and are taught the first elements of destruction. Vice must receive its wages; and without pecuniary resources, no admittance can be had into these doors of infamy. The unhappy females derive their means of supply from the prostitution of their persons. The young men must either spend the compensation of their employments, levy contributions on parental affections, rob the desks, or betray the confidence of their principals; and when any extraordinary call is made upon their resources, then extraordinary means must be resorted to, in order to meet the demands made on them. What these means are, the history of our criminal courts declares in language that cannot be misunderstood. The debt of the gamester must be paid with scrupulous punctuality; and the company of the meretricious is attended with unceasing expense. The pressure of false notions of honor, and the allurements of libidinous women, thus impel to dishonesty. And although parental affection always conceals, and the compassion of the injured frequently overlooks the offence, yet the records of our prisons will sooner or later contain the names of the unhappy victims; who, after inflicting inexpressible torture on their friends, after being abandoned by the virtuous part of the community, spend their last breath in an alms-house or a prison.

That the number of disorderly houses in this city is great and alarming, and that many persons derive their support from administering aliment to vice and profligacy, cannot be doubted. Gambling by billiard tables, dice, and cards, to a great extent, is carried on in public houses otherwise respectable, in direct violation of the engagements made by the proprietors when their licenses were granted. Dancing houses, frequented by lewd women, are opened in various places to the annoyance of public virtue and decorum ; and houses of assignation are kept for the seduction of young women, and for the gratification of vice. Although we know that it is not in our power, nor will it ever be in our power, to banish these evils entirely from the community, yet, as I before observed, their malignity and virulence may be diminished; their progress may be restrained; their number may be lessened; and under any circumstances, public decorum may be preserved, by preventing the audacious exhibition of open profligacy. The ear of chastity may be protected from violation; and the cheek of modesty from blushes. And, if your exertions can save one victim from the altar, and restore one prodigal son, or erring daughter, to the bosom of parental affection; to the paths of virtue; and to the esteem of the world; then is it highly important to employ those exertions. And you will find your reward in the grateful feelings which ever accompany good deeds, and in the smiles of the Great Dispenser of all good.

When oppression and extortion are exercised in this country, they generally fall on the poor and defenceless, who are not able to punish the aggressors. In humble life, in the retreats of poverty, the petty despot exercises his tyranny, by fleecing the widow and the orphan. These evils, which too frequently escape detection by being disguised under the forms of law, or managed with fiend

like subtlety and malice, are perhaps more destructive to the happiness of the indigent than all the other calamities of life put together. Search out these wretches, gentlemen, with a vigilance that cannot be deceived; with an industry that will not be fatigued; and with a decision and courage that will not be diverted or appalled. Whatever merit may be ascribed to the keepers of our prisons, remember, that it is your duty to enquire, and not to repose overweening confidence in any man or set of men. It would give the court great satisfaction if you and every succeeding grand jury would devote at least one day in every term to a thorough examination of our criminal and civil prisons. The consequences would be unspeakably important to the interests of humanity, and to the improvement of our police. The frowns of an intelligent and respectable grand jury are always terrible to vice and oppression; and a periodical inspection of our public places of imprisonment, will affect the conduct of every person connected with those establishments. The magistrate who commits the offender; the master who confines his apprentice or slave; the keepers who have them in custody; and the prisoners themselves, will, in one shape or another, be influenced by this exertion of your superintending authority.

Your general duties are well known: to enquire with deliberation, and to decide with impartiality, with a single eye to the public interests, and free from the influence of favoritism and prejudice. In all cases of doubt, it is the safest way, and the most consonant with the genius of our laws and the immutable principles of justice, to determine in favor of the accused. The vexation, the expense, and the disgrace, of dragging an innocent man into court, to answer to a criminal charge, ought to be fully considered. And it is important also, for you to set your faces against those frivolous and unfounded prosecutions, which are too often instituted for the purpose of wreaking vengeance and inflicting disgrace, without any regard to the public welfare. All real breaches of the peace, are proper objects for your animadversion; but certainly not those trifling quarrels, and petty provocations, which grow out of the levity of youth, or the excitement of female ire, which end as they begin, without any injury, and which never pass the ordeal of a court without producing ridicule, and covering both parties with disgrace.

Your attention is required, by statute, to all violations of the acts for the prevention of lotteries, duelling, and fires; and any assistance that can be rendered to you, by us, in the execution of your duties, will be freely and cheerfully afforded.

REPENTANCE AND CONVERSION.

That man ought to perform the duty of repentance, is a truth too evidently inculcated in the sacred Scriptures to be controverted by any one who has any reverence for that divine composition. The reasonableness of the duty arises from the state of our fallen nature; man does not, nor is it to be expected that by nature he ever will, stand in the uprightness and integrity wherein he originally stood, as he first came forth from the hands of the great Creator; for then, upon a review of the works which the Lord had made, more especially of man, the grand master-piece of the whole, he saw and proclaimed all to be very good.

That human nature did not continue in that pure and happy state, we have the unerring and faithful testimony of the Lord himself, in his holy WORD.

It is too much for our present purpose to enter into the particulars of the fall; suffice it to say, that it consisted in a gradual declension of the human race from the Lord-from the making him the all in all of love and wisdom, goodness and truth, until man not only imputed all within him to himself, but sunk into infernal states of evil and falsehood, altogether opposite to those heavenly and pure states in which he was originally created; therefore we are VOL. I.

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No. 2.

informed, in Genesis, ch. iv. 5: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Verse 11. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence, and God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Similar declarations we also meet with in the book of Psalms, Ps. xiv. 1. &c. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God: corrupt are they and have done abominable iniquity; there is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and did seek God. Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good; no, not one." The same statement of the fact is given us in the commencement of the first chapter of Isaiah, in the 5th verse of which, the Lord, by his prophet, says, "Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the feet, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores." Thus pronounces the record of divine truth concerning the fall of human nature; at the same time declaring all to be involved therein, none excepted. With respect to the direful circumstances attending it, who, upon an appeal made to his own heart, will not subscribe in testification thereof? All who have seen the true picture of themselves, with respect to their fallen state; who have compared themselves with the unerring and pure laws of divine order given in the Word, will acknowledge, that by nature they are not only far from those heavenly and divine qualities which they were created to attain, but also that in them, of themselves, dwelleth no one thing that is good.

Thus, my dear readers, we have only to look into ourselves and see the real state wherein human nature stands in consequence of the fall; that we have lost the affection of heavenly and spiritual loves, with the understanding and perception of genuine truths, which flow from, are the support of, and with them make one. That affections for selfish and worldly loves, and all manner of false principles, by nature, occupy the whole mind, whence every operation of our hands becomes polluted.

We cannot now go into the inquiry why the Lord, who is omnipotent, and whose love is equal to his power, (man being the chief, nay, the only darling of his heart) permitted the fall of man from

the highest pinnacle of Heaven to the lowest depths of Hell; we are only now speaking concerning it as a certain fact, which has come to pass by Divine permission; we say by Divine permission, for without a Divine permission, or leave, no evil can take place. And because the darkness of the natural man is such, and his conceptions of Divine things so straitened, that he cannot distinguish between the Divine will absolute, and the Divine fermission, or leave; therefore, in the holy word, evil, and the origin of evil, are attributed to the Lord; not that the case is so in reality, but so expressed for the sake of the appearance to the natural man, for whose use principally the word, in the letter, is given; whilst the spiritual man discerns the real and genuine distinction between the different and contrary qualities attributed to the Lord; he knows that he is pure love in the very abstract; that he is good to all, and that his tender mercies are over all his works; that all other appearances of the Lord, either respecting his qualities or operations, arise from a perverted sight, occasioned by the fall.

Thus we draw a faithful view of our fallen estate, both from scripture and from experience. To enable us to rise from this low estate, from our own hell within our breasts to that heaven to which we and every human being were created to attain, was the holy word first given, and for the same invaluable purpose it is still continued amongst us in this lower world; the Lord herein making such a display of the laws of Divine order, that whoever runs may read. The precepts of life here laid down are within the capacity of every man who hears or reads them to perform; the Lord expecting no more of any man than according to the ability given, and wherein he graciously and mercifully upholds every moment, in continually in-flowing and gifting with life.

By reason of faith alone being considered as the all of religion, consequently the all of justification, sanctification, regeneration, and salvation, it has been taught by too many (whom we have reason to fear were influenced more by self-love than by the good of the flock) that the Lord has given forth precepts in the decalogue, and in many other parts of the word, which he never designed his creatures to keep; yea, farther, that when he gave them he knew they had no power to keep them. Because the creature could not keep them, therefore God sent his only beloved Son into the world to fulfil the law in man's room and stead, which is effectual, according to some, for those whom he ordained to eternal salvation; or, according to others, for all those who in time shall act faith in his merits, and thus impute to themselves, by faith, that which the Redeemer has done, as well as suffered.