county, in 1831, in accordance with your views;. and that this was referred to a select committee, consisting of Messrs. Moulton, Myers and Kemble; that they made a report, which was not acted upon by the Legislature; but which, you assert, and approved by the people; and that they (the people) consequently "have come with numerous memorials against the appointment of Legislative Chaplains."

was re

In this statement, there is something concealed, which ought to be revealed, and something asserted, which is not precisely true. I do not mean to charge you, however, with the suppression of the truth, on the one hand, or intentional misrepresentation on the other.

But it ought to be known more universally than it is, that Duchess County, though deservedly of high reputation in the annals of our state, has nevertheless, within her borders, a numerous horseracing (not to say gambling) population. The county, from whence there came a petition, that she might be exempted from the operation of the law against horse-racing—a practice fraught with every species of vice, fraud and corruption-and one which no truly civilized, enlightened and religious community ought ever to tolerate, much less encourage by law-might well be caught petitioning also "against the appointment of Legislative Chaplains." [I.] The one discrepancy in her morals, is in strict keeping with the other. The Knights of the whip and spur have little to do

either with prayer or praise, as performed in reference and for honor to our Creator. Their de

countenances.

ities are to be sought for in the Heathen Mythology, if any where. MERCURY, the god of speedBACCHUS, the god of wine-FATE or FORTUNE, no matter which, who presides over the dice-box, the card, or the faro-table: These, together with the CYPRIAN GODDESS, are the deities which they worship, as may often be seen in the rubric, and as often perhaps in the sallow or pallid hue of their I certainly mean no offence to the moral and pious population of Duchess, the followers of Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Fox, or John Wesley. They have no connection with the horse-racers, the gamblers, or the "liberal' disciples, as they are called, of Frances Wright and Robert Owen. They cultivate and improve the moral and intellectual as well as physical soil, while the others labor in the vineyard of the Arch Apostate, and if Divine Grace come not at last to their aid, may finally populate his dark dominions.

Unfortunate as you are, friend Herttell, in the source of your numerous memorials, you are not less so in the committee to whom they were referred. The first named is an avowed Infidel; the second, a Jew; [K.] and whether the third has any better religion than his colleagues, or not, is a point which I shall leave to the decision of those who know him best. I think it probable, however, that the TRIO are all as consistently engaged in opposing the appointment of Legislative Chap

lains," as are the votaries of the turf and the farotable, of Bacchus and Venus, in the old county of Duchess; that county which can boast of having given oirth to some of our best and brightest statesmen and civilians; where not only science and civ, ilization, but Christian virtue and piety, were once the sole companions of her high career in the progress of refinement: But now, alas! how changed! I mean no personal reflections. They belong not to the cause I am defending. But I do mean to say, that congregations or combinations of horseracers, and committees of Jews and Infidels, are not the proper persons to decide whether the Representatives of a Christian State shall, or shall not, open their daily sessions with prayer to the TRIUNE GOD. I consider the fact, that such a committee have been found within the walls of the Legislature of New York, as ominous of the worst ills that can possibly befal a free people. God grant that my forebodings may never be realized; but much I fear, as I have remarked on another and a different occasion, that in modern politics, as in ancient religion, PETER and JUDAS have found fellowship with HEROD and PILATE: For in these days of coalition and contrivance, all principle is lost sight of, all honor has vanished from political parties. The Jays and the Hamiltons, the Jeffersons and the Clintons, no longer remain as guiding stars to a fluctuating and giddy populace; and so in the Church, the Wesleys and the Witherspoons, the Stileses, the Seaburys, the Edwardses and the

Dwights, have descended to the tomb, and left spaces which have not yet been filled. In the mean time a race has arisen, exposed to all the ills of political chicanery on the one hand, and fanatical zeal or heaven-daring impiety on the other.Believe me, my dear sir, that whenever you shall come to reflect seriously on the subject before us, you will perceive clearly, that men with such principles in religion, as those possessed by the members of the committee just alluded to, however fair they may be in their moral and domestic walks, are nevertheless the curse of any community in which they obtain influence and respectability. Look, with the eye of a real statesman, into the history of nations, and you will find that Christianity is the surest, if not the sole bulwark that can sustain a free government: sets out to banish it, is not only the worst enemy his country can encounter, but the worst foe of mankind. If we admit the story of the ВоHON UPAS to be true; still the deadly poison, the malign influence of that tree of Java, on the vegetable and animal productions within its reach, bear no comparison to the moral disorders and corruptions, the civil and political misrule, the desolation, death and damnation, that would flow in upon our country, collectively and individually, from the downfall of Christianity.

And he who

Equally unfortunate are you, Mr. Herttell, in your assertion, that the people have come forward with numerous memorials on this occasion. If you

had said a small portion of the people, you would have been much nearer the truth. I know that

you are far above stooping to a falsehood; but you labor under a gross mistake. The real truth is, and to the everlasting honor of the state be it known abroad, that but a small portion only of her population have been weak or wicked enough to petition that prayer may be banished from her legislative halls. The bare idea must be shocking to the moral sense of a vast majority of this people, or I know them not. I cannot readily believe that a people who owe so much to the beneficence of their Creator; a people whom he has blessed above all others, can be so destitute of the best and noblest feelings of humanity, as to wish to banish the breathing of his name in prayerful gratitude from the sanctuary of their laws, till that sanctuary shall become, like the halls of ODIN, the seat of barbarous superstition or unhallowed licentiousness; till its inmates, like their prototypes of the French Revolution, shall call in the Goddess of Reason, to aid Bacchus and Venus, in presiding over their clamorous and discordant proceedings; and shall join in drinking libations, like Odin's worshippers, out of human skulls, in honor of those deities of their own creation: For herein there is a striking difference between the heathen and infidel schools, and the followers of Christ. The God of the Christians is their Creator, Benefactor, Preserver and Redeemer; and as such they worship him: But our opponents create or manufacture