In the wicked there's no vice, Of which the saints have not a spice; And yet that thing that's pious in The one, in t'other is a sin. Is't not ridiculous and nonsense, A saint should be a slave to conscience? The performance has so many earmarks of Franklin's peculiar modes of thought and speech that it is hard not to ascribe its authorship to him without hesitation. Besides thrusts at the Governor and other public functionaries, it lashed the pietists of the place and time with unsparing severity. Many persons, it declared, who seemed to be more than "ordinarily religious," were often found to be the greatest cheats imaginable. They would dissemble and lie, snuffle and whiffle, and, if it were possible, would overreach and defraud all who dealt with them. For my own part [the writer further declared] when I find a man full of religious cant and pellavar, I presently suspect him to be a knave. Religion is, indeed, the _principal thing_; but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but of all knaves, the _religious knave_ is the worst; and villainies acted under the cloak of religion are the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not of itself, carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no going thither _without it_. And however such men, of whom I have been speaking, may palliate their wickedness, they will find that _publicans and harlots will enter the kingdom of heaven before themselves_. The same day, on which this issue of the _Courant_ appeared, the Council passed an order, denouncing it in scathing terms, and appointing a committee of three persons to consider and report what was proper for the Court to do with regard to it. It did not take the committee long to report. They condemned the _Courant_ in stern language as an offence to church and state, and "for precaution of the like offence for the future," humbly proposed that "James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or publish the New England _Courant_, or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secretary of this Province." The report was approved, and followed by an order, carrying its recommendations into execution. But the proprietor of the _Courant_ and his literary retainers were equal to the crisis. They assembled at once, and resolved that the paper should thenceforth be issued in the name of Benjamin, at that time a boy of seventeen. At the same time, to retain his hold on his apprentice until the expiration of his term, James resorted to a knavish expedient.