of peace in this world, and hope in that which is to come: Let me conjure you to seek the conviction, and never for a moment lose sight of it, that without PIETY to GOD, MAN, with all the graces and dignity of his person, all the splendour and depth of his intellect, and all the endearing ties that bind him to earth, is but a desolate and miserable being. Love, friendship, consanguinity, and affection, those grand ties of social existence, serve but to embitter our minds in the hour of calamity, if we cannot look to God, as the Eternal source of all our hopes, to soothe our agonies, and to calm our fears. While, therefore, the impious man, has no resting place to sustain him against the shock of misfortune, and the flood of wo; with what confidence and consolation, can he who cherishes piety as the sheet-anchor of the soul, appeal to his everlasting Father, when smarting under the rod of affliction. Though, says the Psalmist, I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

If on this subject I am earnest, believe me, it is because I feel deeply its importance to your temporal and eternal happiness: And I do, I assure you seriously, feel it the more deeply, because, when in early life, and destitute of experience, I was led into a Masonic Lodge, the man, who led me there, led me, at the same time, to embrace those principles of Infidelity, which I now consider the bane of my life; and of which, therefore, I feel anxious to preserve you from becoming the dupes and the victims, To that day I had cherished the principles, so

far as I could understand them, and the feelings, to their full extent, of a Christian. My revered parents had infused into my young mind the spirit of religion, and piety which animated theirs; and the eloquence of a MAXCY, one of the most amiable and exalted of his species, had rivetted my religious affections to the Baptist Society. The happiest hours of my life had been spent in worshipping my Creator at the humble and modest, but truly devotional altars of that worthy and pious people, and mingling with them in their religious conferences. It was a sudden and unexpected departure from my native state, that alone prevented me from becoming a communicant of that church. But when I came to Albany, I had been, excepting a short interval, traversing the ocean for several years, in the humble capacity of a common seaman; and here I found no Baptist Society, with whom to renew my former religious communion. I became acquainted with my masonic preceptor-he was well qualified to obtain an influence over a young man, such as I then was; and from the moment he did obtain it, he began to poison my mind with insinuations against the Christian Revelation; nor did he relax in his efforts until he had the satisfaction of finding me as confirmed an Infidel as himself; and my belief is that one half, at least, if not more, of the young men who are seduced into Free Masonry, have their minds imbued at the same time with the poison of Infidelity. Led on by my evil genius, as I now firmly believe that man to have been, I suffered my mind to become enslaved by the seductive and pernicious authors of the Infidel school. I sought for and read,

with avidity, Bolingbroke, Shaftsbury, Hume, and several others of the British Infidel leaders; and with the same zest and eagerness I devoured the works of Frederick the Great, of Prussia, (if he can be called great, who rejects the purest religion, that ever visited the earth, and reduces its Divine Author to the level of a Heathen or a Pagan Philosopher)-Voltaire, D'Alembert, Boulanger, and other French authors, together with Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, and Ethan Allen's crude, ill-digested, and flimsy Oracles. For many years, involved in pleasure, business, and political pursuits, I yielded to the falsehood and sophistry of these delusive and demoralising works; and that, too, without ever making the least attempt (excepting on one occasion, and then without proper effect) to examine the other side of the question. In the same manner that I never thought seriously of Free Masonry as a great evil, till she showed her cloven foot so clearly in the murder of Morgan; so I never was led clearly, and without doubt, to see Christianity as not only a great, but the greatest of all good, till the occurrence of a singular event in my life, or rather Providential circumstance (as I consider it) which happened to me in crossing the Schoharie Mountain, which I did several times between August, 1826, and April, 1827. The circumstance, above alluded to, led me to a serious aud laborious inquiry into the necessity or utility, the truth or falsehood, of Christianity, in every important point of view.

My first object was, and this was suggested not only by the event which occurred on the mountain, but by other occurrences that I had

t

met with in the course of my several tours, and which need not be detailed here; to enquire into the capacity of mankind, to preserve free and equal government, or any government at all, founded on wisdom, justice and equity, without the influence of religion. I was soon satisfied that no government would last for any length of time, unless fortified in the minds of the people, by this essential pillar of human society:* to come to this conclusion, it is only necessary to examine the history, so far as we have it, of those tribes or nations, who, destitute of the gospel, have been left to the dim light of Nature alone for their guidance; and to observe the barbarous rites, the inhuman customs, and the spirit of anarchy and confusion that ever controuls their destinies, and frequently totally destroys them. Where they are destitute of all religion, of which there are but one or two known and solitary examples, they are cannibals, and devour each other; where they have some crude notions of natural religion, though not cannibals, they are still barbarous and savage; where Natural Religion has been best understood, it has still been mingled with superstition, idolatry and corruption; and where the pretended Revelation of the Arabian Impostor has prevailed, superstition and corruption have likewise been its handmaids. It is only where the real Sun of Righteousness, the Christian Revelation, has shed its beams, that truth is to be found, unmixed with error.

My next step was, to compare, with diligence, the Christian Religion, with the several other systems that now exist, or have existed in times

* See Appendix, Note 18,

past; and the result was, that I found Christianity towering far above them all in its sublime morality, and divine attributes. Whoever will study the religious creed, if it can be called such, and the maxims of CONFUCIUS-the wild and fantastical speculations of PYTHAGORAS; the barbarous superstitions in religion, and the crude moral systems of Greece and Rome-take even their best productions, such as the works of SOCRATES and of PLATO, of SENECA and of CICERO to say nothing of a score of others, like Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and their equals or inferiors-and then come down to the Alcoran of Mahomet-whoever, I say, shall pursue this course, will be satisfied, that over all these barbarous superstitions, and ill-digested moral codes, the Gospel of our Redeemer triumphs in all the majesty of truth, and all the dignity and sublimity of sound moral and theological science.

My last step was, to investigate seriously, and as thoroughly as possible, the truth or falsehood of Christianity as a Revelation: And on this branch of the subject, I was really surprised, I affirm it with the utmost sineerity, to find a mass of evidence in its favor, of the existence of which I had never before so much as dreamed. The result was, that at almost every step of the process, my doubts were shaken; and my scepticism kept yielding to the force of truth and argument, the irresistible light of conviction, until I found, when I had finished the course of study, marked out by my own judgment, that all my doubts had vanished; and my faith in JESUS, of Nazareth, as the Son of God, and the Divine Missionary of his Father for the redemption of our fallen race, was fully confirmed.