rbarous as
the rack was before Beccaria; still, because the bible says: tooth for
tooth, and death for death; the criminal, and, too often, the innocent,
are not yet spared from the bloody law. And calling themselves the only
light of civilization, and social intercourse, they do nothing but forcing
mankind back to five thousand years ago!

How can the rising generation of America govern themselves, when a certain
professor says to his hundred students, that Herschel told a falsehood,
when the latter demonstrated that in the moon must have been quakes, and
revolutions of matter? And why did the professor treat Herschel so badly?
Because, the so called learned man, wishing to admit nothing but what he
reads in the bible, thinks God would be unjust to send evils in the moon,
where those living beings had not committed the original sin. For the sake
of brevity, I will say nothing of Maria Monk, Mathias, and women burned
alive as witches by a verdict of jury. In a country where the law permits
every individual to worship God in its own way, in spite of which Joseph
Smith, and his brother, were murdered in a prison--this only fact shows,
that the legislators of this country will lose their beneficial power,
unless literature will take the place of divinity. May God defend nations
from the wrath of fanatics; and the word Charity, so well understood by
Jesus, may it be felt as it should be. It is a shame in a christian land,
where we boast so much of our morals, to learn from the mouth of the
present Sultan a better tolerance: "Musulmans, christians, jews," said he
to his subjects, "you are all dear to me, you are all my children. If
there be one amongst you who is oppressed, let him come forward, and
justice shall be done him; for it is my wish, that the laws which are made
to protect the lives, the properties, and the honor of my subjects, be
faithfully administered, musulman, christian, or jew; rich or poor;
soldier, priest, or layman, confide in my love, and in my justice; you are
all equal in my eyes, as you are equal before the law: you shall be all
treated as such; and the Almighty will reward, on the judgment day, the
honest, and faithful servant."

In blaming fanaticism, I do not blame here the government, nor true
religious persons: and these, on the contrary, are the objects of my
greatest veneration: besides, the burning of the catholic churches in
Philadelphia, it is to hope, might have been but an instance of the