youth. 
 
 Such were the circumstances of those, whom 
 Paul reminded, that no temptation had taken 
 them, but such as is common to man. (1 Cor. x. 
 13.) He compared their case with that of the 
 ancient Israelites in the wilderness, where so 
 many fell under the temptations besetting them. 
 
 * In partibus virilibus. t Dupuis. 
 
 11 * 
 
122 
 
 " Now these things," says he, ^' were our ex- 
 amples, to the intent that we should not lust 
 after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be 
 ye idolaters, as were some of them ; as it is 
 written. The people sat down to eat and drink, 
 and rose up to play. Neither let us commit for- 
 nication, as some of them also committed, and 
 fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Nei- 
 ther let us tempt Christ, as some of them also 
 tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Nei- 
 ther murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, 
 and were destroyed of the destroyer." (v. 5 — 
 10.) 
 
 Some of the things here enumerated are obvi- 
 ously temptations, which always and everywhere 
 are common to man. But the idolatry here 
 alluded to, the w^orship of the golden calf, might 
 seem an exception. What temptation have we, 
 and millions of others, to such an act ? The 
 commonness however is to be found, not in the 
 particular act, but in the principle, on which it 
 was recommended. The Egyptians, among 
 whom the Israelites had so long resided, were 
 then regarded as the most refined and philo- 
 sophic people on the earth. It was a part of 
 their philosophy, that the invisible God is best 
 worshipped by the aid to the imagination of some 
 
123 
 
 visible representation : and none was more com- 
 mon than the ox or bull, which for his strength 
 and useful qualities was supposed to represent 
 some of the most important attributes of the in- 
 visible Deity. Thus the temptation to the Israel- 
 ites to represent the God, who had brought them 
 out of Egypt, under the similitude of a calf or 
 bullock, was essentially a temptation to set aside 
 the positive word of God, the evidence of plain 
 fact, and the dictate of common sense, from def- 
 erence to the speculations of those, whom the 
 world admired as most wise, refined, or philo- 
 sophic* 
 
 What Paul then designates as the temptation 
 anthropinos, that which is common to man, is 
 just this, the temptation to swerve from a strict 
 regard to what God, or conscience, the evidence 
 of sense, or unprejudiced reason, dictates, from 
 regard to what is fashionable among those re- 
 puted great or wise in the world. The fashions 
 and maxims of the world so change, that we 
 cease to be tempted to the particular wrong acts, 
 into which there was once the greatest danger of 
 
 * This plain statement of the case entirely refutes the 
 papists' defence of their images, that they regard them 
 not as divinities, but as representations of unseen objects 
 of adoration. This was precisely the idolatry contem- 
 plated by God, in the second commandment. 
 
1^4 
 
 falling. But the pride of fashion still arrays 
 itself against the simple truth of God, and the 
 dictates of unbiased conscience, and unsophisti- 
 cated judgment : and to fear to be singular or 
 unfashionable, rather than fear to go wrong — a 
 foolish fear of being spoken of as having a better 
 heart than head, as a well-meaning but weak- 
 minded person — here is the temptation, eminently 
 that which is common to man. 
 
 It might be expressed in other words, by 
 saying, it is the temptation to assume a falscj at 
 the sacrifice of a true independence. Or in 
 other words still, we everywhere see men tempt- 
 ed too successfully to strive vainly to cast off 
 their dependence on God and the appearance of 
 implicitly and seriously regarding his word, at 
 the cost of making themselves slavishly depen- 
 dent on the changeable breath of their fellow 
 worms. 
 
 What multitudes there are vaunting their 
 freedom from authority in religion, who have 
 never thought on the subject, so as to form an 
 opinion for themselves, fearlessly, but with the 
 fear of rejecting the truth ; independently, but 
 with the feeling that God only is worthy to be 
 depended on : not afraid to embrace one truth, 
 because it is so old, as to be derided as going out 
 
125 
 
 of date ; nor another, because it is so new, as 
 not yet to appear, whether it is going to be pop- 
 ular. And I hardly know a surer mark of the 
 want of this Christian independence, than great 
 quickness in men to vindicate their freedom from 
 human systems — their independence to think for 
 themselves. Jesus on one occasion spoke to the 
 Jews of their being made free by the truth. 
 They took fire at once at the suggestion, that 
 they were not free, and replied, ** We be Abra- 
 ham's seed, and were never in bondage to any 
 man; how sayest thou then. Ye shall be made 
 free?" (John viii. 33.) Indeed, had they 
 forgotten their seventy years' bondage in Bab- 
 ylon ? nay, that they were even then in bondage 
 to the Romans ? Why the very fact, that they 
 were not then politically free, rendered them so 
 sensitive, so quick to vindicate their freedom, 
 that they did not stop to reflect, whether the 
 freedom spoken of by Jesus were not something 
 very different from that, the want of which was 
 so mortifying to their pride. We may still see 
 cases very similar. If men are very quick to 
 vindicate the freedom of their opinions — to assert 
 their independence of thinking as others do, of 
 believing a thing because it has been long or 
 generally believed ; it is a pretty strong indica- 
 
126 
 
 tion, that their opinions are not properly their 
 own — that they are slaves to the fear of not 
 being thought liberal-minded. 
 
 If a man really feels, that there is none great 
 but God — that it is He who sitteth on the circle 
 of the earth, while the inhabitants thereof are 
 but as grasshoppers — if thus it is his first desire, 
 to believe what He declares, and to do what He 
 commands, esteeming it but a very small matter 
 to be judged of man's judgment, he will be little 
 likely to boast his freedom from being ruled by 
 the opinion of feeble mortals. But, if one has 
 never thrown off the fear of man, so as to resolve 
 in good earnest, that he will think and act, as 
 accountable ultimately to God alone ; it is natu- 
 ral, that a secret consciousness of the fear of 
 man, of the slavish dread of being spoken of as 
 illiberal or unfashionable, should render him 
 quick to assert (what he is half conscious may 
 be well disputed) his freedom from being subject 
 to the opinion of others. 
 
 This was just the case of the would-be liberals 
 at Corinth. They made great ado about their 
 emancipation from superstition to the freedom of 
 Christianity. The secret was, they were very 
 ambitious of being known as in advance of other 
 Christians. Yet their vaunted independence 
 
127 
 
 was but false. It was such a dependence on 
 the popular breath, as led them to make great 
 ado about their attaining to what was indeed 
 but a very small matter ; and about which a 
 mind truly liberal and charitable would never 
 have vaunted itself; but rather have said, Have 
 I faith in what I differ from my weaker brethren ? 
 I will have it to myself before God. Happy is 
 he, that condemneth not himself in that thing 
 which he alloweth. (Rom. xiv. 22.) 
 
 Is there any thing new under the sun ? and is 
 not such indeed the temptation common to man ? 
 Such thoughts have often occurred to me, from 
 observing, how many, who seem not to be with- 
 out regard to Christian principle, are always 
 torturing themselves with the inquiry. What will 
 people think or say, if I do so and so ? The 
 observation has led me to regard a true Chris- 
 tian independence, as one of the most desirable, 
 and last attained acquisitions. By Christian in- 
 dependence, I mean the settled, quiet determina- 
 tion, to have a judgment and conscience of one's 
 own; to adhere thereto strictly, conscious that 
 one's vindication is on high, and never disqui- 
 eted with the apprehension, what will the world 
 think or say of me ? 
 
 If such independence were to be found in 
 
128 
 
 proportion as it is professed, we should be an in- 
 dependent people indeed. But alas ! where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and no 
 where else is perfect freedom found. The very 
 vaunting bespeaks its want. Paul has not 
 rightly declared the temptation spoken of to be 
 common to man, unless it is that which easily 
 besets us. It becomes then each to beware, 
 how easily he may persuade himself, that he is 
 only disregarding needless scruples, and reject- 
 ing human authority, when all the while he is 
 soothing his conscience with opiates, and afraid 
 manfully to avow, what he would see to be the 
 truth, if he would but let conscience honestly 
 utter her voice. 
 
 Our peculiar political privileges expose us to 
 some peculiar dangers from the common temp- 
 tation. The freedom, with which every one 
 may form and utter his opinions on all subjects, 
 it must be expected, will often be abused to 
 licentiousness. It will be construed as a freedom 
 to make God's word speak just what the indi- 
 vidual pleases, or to reject it altogether, after 
 just what examination he pleases to give it. 
 Many are thrown on the responsibilities of free- 
 men, who really know very little, in what true 
 freedom consists. Such will often be eager to 
 
129 
 
 assert their freedom, by hastily denying the 
 plainest declarations of God's word, and what 
 wiser and better men have firmly believed. 
 And while they promise themselves freedom, 
 they are still servants of sin and of a guilty con- 
 science, and slaves to the opinions of men. 
 They are servants of sin. Consciousness of 
 guilt drives them to tax their ingenuity to set 
 aside what God has plainly declared. And the 
 same tyranny of a guilty conscience hinders them 
 from reposing quietly in their boasted liberty 
 and security. Hence their artifices to conceal 
 their uneasiness. Hence their loud protestations 
 of their ease and confidence for the future ; 
 when, if they really felt so, there would be no 
 need of so loudly proclaiming it. Hence, in 
 proportion as a guilty conscience creates a hell 
 within, men are eager to run after every one, 
 who comes to repeat the old story of no hell to 
 be feared hereafter : when, if conscience were 
 really quiet, the stale report would not be thought 
 worth running after. 
 
 They who thus understand not, that 
 
 He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free, 
 And all are slaves beside, 
 
 are slaves to the opinion of men. Just because 
 12 
 
130 
 
 they have not met God on his own terms, settled 
 their account, made their peace with him, and 
 acceded to the terms, on which they are to meet 
 him in judgment ; just for this reason, they 
 cannot esteem it a very small matter to be judged 
 of man's judgment : and accordingly their fear 
 of man keeps them back from pursuing seriously 
 the inquiry, how they are to make their calling 
 and election sure, and from seeking truth, 
 wherever it is to be found. 
 
 My countrymen, will you thus live, and move, 
 and have your being, in the breath of your fel- 
 low creatures of yesterday ? Shall the descend- 
 ants of them, who left their homes to cross an 
 ocean and subdue a wilderness, rather than 
 submit their faith to the established creed — of 
 them, who took up arms at the risk of estate 
 and life, rather than submit to a paltry tax from 
 a foreign power — shall men so descended, so 
 belie their descent, as to suppress or give up 
 their own sober convictions to their equals, who, 
 for aught you know, have never sought the 
 truth with such intensity of desire, as to deserve 
 a moment's regard ? Will you not so declare 
 your independence of men, as to consider your 
 salvation of body and soul, as too important a 
 matter to be reached by the fear of their sneers 
 
131 
 
 or reproaches ; so that you will quietly refer the 
 vindication of the reasonableness of your conduct 
 to the last tribunal, like one determined to stand 
 or fall to his own master ? This must be your 
 course, if you would stand in that judgment at 
 the last. Nay this must be your course, if you 
 would enjoy here the consciousness, that your 
 peace is not at the mercy of every changing 
 breath. 
 
 Modern liberalism (I speak not of the intents 
 of individuals) seems to me to be founded in the 
 desire to repel the charge, that *' the carnal mind 
 is enmity against God " — " deceitful above all 
 things, and desperately wicked," and charge 
 back upon God the blame of human guilt and 
 human sufferings. To this end men say and 
 unsay ; torture scripture and common sense ; 
 resolve abounding wickedness into the peculiar 
 impositions of priestcraft — into the blasting in- 
 fluence of false religion — into the unavoidable 
 imperfection of human nature, which cannot fail 
 of the kind allowance of our heavenly Father ; 
 which is just a softer way of saying, God will 
 acknowledge himself to have so constituted us, 
 that we inevitably commit a quantum of sin, for 
 which he cannot exact a strict account, without 
 forfeiting his character as a kind father — that so 
 
132 
 
 far he must acknowledge sin to be no sin, or 
 that its blame rests upon himself. 
 
 Thus too God has a controversy with men, as 
 to the many contradictory interpretations and 
 perversions of his word. He insists, that the 
 fault is not in himself; that he has revealed his 
 will plainly, so that the way-faring man, though 
 inexpert, need not err in the way — written so 
 conspicuously, that he may run who reads ; that 
 his testimony is sure, making wise the simple ; 
 that what is hidden from the wise and prudent, 
 is revealed unto babes in simplicity of desire to 
 learn ; that if any man will do his will, he shall 
 know of the doctrine ; but if men mistake it, it 
 is because, though the light shines upon the 
 darkness, the darkness admits it not, but men 
 choose darkness rather than light, because their 
 deeds are evil. 
 
 But we find men everywhere flatly contradict- 
 ing all this, and throwing back upon God, the 
 blame, which he charges upon them. They 
 charge him with having written his word so 
 obscurely, that the honest inquirer has no secu- 
 rity against the grossest error in interpreting it. 
 Such is the foundation of the papal pretence of 
 the necessity of an infallible interpreter, and the 
 surrender of private judgment. And such pre- 
 
133 
 
 cisely, is the foundation of modern liberalism ; as 
 if God, in professing to give us a clear revelation, 
 had proposed a riddle so obscure, that we must 
 not consider a perverse interpretation of it as an 
 indication of a corrupt heart. I cannot purchase 
 the credit of liberality at the cost of admitting in 
 effect such a charge against my Maker, which 
 he so fully repels. Indeed, tried by pure reason, 
 it seems to me the most unreasonable of preten- 
 sions. 
 
 But vi^hen men reason thus in regard to the 
 soul's concerns, it is natural that they should 
 follow the same analogy in regard to the body ; 
 that they should resolve the contraction of the 
 average period of human life to less than one 
 lialf of three score years and ten, and the fright- 
 ful aggravation of disease, into the unavoidable 
 frailty of our bodily structure, and the necessary 
 difficulty of arriving at truth as to the prevention 
 and treatment of disease ; rather than admit, 
 that God has made very plain and simple the 
 means of fulfilling the number of our days — too 
 plain and simple for corrupt human pride, which 
 would live on the blind veneration of an ignorant 
 and debased multitude. So. consistent is our 
 present physical degradation, and the prevalence 
 of unsound minds from unsound bodies, and the 
 
 12 * 
 
134 
 
 senseless medical superstition which binds so 
 fast most minds among us, with that liberality 
 which would relieve man of his consciousness of 
 guilt, and pretend to consult his true dignity by 
 repelling God's charge of " deceitful above all 
 things and desperately wicked," and defying his 
 curse pronounced against him that trusteth in 
 man. Awful is the curse we have incurred, by 
 endeavoring to make out, that it applies onl}' to 
 man perverted by false religion, or by some 
 other circumstances betrayed into guilt not com- 
 mon to man. 
 
 I do not wonder, that the world is so slow to 
 admit the conclusions 1 am urging, while I see 
 everywhere such a desperate effort to evade the 
 fundamental principle. This principle is the 
 indispensable foundation of true charity ; not 
 modern charity, but that which Paul preached 
 and exemplified. He has sufficiently explained 
 why, little as he found of satisfaction in the 
 world, and much as he encountered of groveling 
 selfishness and ungrateful opposition from those 
 whose best welfare he was fervently seeking, he 
 always looked upon the wickedness of men with 
 " a countenance more in sorrow than in anger." 
 The world was crucified unto him, and he unto 
 the world, not by the disappointment of his early 
 
135 
 
 calculations on human virtue and worldly happi- 
 ness, but by the cross of Christ. (Gal. vi. 14.) 
 He judged, that, if one died for all, then were 
 all dead ; and that he died, that they who live, 
 should henceforth live, not unto themselves, but 
 unto him that died for them and rose again. 
 (2 Cor. V. 14, 15.) These passages make the 
 whole matter plain. The mode of man's re- 
 demption had taught him to expect to find men 
 everywhere dead in trespasses and sins, at en- 
 mity with God, and opposed to the most benevo- 
 lent efforts for their own welfare. He had found 
 himself to be no exception to the genexa! rule : 
 but though he seemed once to have some real 
 acquiescence in God's character and law, yet 
 when the perfection of that character and law 
 were revealed clearly to his conscience, he found 
 his mistake — that he had been unconscious of 
 enmity against God, only because God had been 
 so wrongly apprehended ; that he had always 
 harbored latent propensities to all manner of 
 concupiscence, waiting only a clear view of the 
 purity of God's law, to rouse themselves into 
 action: when this discovery was made, the latent 
 sin revived in its full power — rose up in positive 
 enmity against God, as an active controling re- 
 ality. (Rom. vii. 8, 9. viii. 7.) Thus was laid 
 
136 
 
 the foundation of Paul's charity and forbearance 
 towards the faults of others. The mode of man's 
 redemption, and his acquaintance with his own 
 heart, had taught him to expect to find men 
 everywhere and in all circumstances acting just 
 as he found them : therefore he was not disap- 
 pointed, nor his temper soured and himself ren- 
 dered misanthropic. 
 
 We see accordingly, that if men take a differ- 
 ent view of human nature, when their attention 
 becomes riveted upon one form of wickedness, or 
 when their party spirit is raised against it, they 
 are much more merciless in their denunciations 
 than the Christian, who enters thoroughly into 
 Paul's views. And many who admit into their 
 creed, expressed however strongly in general 
 terms, the confession, that universally the heart 
 of man is deceitful above all things and desper- 
 ately wicked, still reluct obstinately against fully 
 admitting the same as a sober reality. Thus 
 the denunciations against the unparalleled wick- 
 edness of slave-holding, or any other form of de- 
 pravity, are founded in a deep-rooted determina- 
 tion to get rid of admitting, that we must soberly 
 calculate on finding unrenewed men in all cir- 
 cumstances at enmity with God, and of course 
 at enmity with the best welfare of his creation. 
 
137 
 
 In the fashionable habit too, of courting the 
 praise of liberality, by speaking soft words of 
 popery, I see much to account, why the commu- 
 nity is so disposed to go on in the admission of 
 papistical principles in regard to the body. 
 
 As a remedy for existing evils, next to that 
 greatest and best of remedies, which the gospel 
 brings to every heart which heartily receives it, 
 I repeat, that "we must abolish all monopolies 
 and mysteries, make the interest and duty of all 
 classes coincide, and have people pay for know- 
 ledge rather than be taxed for ignorance." I 
 do not say, into precisely what form these prin- 
 ciples should be carried out. One, as that to 
 which we must ultimately arrive, suggests itself 
 to me, that the whole community be divided into 
 associations, each about the size of a common 
 parish, to employ and compensate its physician, 
 with a fixed salary, to lecture on the means of 
 preserving health, and administer to all its sick- 
 ness : and its lawyer likewise, to attend on the 
 same terms to all the business within his depart- 
 ment. It is not extravagant to say, that in such 
 a state of things, sickness would soon be dimin- 
 ished to one twentieth its present amount, human 
 life prolonged again to the average duration of 
 three score years and ten, and nineteen twen- 
 
138 
 
 tieths of the now litigated cases settled in a 
 private way. 
 
 But if this condition cannot be brought about 
 at once, there are steps, which we can take 
 towards it. We need not by our votes give the 
 legal profession so large a representation in our 
 legislative assemblies, so beyond its relative im- 
 portance in the community. We may for the 
 most part keep out of courts of justice, and leave 
 the dependents thereof alone to their honorable 
 business. Public sentiment may exact, that the 
 lawyer's fees shall not depend on the length to 
 which he can protract a case — that the fee shall 
 be settled by agreement with his client before- 
 hand, to depend on success, if the client so 
 exacts. In medicine, if we cannot at once 
 establish the habit of paying for health, and not 
 for sickness, we can demand the immediate 
 repeal of all laws* recognizing a monopoly and 
 exclusive privileges : or we can practically 
 nullify such laws, by showing, that we will not 
 submit to our legislators, what medicine we will 
 take, or what class of physicians employ, more 
 
 * This whole volume, (except the Appeal to the legal 
 profession,) was written before the extra-session of the 
 legislature of Massachusetts, in 1835. A few sentences 
 are less fully applicable, than they have been here, and 
 are still in many of the States. 
 
139 
 
 than we will submit to them, what creed we 
 shall believe, or what church attend ; that we 
 mean to have every practitioner estimated, as 
 he can satisfy people of his success in curing, 
 without the slightest regard, whether he is dig- 
 nified M. D. or not. All the arguments for 
 such laws, are so exactly parallel to what have 
 been used in almost every country for an estab- 
 lished church, and for legislation against heresy 
 and schism, and so fully refuted here, that to 
 indicate the comparison is a sufficient refuta- 
 tion.* 
 
 I am earnest on this point, because, next to 
 the blessing of that liberty found only where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, I thank God most heartily 
 for my emancipation from medical superstition ; 
 that I dare use my own eyes to mark the effects 
 
 * " The condition of a minister is not such as is stated 
 to exist in America, where, as we are assured by a well 
 known and credible minister of that country, ' no min- 
 ister of any Protestant denomination, to my knowledge, 
 has ever received a sufficient living two years in succes- 
 sion.' " — Dr. Dealtrifs charge, quoted Christian Observer j 
 May, 1835. 
 
 The American minister referred to, is doubtless Mr. 
 Flint, who asserts thus much in regard to the western 
 States. The extension of his remark to the whole 
 country, was but a moderate stretching for a church-and- 
 state advocate. 
 
140 
 
 of medical practice ; and despise the cry qitacJc" 
 ery or empiricism, when used to frighten people 
 into obedience, and to sustain the credit of the 
 old monopoly, as heartily as I do the cry heresy 
 or illiherality, when used to deter from free in- 
 quiry, or a free expression of opinion in religion. 
 There is very manifest a restlessness in the 
 community at present ; a deep conviction, that 
 the social system is far behind its perfection ; a 
 disposition to distrust every thing old, and to try 
 every thing new, a groaning and travailing in 
 pain together, as if people were half conscious 
 of a glorious liberty of the children of God, to 
 which they may fairly aspire, and fully conscious 
 of their immense distance from yet reaching it. 
 In such circumstances, I see immense danger of 
 a general rising to sweep away everything old 
 and venerated indiscriminately. To prevent 
 such a catastrophe precisely, I have ventured to 
 give these my thoughts to the public, in which I 
 have attempted to point out, to the best of my 
 ability, where the great evil lies, and to invite 
 all to a cordial co-operation for its correction. 
 I believe there is good sense and generosity 
 enough in the people, to give each profession a 
 fair opportunity yet to correct its own evils ; but 
 if this opportunity is not soon and heartily em- 
 
141 
 
 braced, I expect to see the people arise in their 
 strength, to take the correction into their own 
 hands. I write, not to urge them to this. That 
 were unnecessary, for the event is inevitable 
 according to the present course of things. But 
 I write, to urge upon those most interested, to 
 avert the. danger by removing the just causes of 
 complaint : or, if they will not take warning, 
 that the people may be better instructed, where 
 precisely lies the cause of their grievances, and 
 the impediments to the progress of social im- 
 provement, that they may not assail rooted habits 
 and old institutions indiscriminately. 
 
 I am sensible that there is a melancholy 
 aspect to the considerations I have presented. 
 Melancholy indeed it is, to see men everywhere 
 leagued together to counteract the benevolent 
 designs of their Creator towards themselves. 
 But the view I have taken seems to me the most 
 cheering and animating which can be taken in 
 the face of obvious facts. If it sets man very 
 low, it vindicates the conduct and word of God. 
 It shows, that our errors and sufferings are not 
 because He made our best welfare either for this 
 life or the life to come, so difficult to be found ; 
 but that men have obstinately and inexcusably 
 set themselves against the rules of living pre- 
 
 13 
 
142 
 
 scribed in his word, and against the warnings not 
 to trust our interests to human disinterestedness, 
 perpetually there inculcated, and in his provi- 
 dence also. It shows too that we may anticipate 
 speedily a vast improvement of the social system, 
 without trusting to human virtue to bring it 
 about ; that the simple spirit of republicanism, 
 modified only by that degree of disinterested 
 Christian benevolence which may be fairly cal- 
 culated on, will inevitably bring about the glori- 
 ous result, and evince, in a stronger sense than 
 has generally been apprehended, that vox populi 
 is indeed vox Dei. May we then repeat the 
 maxim, not as hitherto too generally, to magnify 
 our own achievements, but to ascribe the king- 
 dom, the power, and the glory, where they are 
 most justly due ; and to ask, with more wonder- 
 ing admiration. What have we that we have not 
 received? and. Who hath made us to differ? 
 
 I know, that very different anticipations as to 
 the ultimate issue of things are entertained by 
 many, in view of some obvious tendencies to dis- 
 organization, to abusing liberty to licentiousness. 
 I cannot but consider these things as incident 
 to our present transition state from an im- 
 perfect to a perfect degree of liberty, rather 
 than as evils to be perfected, when republican 
 
143 
 
 principles shall have become fully recognized- 
 As Paul declares, that '* where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is, there is liberty ■" (2 Cor. iii. 17.) so I 
 believe, that where liberty is — where the shackels 
 of aristocratic habits and superstition are com- 
 pletely thrown off— there will be the Spirit of the 
 Lord ; there Christianity in its simplicity will 
 be most cordially received ; there men will divest 
 themselves of false delicacy in regard to religion, 
 which, like false delicacy in other things, is 
 most powerful in a transition state ; there people 
 will dare really to think for themselves on relig- 
 ion, instead of being beguiled by the name of so 
 doing. Where they do so, as conscious of being 
 left to stand or fall to their own Master, they are 
 in the readiest way to find that the service of 
 God is perfect freedom ; the uncaviling reception 
 of his declarations, the best cultivation of the 
 intellect ; and the casting of their crowns at his 
 feet,^ their highest exaltation. 
 
 I believe we have reached the lowest point of 
 physical degradation ; that the present general 
 move among people, to inquire how health is to 
 be preserved and life prolonged, will speedily 
 issue in results parallel to the strengthened and 
 cultivated intellects everywhere raised up, when 
 after the stupor of ages, people resolved to in- 
 
144 
 
 quire for themselves into the means of their 
 spiritual health. 
 
 We must indeed calculate on not finding the 
 frailty of man and the shortness and uncertainty 
 of life, so fertile a topic of exhortation, as has 
 hitherto been. But already, how has it ceased 
 to move ! How generally has it been confessed, 
 that in the prevalence of the cholera, or other 
 epidemic, instead of learning wisdom from judg- 
 ments abroad in the earth, men have rather said 
 practically, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
 we die ! Now my philosophy of Body and Soul 
 leads me to attribute this insensibility to the lan- 
 guage of Providence and to the declarations of 
 revelation, these intellects debased to sense and 
 dead to things unseen, very much to physical 
 causes — to the abominations, with which human 
 stomachs are treated under the names of food 
 and medicine. I anticipate indeed a prolonga- 
 tion of human life to the patriarchal, if not to the 
 antediluvian age : but not a return of antedilu- 
 vian wickedness ; because the means, by which 
 life is to be prolonged, coincide with the self- 
 denying spirit of Christianity. They who expect 
 the result simply from a reform in medicine, or 
 that medical skill at its best estate is to do much 
 towards lengthening life, will inevitably find 
 
145 
 
 themselves mistaken. Yet this is evidently the 
 expectation of the reckless portion of the com- 
 munity — thepartizansof infidelity and sensuality. 
 Very different were the rules of living, upon the 
 observance of which God promised to the ancient 
 Israelites, " He shall bless thy bread, and thy 
 water ; and I will take away sickness from the 
 midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their 
 young, or be barren, in thy land ; the number 
 of thy days (70 years) I will fulfil." (Ex. xxiii. 
 25, 26.) Indeed I need not the authority of 
 revelation to satisfy me, that such a mode of 
 living, as Moses prescribed, is the only sure 
 means of securing such results. 
 
 As the line between them who mean to serve 
 the Lord in body, soul and spirit, and them who 
 mean to live to themselves, is becoming more 
 and more distinct, I am not sure that the final 
 extirpation of wickedness from the earth will 
 not be brought about by a still increasing de- 
 votion to appetite, with a corresponding depend- 
 ence on the stimulating process of repairing for 
 a time the constitution, till the race of the 
 wicked become extinct through want of physical 
 ability for its own continuance. We are not 
 like the antediluvians, with the power of abusing 
 constitutions fitted to run a thousand years. 
 
 13 * 
 
146 
 
 Hard and self-denying is the process of getting 
 back to any thing nigh where we were. The 
 wisdom learned by this process will be a strong 
 guarantee against a return to the sins, which 
 have brought us where we are. 
 
 Thus we might reason, independent of God's 
 express promise, that the time, when in conse- 
 quence of ceasing to eat swine's flesh, and to 
 practise kindred abominations, (Isa. Ixv. 4.) the 
 days of his people shall be prolonged to the age 
 of a tree, (v. 22.) shall be a time of correspond- 
 ing spiritual prosperity. *^ And it shall come to 
 pass, that before they call I will answer ; and 
 while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The 
 wolf and the lamb shall feed together^ and the 
 lion shall eat straw like the bullock : and dust 
 shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not 
 hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith 
 the Lord." (vs. 24, 25.) 
 
 In the increasing sense of our shameful phys- 
 ical degradation, and the spreading resolution to 
 know and remove the cause, I see one of the 
 surest indications, that '* the night is far spent,'' 
 and "the day is at hand.'' (Rom. xiii. 12.) I 
 see such an indication in the present groaning 
 and travailing in pain together, as under a bond- 
 age to be borne no longer. The increasing 
 
147 
 
 light of that day must ^hame men out of the arti- 
 fices, at present so often employed, to conceal their 
 life-long bondage through fear of death. It will 
 not require the full blaze of day, to make it very 
 clear, that many betray their subjection to such 
 bondage, by the levity, or by the assurance, with 
 which they assert their freedom from it. 
 
 Reader, are you one of those, who profess to 
 have ascertained, that the world of wo is only a 
 bugbear fit to frighten children, and for doting 
 insanity to rave about? Are the fears of a com- 
 ing judgment the frequent subject of your jest 
 over your cups, or in the merry circle ? Now 
 have a care, lest as the intellects of men clear 
 from the clouds arising from abused stomachs, 
 you betray to them more than you would wil- 
 lingly confess : lest it appear too plainly, that 
 you are jesting away your fears. 
 
 Suppose you were about sending a boy by 
 night on an errand through some lonely path, 
 that led by a building which popular supersti- 
 tion regarded as a haunted house. You lecture 
 him on the folly of such notions, and exhort him 
 to fear nothing. He promises fairly, and sets 
 out. Now, as he draws near the fearful place, 
 he begins to whistle ; and, as he draws nearer 
 still, to jest about goblins and ghosts. Well 
 
148 
 
 you see through all this. He is resolved to have 
 enough of the man not to run like a coward ; 
 but yet cannot summon fortitude enough to 
 pass on in quiet dignity. He must use some 
 artifice to keep up his courage. He is whistling 
 away his fears. 
 
 I have seen very similar conduct in persons of 
 a larger growth, who were children in religious 
 knowledge. I have witnessed a sporting with 
 the fear of death and the judgment to follow, 
 very inconsistent for men, who had dispassion- 
 ately and deliberately found that fear to be 
 groundless, but which bore a very strong resem- 
 blance to the conduct of the boy jesting away 
 his fears. Have a care, I repeat, lest, while you 
 laugh at the fears entertained by others of the 
 punishments of a life to come, you do not let out 
 the secret, that you are laughing up your own 
 courage — that you are laughing away your own 
 fears. 
 
 If a portion of your neighbors should be seized 
 with such an insanity, as to be continually dis- 
 quieted by spectres floating before their eyes, 
 the creation of their own imagination, in conse- 
 quence of which they were never secure to 
 follow their business quietly, or to taste undis- 
 turbed any of the enjoyments of life; would it be 
 
149 
 
 characteristic of the sound mind to make a jest 
 of the imaginary miseries, that others were suf- 
 fering ? Would you not rather suspect, that he 
 who could thus sport with the pitiable delusion 
 of his fellows, was either sadly wanting in hu- 
 manity, or that his own mind began to be in- 
 fected with the common delusion, and that he 
 was making his utmost effort to laugh himself 
 out of it ? 
 
 Let me then assure you, who affect to laugh 
 at the fear of a coming judgment, that, however 
 unseemly the subject be for mirth, while you 
 profess to regard such fear as groundless, I feel 
 a sort of satisfaction in seeing you make it a 
 subject of derision. I take it as an indication, 
 that you are not sincere — that your conscience 
 is not so seared, as you would have it believed — 
 that you cannot set the justice of God at defi- 
 ance so quietly, as you profess — that your fears 
 will come in spite of you — and that you would 
 not be so inhuman, as to deride or reproach 
 others for tormenting themselves with the fear 
 of what may follow after death, if you did not 
 find it necessary to adopt this poor artifice, to 
 conceal your fears from yourself, and from others 
 too ; like the boy, who jests about goblins in the 
 dark, to keep up his courage — to jest away his 
 fears. 
 
150 
 
 One thing is yet wanting to render the suppo- 
 sition I have made parallel with your case. 
 None less resemble the men tormented with im- 
 aginary spectres, none look forward with less 
 trembling apprehensions, than the Christians, 
 whom you imagine so bound and tormented by 
 the fear of hell. If they are deluded, it is a de- 
 lusion of bright images — a halo around the nar- 
 row house, so that no longer to their apprehen- 
 sion do 
 
 Darkness, death, and long despair, 
 Reign in eternal silence there. 
 
 Your mode of reasoning is such, as seems to 
 me, no intellect could admit, but from sympathy 
 with a sadly maltreated stomach. I therefore 
 look to physical improvement as the great and 
 effectual means of exposing its inconclusiveness. 
 
 The indications, that the long night of super- 
 stition and ignorance, of mental, moral, and 
 physical degradation is far spent, and that day 
 in its best sense is at hand, should serve to all 
 as a powerful incitement, to cast away the works 
 of darkness, and to put on the armor of light. 
 The day promised is such as shall try men's 
 souls — try them beyond the trial, to which they 
 havfe been put by the former great developments 
 
151 
 
 of republican principles. In the very want of 
 faith, now prevalent, to apprehend the promises 
 of the final reign of truth and righteousness on 
 the earth, I seem to see a sign of the Son of 
 man's speedy coming. (Lukexviii. 8.) If they 
 who are essentially prepared for his coming, 
 need to be aroused from their sleep, to prepare 
 to welcome him, how shall fare the remaining 
 multitude yet dead in trespasses and sins ? And 
 what voice shall effectually warn them to meet 
 him, who is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's 
 soap 1 If the amount of temptation common to 
 man has hitherto proved sufficient to entice the 
 many into the broad way that leadeth to destruc- 
 tion, and to leave to the few the narrow way 
 that leadeth unto life ; how shall it be in the 
 last great trial preparatory to the final establish- 
 ment of the Son of God in his kingdom upon 
 earth ? 
 
 Reader, I would fain add a w^ord to beat you 
 off from the old cavil, that your heavenly Father 
 will surely provide, that so many of his creatures 
 shall not be lost by trials, which himself had 
 ordained with full fore-knowledge of the result. 
 I would fain show you, that this plea not only 
 contradicts his express word, but really charges 
 the guilt of your sins upon him. I have endeav- 
 
152 
 
 ored to convict you of carrying on a controversy 
 with your Maker in regard to the life that now 
 is, of being deluded by fashion into using the 
 engines of death as the means of life — all in 
 defiance of the plain word of God, and the evi- 
 dence of your own eyes. The conviction I 
 should little value, unless it lead you to inquire, 
 whether it be not even so for the life that is to 
 come. 
 
 Do not inquire why God does not force the 
 soul's salvation upon you, any more than the 
 health of the body, in despite of your negligence, 
 or your efforts to destroy both. You may see 
 the reason fully, if landed at last on the Rock of 
 ages, you look back on these temptations and 
 dangers, and around on the ruins of a world, 
 w .h feelings akin to those, with which the mar- 
 iner, hardly escaped from shipwreck, climbs the 
 ocean's bank, and turning sees his fellows still 
 laboring hopelessly beneath the tempest. And 
 the painful spectacle is not without its pleasure : 
 not that he delights in the calamity of others ; 
 but because the sight gives him a keener appre- 
 hension of his own security. That similar may 
 be the feelings, with which every reader shall 
 survey the last great wreck, is the fervent prayer 
 of the writer. 
 
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