"All public measures which are not strictly equitable, are destructive of the true end of civil government.”J. Dilwin.

The oppressions of the poor and the sighings of the needy, arise from a multiplicity of circumstances, and the following, among other causes, demand particular attention; because they have hitherto been too little noticed. They are these: 1st, Interests. 2d, Rents. 3d, Duties. 4th, Inheritances. 5th, Churches established by laws of men. I have here viewed them theoretically, practically, and scripturally.

Every evil disposition of the heart, and every erroneous principle of the mind, when brought into action, and confirmed into habit and custom, oppresses, and more or less destroys civil and religious light, liberty, happiness, and prosperity. Where is there a single perverse propensity, or erroneous principle of action, that has not led its votaries to the commission of every kind of sin against the Creator, and every kind of iniquity against the creature, which has groaned in bondage from the fall of man to the present day? The history of them would fill volumes, and each of them deserves one, to teach by examples and facts, how greatly error and vice ought to be feared and avoided. What oppressions, persecutions, and destruction of the human species, have been produced by ambition, by pride, by vanity, by resentment and anger, by false honour and glory, by covetousness, by luxury, by sexual lust, by drunkenness, by gaming, horse-racing, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, boxing, and other undue pleasures and pursuits, by fear of man, by erroneous hopes, by erroneous fears, by false principles in domestic, political, and religious matters. Pagans have oppressed the Jews and Christians; Christians, so called, have persecuted, and slain, Pagan, Jew, and Turk; Maho. metans have trod in the same path; and the world has, for thousands of years, been an aceldama, a golgotha, a scene of slavery and tyranny, and a house of miserable lamentation and heart-rending afflictions.

The slave trade was lately esteemed to be judicious and and beneficial, because its principle, practice, and consequences, had not been duly investigated. Duelling and war are now under public consideration, and are likely to become as abhorrent as the trade in flesh and souls of human beings.

Without the art, labour, or ingenuity of its proprietor, the opulent owner must necessarily obtain his increase from those who do exercise art, labour and ingenuity, and he may, without any exercise, study, genius, or industry, continually receive the products of other people's exertions; and he will necessarily accumulate property, and this will necessarily increase his income, and also enable him to monopolize more, till he or his posterity are plunged into luxury, excess, extravagance, and abominable vices, that shall, like a whirlwind, scatter his golden feathers among others. By vices, are they dispersed, but by what virtues were they collected? That money may be gotten by honest industry is certain and undeniable; but it is as certain and undeniable, that millions are always drained from the industrious and frugal people, who therefore toil from imbecile youth to decrepid age, without being able to obtain riches, or competence for themselves.

If the wealth of nations proceeds from mental and corporeal industry, (which improve the bountiful materials of Nature, to which all her children are equally entitled,) those usages must be very unjust in their nature, which prevent the sober, frugal, and industrious poor from becoming casy in their outward circumstances. If the labour and diligence of the hand and head produce the riches and prosperity of civilized nations; should not every wise, just, and humane governor and legislator, encourage and recompense the artists, scientific men, and labourers, who enrich the nations? And if their industry and labours are the sole causes of the opulence of nations, either remotely or immediately, they are the sole persons who ought to increase in opulence. But by interest and rents, we see the luxurious, the lazy, the idle, the extravagant and injurious, who are cunning or lucky enough to keep within a vast income, bask in the sunshine of pleasures and vanities, adding houses to houses, and lands to lands, as mentioned in the prophet. If they who benefitted general society were the only persons rewarded for their diligence, ingenuity, and labour, industry would be rewarded and thrive; and indolence be punished by poverty. Thus, men in this, as well as in the next world, would be rewarded according to their works.

Rents of houses and lands, and interest of money, and income from property of any kind, for the principle is univer

sal, are probably the effects of ancient usurpation, tyranny and conquest. An usurper, who subjects a nation of individuals under his authority, exacts, for himself and compeers, pecuniary assistance. He knows that money is as power, and that he must have it by force or contrivance.-Anciently, a conqueror considered the lives, liberty, and property of the vanquished, as his own. This was the spirit of the barbarians who overthrew the Roman empire, and conquered Europe. The lands became the property of the victorious, and the inhabitants were enslaved. Their lords, dukes, earls, barons, &c, therefore demanded fealty, homage, knights-fees, personal services and rents. The Ceorls (or distant peasants) paid the feudal lords all profits. The villains (or domestic peasants) were eye-slaves of the same lords. The vassals were their land tenants. The king was proprietor of all soil. Then an acre of land of the best kind sold for no more than four sheep. Such practices in Russia, and other realms, are not yet wholly abrogated nor ended: when custom sanctions what vice and usurpation forced into prac. tice, then the iniquity appears from habit, proper and equitable. They fulfilled the 11th verse of the 49th Psalm. Read it.

Rights to property have been derived not only from compulsive power, but from Papal assumption. When Columbus discovered the new continent, the Pope claimed it as the law. ful proprietor, (jure divino) by a divine right. How popes or kings can prove their divine rights by indubitable evidence, I leave to politicians and fanatics to make known, and enforce by compulsion and delusion. These may plunder Hindostan of her riches, the American aborigines of their lands, and rob Africa of her inhabitants, and enslave their descendants, and wipe away the iniquity of these acts by a divine right; which, as it proceeds from goodness and from God, must be good and godly. But if it is neither one or the other, it must be diabolical, and be derived from an opposite origin and power.

Kings, as well as popes, have claimed a similar title to things, by the right of discovery! By this right Spain, Portugal, Holland, &c, assumed dominion over various parts of America, New-Holland, South-Sea Islands, &c. Having power to enforce their assumed rights, the evil tree grew,

and the aboriginal occupants of the soil have, in various ways and instances, eaten the bitter fruits of their avarice and power, and were slaughtered in war and oppressed in peace. New-England, Virginia, and other places, felt the consequences of these usurpations. Though Pennsylvania was ceded by the crown of England to Wm. Penn, his enlightened conscience informed him, he ought to purchase the truer title of occupancy from the native possessors of the soil. He was, therefore, beloved by them, and enjoyed the territory in peace. He detested the policy and conduct of Cortes at Mexico, for his soul was united to God, who is wisdom, love, truth, justice, and benevolence.

My idea of title may be found in Moses' account of man's creation. Man, created a little lower than the angels, had dominion given to him, (not in his individual, but in his aggregate capacity,) over every living thing; whether animal or vegetable. If individuals usurp, what is the divine right only of the aggregate, they deprive man, (a term including all men and women,) of his rights and privileges, granted him in the beginning, by God, his creator, and the sole proprietor of angels, men, beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, insects, vegetables, minerals, lands, seas, air, and heaven. For his glory, we are told, they are and were created. All men should therefore, esteem themselves as deriving their titles from Him, for general use and benefit, and not for individual aggrandizement, and oppression of the multitude. And as Adam and Eve, and their children, were the first occupants, occupancy was the next title man had to the habitable earth. The improvement, use, and multiplication of the productions of the earth, seas, and air, by industry, art, and ingenuity, is a third fair and equitable title to the things of this world. I know of no other title to property, that is truly righteous and beneficial to the great family of the whole world. And if there is no other true right or righteous title, what must we think of the interest or increase of money, goods, houses, and lands, for the benefit, not of the aggregate association, nor the occupant, nor the artist, improver, and cultivator, but for the benefit of some opulent individual or family, who claim titles to more than they improve, occupy, use, and the cultivate, except by tenure and labour

of others.

Interest for moveable property, rents for immoveable estates, the incomes of banking companies, and similar methods of increasing property out of all proportion to the cost, ingenuity, and labour connected with such things, ought to be deemed unjust, and injurious to the human family; but just and politic as far as they are connected with the public good, and private occupancy, labour, and improvement of the claimants.

Being unjust, and consequently pernicious, what has been the fact as well as the theory of these things? Rollin answers, in his ancient history, that those nations that allow the greatest interest are the soonest precipitated into the abyss of destruction. Where is there an older empire than that of China's three hundred millions of people! It is reputed to have stood from the days of Socrates, or Esdras, to the present day, which is above two thousand years. Yet China is said to have been, till laterly, opposed to usury or increase. "Usury," says M'Cartney, "is like gaming, a dishonourable mode of getting money!" Vices, in excess, are the rapid destruction of nations as well as individuals: but if national or individual unrighteousness are moderate, they are only moderately hurtful, yet all vices oppress, and each is a tyrant. Abundance of tyrants, vices, and oppressions are begotten by an abundant excess of riches in the hands of the few, who are thereby often rendered proud, haughty, luxurious, profligate, lustful and inhuman. Abundance of riches flow into the coffers of the opulent, from the hire of lands and houses, and from the interest, use, or usury of money.

The interest of £100,000 a year, at six per cent. is £6000 annually. If the rich gain and receive this, of whom do they extract this sum, if not from the industrious and poorer class, who give them this oppressive annual tax? This, however, is so concealed by its remote and complicated mode of action, that the indigent part of society don't know the harm of it, and therefore, never think of raising their voice against it. 1st. The borrower of money must pay his interest, and he must even profit by the loan; to profit by the loan he must oppress those he deals with. 2dly. And these again oppress others. Thus the oppression begins in the opulent drone, or slaves as the case may be, and descends from richer to poorer, regularly down, to the most needy class of society, who, oppressed to the utmost, starve, or toil