form a scale of the curiosity of modern art,
not to collect medals or collate manuscripts,--but to dive into the
depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey
the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensions of
misery, depression, and contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend
to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the
distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is
as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a
circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labor is felt
more or less in every country; I hope he will anticipate his final
reward by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will
receive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the
prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of
charity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit by such acts
of benevolence hereafter.

Nothing now remains to trouble you with but the fourth charge against
me,--the business of the Roman Catholics. It is a business closely
connected with the rest. They are all on one and the same principle. My
little scheme of conduct, such as it is, is all arranged. I could do
nothing but what I have done on this subject, without confounding the
whole train of my ideas and disturbing the whole order of my life.
Gentlemen, I ought to apologize to you for seeming to think anything at
all necessary to be said upon this matter. The calumny is fitter to be
scrawled with the midnight chalk of incendiaries, with "No Popery," on
walls and doors of devoted houses, than to be mentioned in any civilized
company. I had heard that the spirit of discontent on that subject was
very prevalent here. With pleasure I find that I have been grossly
misinformed. If it exists at all in this city, the laws have crushed its
exertions, and our morals have shamed its appearance in daylight. I have
pursued this spirit wherever I could trace it; but it still fled from
me. It was a ghost which all had heard of, but none had seen. None would
acknowledge that he thought the public proceeding with regard to our
Catholic dissenters to be blamable; but several were sorry it had made
an ill impression upon others, and that my interest was hurt by my share
in the business. I find with satisfaction and pride, that not above four
or five in this city (and I dare say these misled by some gross