assiduously pursued, are highly interesting to society at large,
and infinitely important to you in particular.... For their
attainment, we therefore claim your zealous and uniform
co-operation. This demand we make with much confidence, as we are
persuaded many of you have already verified, in your own
experience, the propriety of former recommendations. You have
found that industry and economy have procured for you,
independence; that temperance has greatly promoted, if not
absolutely secured to you, health; and that the cultivation of
the faculties of the mind, has enlarged the capacity for
discharging your various duties, and for enjoying the numerous
benefits you have received. On the contrary, you have seen that
idleness, gambling, and dissipation, have uniformly produced
poverty and disgrace; that intemperance has generally been the
parent of loathsome disease, and the cause of premature death;
and that the consequences of ignorance are too frequently,
contention and loss. Trusting then, that we can with confidence
appeal to your own experience, for a test of the truth of
precepts so often inculcated, we beseech you with anxious and
tender solicitude to bear them constantly in remembrance, and,
with a steady zeal, put them in practice. We are well aware that
human nature is frail, and prone to depart from the strait path
of rectitude. On this weakness let us not however rely for a
justification of our deviations, but rather let it operate as an
inducement to double our diligence and increase our caution. Then
while we are conscious of having honestly and earnestly
endeavored to discharge the duties we owe to our Maker and to
each other, we can look with more confidence to our great Creator
for pardon of our past transgressions and strength to preserve us
from a repetition of them.

In our observations thus far we have chiefly endeavoured to
convince you, that on your own conduct depends your prosperity
and happiness, but be assured the consequences do not rest there.
The greater portion of your brethren still remains in bondage.
One great obstacle to their release, it is in your power and it
is eminently your duty to remove; the enemies of your liberty
have loudly and constantly asserted that you are not qualified to
enjoy it