1822 July 7

Constitut. Code Rationale

Established religion none

In vain would it be said - the fire against which we warn now has never been as yet seen by any of them: and therefore it is that it is necessary the warning should be thus given to them. Never seen? why need it have been ever seen by them? The cry of fire /indication of the danger/ in the street, is no such cry ever attended to by any but by those who have already seen it?

All this notwithstanding, notwithstanding the proof thus afforded of your own disbelief of that which you inculcate, you pay to a set of men under the notion of their inculcating it, money in so immense a mass, imposing on the whole community poor as well as rich the correspondent burthen Of all this vast mass of the matter of wealth object of universal desire you yourself yourselves have the /at your/ disposal; they the immediate use you the [...?] received in the patronage. The hope of deriving benefit from such patronage is in vain would you deny it an inducement and that a most powerful one to do your will in all things and give their support to your power. Under these circumstances can any reasonable man look for the cause of the hire you pay in any other circumstance than the profit which in the shape of power and money you yourselves derive from it, in this and not in any belief on your part that that which you so cause to be inculcated is true /has any truth in it/, or that in /as to/ the inculcating it, or in its being imbibed there is any use in it?