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Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. 54, 55, 56, 57. And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower, and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and so it cometh to pass, Ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky, and of the earth; but how is it, that ye do not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.

The best European writers dare not give the plain, naked simple truth to the world, with the terrific word 'Treason,' held up before their eyes, in terrorum, with all the tremendous weight of aristocracy, kings-craft, and priest-craft ready to fall on them, and crush them to atoms. And being nursed in the lap, rocked in the cradle, and brought up in the school of aristocracy, and looking to, and dependent on that system of misrule for their daily bread; have contaminated less or more every thought word and action, even of their most liberal minded men.

The British writers generally-leaving out of the question such scribblers as Captain Basil Hall-when discussing the subject of civil and religious liberty, or any thing connected therewith, are so narrow and contracted in their views, and so circumscribed in their inferences and deductions, owing to their attachment to their own aristocratic institutions, that their writings are somewhat like the geography of their own Island on the map of the world.

There is another species of writers who are prostituting the finest talents, not only to divert and amuse, but actually to vitiate and poison the human mind, for the love of gain, such as Southey, Moore, and Sir Walter Scott, and many others who to say the least of them, are hirelings to support the misrule of the few over the many.

There are also numerous writers, "physicians of no value," whose remedy for the existing evils in the world, is even worse than the disease. These men act as irrationally and inconsistantly as men would do, who because they have seen much base coin in circulation purporting to be dollars and eagles, should obstinately persist in affirming, in the face of every day's experience and observation, that there is neither gold nor silver in the world.

There is another powerful host of writers, who wield a most baneful influence on mankind, in parallizing and retarding the march of mind, and the benevolent efforts of the wise and good

of all nations, for enlightening the understanding, reforming the abuses, and ameliorating the condition of man. These men make use of redicule, and misrepresentation, having no argument to offer, and flatly deny the plainest matters of fact, and mistate the clearest evidence: Like a man, who a few years back should have seriously set himself to write down the projected New York canal, and the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, and should dispute every inch of ground; but as he was preparing one of his essays for the press, he should happen to cast his eye upon a paragraph in a newspaper, announcing the arrival of a hundred canal boats at the city of Albany, from Lake Erie, in a few days, and the arrival of fifty rail-road cars, at Liverpool from Manchester, in a few hours: and even then, with regret and the umost reluctance, would cease his. hostility to these noble and stupendous public works.

There are others prostituting the press, by turning one of the greatest blessings into a curse; and inundating the world, with the productions of moral impurity and loathsomeness, a thousand times more pernicious, disgusting and abhorrent, than the putrid stench out of an old rotten sepulchre.

These are the things which uphold and support, kings-craft, priestcraft and aristocracy. So long as they are able to find men willing to engage in such drudgery, they will rejoice and exult, that light cannot pervade the world. This is strengthening their unholy cause, directly calculated to perpetuate their unrighteous career. The most successful of all engines is to extinguish the light, if possible, and to hurl the world back to a state of ignorance and darkness, and a total disregard for morality, and virtue.

This is exactly what the tyrants of the earth, have labored to accomplish, and but too successfully, from the days of the first tyrant Nimrod, to this day; and is the sole reason, why they have been able so long to trample their fellow men under foot, and to estimate men as the cattle of the field, and treat them as beasts of burden.

I humbly trust that I have pointed out some mistakes, in some very important points, which I think will meet the approbation of the reader. What I have written, is not so much to amuse and entertain, as to induce the reader to think for himself. I have written under a pressure of difficulties, and embarrassments, but seldom experienced by any. The care and anxiety of providing for a helpless and sickly family: myself in a poor state of health, necesasrily occupied, daily in the business of my workshop, without resources, without books and

documents, my whole arrangement of thought broken up, tes thousand times; often could not write more thana line or two, in a day: and writing of nights, was injurious to health.

The Downfall, which is by far the most interesting part of the work, will be given to the public, as soon as it is possible, to get it through the press. I have not, nor ever shall, make choice of the smoothest and softest epithets for fear of giving offence to the lordlings of the earth. My object, my wishes and business is to hold up to public view, tare away the mask, and expose as well as I can, (still, however, by plain stubborn facts) the diabolical impositions, treachery and tricks of kings-craft, priestcraft and aristocracy; a cheat as old as original sin and the offspring and progeny of it.

WHEELING, JUNE 30th, 1831,

WILLIAM MATHERS.

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