their religious professions to bow with reverence and submission to the precepts of the great founder of our faith; and nothing appears to them plainer in the Gospel than that it forbids all violent measures for its propagation, and all vindictive measures for its justification and defence. The author and finisher of Christianity has declared, that his kingdom is not of this world; and, as in his own example he showed a perfect pattern of compassion towards them that are ignorant and out of the way of truth, of forbearance towards objectors, and of forgiveness of wilful enemies; so, in his moral laws, he has prohibited the spirit that would attempt to root up speculative error with the arm of flesh, or that would call down fire from Heaven to consume the unbelieving, and has commanded the exercise of meekness, tenderness, and brotherly love towards all mankind, as the best and only means of promoting his cause upon earth, and the most acceptable way of glorifying the great Father of mercies, who is kind even to the unthankful and the evil. "By these reasonable, charitable, and peaceful means, the Christian religion was not only established originally, but also supported for the three first centuries of the Christian era, during which it triumphed over the most fierce and potent opposition, unaided by temporal power and your petitioners humbly submit to your honourable house, that herein consists one of the brightest evidences of the truth of the Christian religion; and that they are utterly at a loss to conceive how that which is universally accounted to have been the glory of the gospel in its beginnings, should now cease to be accounted its glory, or how it should at this day be less the maxim of Christianity, and less the rule of the conduct of Christians, than in the days of those that are usually denominated the Fathers of the church-that it is no part of religion to compel religion, which must be received not by force, but of free choice. "Your petitioners would earnestly represent to your honourable house, that our holy religion has borne uninjured every test that reason and learning have applied to it, and that its divine origin, its purity, its excellence, and its title to universal acceptation, have been made more manifest by every new examination and discussion of its nature, pretensions, and claims. Left to itself, under the divine blessing, the reasonableness and innate excellence of Christianity will infallibly promote its influence over the understandings and hearts of mankind; but when the angry passions are suffered to rise in its professed defence, these provoke the like passions in hostility to it, and the question is no longer one of pure truth, but of power on the one side, and of the capacity of endurance on the other. "It appears to your petitioners that it is altogether unnecessary and impolitic to recur to penal laws in aid of Christianity. The judg ment and feelings of human nature, testified by the history of man in all ages and nations, incline mankind to religion; and it is only when they erringly associate religion with fraud and injustice that they can be brought in any large number to bear the evils of scepticism and unbelief. tioners acknowledge and lament the wide diffusion amongst the people of sentiments unfriendly to the Your peti Christian Christian faith; but they cannot refrain from stating to your honourable house their conviction that this unexampled state of the public mind is mainly owing to the prosecution of the holders and propa. gators of infidel opinions. Objections to Christianity have thus become familiar to the readers of the weekly and daily journals-curiosity has been stimulated with regard to the publications prohibited -an adventitious, unnatural, and dangerous importance has been given to sceptical arguments-a suspicion has been excited in the minds of the multitude that the Christian religion can be upheld only by pains and penalties, and sympathy has been raised on behalf of the sufferers, whom the uninformed and unwise regard with the reverence and confidence that belong to the character of martyrs to the truth. "Your petitioners would remind your honourable house, that all history testifies the futility of all prosecutions for mere opinions, unless such prosecutions proceed the length of exterminating the holders of the opinions prosecuted-an extreme from which the liberal spirit and the humanity of the present times revolt. "The very same maxims and principles that are pleaded to justify the punishment of unbelievers would authorise Christians of different denominations to vex and barass each other on the alleged ground of want of faith, and likewise form an apology for heathen persecutions against Christians, whether the persecutions that were anciently carried on against the divinely-taught preachers of our religion, or those that may now be instituted by the ruling party in Pagan countries, where Christian missionaries are so laudably employed in endeavouring to expose the absurdity, folly, and mischievous influence of idolatry. "Your petitioners would intreat your honourable house to consider that belief does not in all cases depend upon the will, and that inquiry into the truth of Christianity will be wholly prevented, if persons are rendered punishable for any given result of inquiry. Firmly attached as your petitioners are to the religion of the Bible, they cannot but consider the liberty of rejecting, to be implied in that of embracing it. The unbeliever may, indeed, be silenced by his fears, but it is scarcely conceivable that any real friend to Christianity, or any one who is solicitous for the improvement of the human mind, the diffusion of knowledge, and the establishment of truth, should wish to reduce any portion of mankind to the necessity of concealing their honest judgment upon moral and theological questions, and of making an outward profession that shall be inconsistent with their inward persuasion. "Your petitioners are not ignorant that a distinction is commonly made between those unbelievers that argue the question of the truth of Christianity calmly and dispassionately, and those that treat the sacred subject with levity and ridicule; but although they feel the strongest disgust at every mode of discussion which approaches to indecency and profaneness, they cannot help thinking that it is neither wise nor safe to constitute the manner and temper of writing an object of legal visitation; inasmuch as it is impossible to define where argument ends and 2 G 2 evil evil speaking begins. The reviler of Christianity appears to your pe titioners to be the least formidable of its enemies; because his scoffs can rarely fail of arousing against him public opinion, than which nothing more is wanted to defeat his end. Between freedom of discussion and absolute persecution there is no assignable medium; and nothing seems to your petitioners more impolitic than to sin gle out the intemperate publications of modern unbelievers for legal reprobation, and thus by implication to give a licence to the grave reasonings of those that preceded them in the course of open hostility to the Christian religion, which reasonings are much more likely to make a dangerous impression upon the minds of their readers. But independently of considerations of expediency and policy, your petitioners cannot forbear recording their humble protest against the principle implied in the prosecutions alluded to, that a religion proceeding from infinite wisdom and protected by Almighty power, depends upon human patronage for its perpetuity and influence. Wherefore they pray your honourable house to take into consideration the prosecutions carrying on, and the punishments already inflicted upon unbelievers, in order to exonerate Christianity from the opprobrium and scandal so unjustly cast upon it, of being a system that countenances intolerance and persecution. "And your petitioners will ever pray, &c." AM ERICAN ANNUAL TREASURY REPORT. In obedience to the directions of the "Act supplementary to the act to establish the Treasury Department," the Secretary of the Treasury respectfully submits the following Report: 1. Of the Public Revenue and Expenditure of the Years 1821 and 1822. The net revenue which accrued from duties on imports and tonnage during the year 1821 amounted to 15,898,434 42 Dols. The actual receipts in the Treasury during the year 1821, including the loan of 85,000,000, amounted to 19,573,703 72 Viz. Customs Dols. 13,004,447 15 1,212,966 46 Public lands, exclusive of Missis 356,290 11 Making, with the balances in the Treasury on the 1st An Aggregate of The expenditure during the year 1821 amounted to 20,772,164 93 19,090,572 69 2,241,871 54 1,681,592 24 Leaving a balance in the Treasury on the 1st of Jan., 1822, of The actual receipts in the Treasury during the three first quarters of the year 1822 are estimated to have amounted to 14,745,408 75 And leaving in the Treasury on the 1st of January, 1823, an estimated balance of 18,278,653 32 3,148,347 67 After deducting from this sum certain balances of appropriations, amounting to 1,232,212 dollars, 11c., which are necessary to effect the objects for which they were severally made, or have been deducted from the estimates for the service of the ensuing year, a balance of 1,916,135 dollars 56c. remains; which, with the receipts into the Treasury during the year 1823, constitutes the means for defraying the current service of that year. 2. Of the Public Debt. The funded debt which was contracted before the year 1812, and which was unredeemed on the 1st October, 1821, amounted to Dols. 17,833,746 84 And that which was contracted subsequently to the 1st of January, 1812, and was unredeemed on the 1st of October, 1821, amounted to Making the total amount of funded debt unredeemed on 75,852,458 18 93,686,205 2 390 40 93,686,595 42 262,738 75 257,180 60 Making an aggregate of In the same quarter there was paid the sum of deferred stock Redemption of Louisiana stock Reducing the funded debt on the 1st January, 1822, to 93,423,856 67 From that day to the 1st of October last, there was issued three per cent. stock to the amount of 143 2 Making an aggregate of 93,423,999 69 During the same period there was paid the sum of 380,980 2 |