Elihu Palmer Though shades and darkness cloud his visual ray The mind, unclouded feels no loss of day ;) In Reason's cause his nervous, thoughts Combind OF ル PROSPECT; OR, VIEW OF THE MORAL WORLD, FOR THE YEAR 1804. The physical elements of things act in concert with each other, ROUSSEAU. New-Bork, PRINTED FOR THE EDITOR, NO. 26, CHATHAM-STREET, English schwaak 11-30-40 42009 PROSPECT, OR View of the Moral World, BY ELIHU PALMER. VOL. I. SATURDAY, December 10th, 1803. No. I. TH TO THE PUBLIC. HE period has at length arrived in which the civilized world has recognized the necessity of moral principles to regulate the conduct of intelligent beings. If the principles be necessary, there also exists an equal necessity of diffusing through the mass of society a clear knowledge of their nature and character. Ignorance is the parent of vice, and vice the destruction of social order and happiness. In marching retrogressively over the historic page of man, the mind perceives with extreme regret, the immoral copartnership existing between superstition, vice, and ignorance; the testimony of past ages rises up in judgment against the flagrant crimes, the horrid murders, and the wide spreading devastations which have resulted from superstition, claiming social intercourse with celestial powers. The pu rity of every theological system must be marked by the purity of its moral precepts, and in deficiency of this consideration, it forfeits all just pretention to human credence and respect: the tenacious adherents of superstition, however, assert that their system is not only divine, but moral, pure, and excellent in all its essential principles. If this be a fact believers should be among the last to decide against the severest scrutiny and the boldest investigation into the origin and character of their theological opinions. Whatever is divine is true, and will pass safely the intellectual ordeal of individuals, nations, and ages. It should be presumed then* that the friends of christianity would rejoice in a periodical publication of this kind; because the triumph must be abundantly theirs, since by their own confession, heaven and the christian part of the earth, at least, have united in defence of the immaculate doctrines contained in the old and new testaments; but whether the advocates of revelation will concede this much to the moral rights of man, is not an essential |