All human beings on arriving at maturity, find themselves placed by an unknown power in a world, in which they will have to enjoy pleasure or happiness, and also to endure pain. This is the destiny of all, without exception. The same power which propelled us into existence, has made it a law of our nature to dread or shrink from pain, and also to desire and love ease and pleasure. And here we can at once discover what God or nature has done for us, and likewise what is left for us to perform for ourselves. This, then, is the stock of moral material with which mortals commence a life of pleasure and pain. The same unknown power has also given man and woman reason, by the exercise of which they can augment their pleasure, and reduce their pain. By the use of man’s rational powers, he can plainly discover his duty towards beings like himself. He loves happiness, ease, and every thing which makes life worth having; so also, do his fellow beings. He hates and retreats from positive pain; so does every being which has life, animals not excepted. What revelation, then, but this, does man want to teach him that which he owes to himself, and likewise those things he ought to practise to every being that has life and feeling? And the voice of God, or nature, calls to every rational being in language which, but for false religion, all would understand. Mortals! attend to what is done for your permanent happiness. Ignorance and neglect are the causes of most of the evils which, torment you. You are made to love happiness; you are also made to shrink from and hate pain. Every human being is subject to the same laws; only attend to the moral this contains. You have no excuse for inflicting pain on any living creature, because you know that every being possessing life is governed by the same feelings as yourself. God, or nature, has so arranged things as to induce mortals to practise virtue, and to be kind to every thing that possesses life and feeling; because, by acting agreeably to the laws of your own organization, you become happy in yourself, and have the additional pleasure of making others happy also. What excuse, then, can men have for neglecting the duties they owe to every thing that has life and feeling? Do they need a revelation to inform them that they ought to be just and humane? Do they require information from heaven to inform them that cruelty to man or animals is wicked? Let them but consult their own feelings; full information is at hand calling on them to practise kindness and compassion.