"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 the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not itself carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is no going thither without it." "But are there such men as these in thee, O New England? Heaven forbid there should be any; but, alas, it is to be feared the number is not small. '_Give me an honest man_,' say some, '_for all a religious man_'; a distinction which I confess I never heard of before. The whole country suffers for the villainies of a few such wolves in sheep's clothing, and we are all represented as a pack of knaves and hypocrites for their sakes." "In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be called by their own Names. _Adam_ was never called _Master_ Adam; we never heard of Noah, _Esquire_, Lot, _Knight_ and _Baronet_, nor the _Right Honorable_ Abraham, _Viscount_ Mesopotamia, _Baron_ of Canaan. No, no; they were plain Men, honest Country Graziers, that took care of their Families and their Flocks. _Moses_ was a great Prophet, and _Aaron_ a priest of the Lord; but we never read of the _Reverend_ Moses, nor the _Right Reverend Father in God_, Aaron, by Divine Providence, _Lord Arch-Bishop_ of Israel. Thou never sawest _Madam_ Rebecca in the Bible, _My Lady_ Rachel, nor _Mary_, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the death of _Joseph_, called the _Princess Dowager_ of Nazareth. No; plain _Rebecca, Rachel, Mary_, or the _Widow_ Mary, or the like. It was no Incivility then to mention their naked Names as they were expressed. "Yet, one of our Club will undertake to prove, that tho' _Abraham_ was not styled _Right Honorable_, yet he had the Title of _Lord_ given him by his Wife _Sarah_, which he thinks entitles her to the Honour of _My Lady_ Sarah; and _Rachel_, being married into the same Family, he concludes that she may deserve the Title of _My Lady_ Rachel. But this is but the Opinion of one Man; it was never put to vote in the Society." "On the whole, Friend James, we may conclude, that the _Anti-Couranteers_ [opponents of the _Courant_] are a sort of _Precisians_, who, mistaking Religion for the peculiar Whims of their own distemp'rd Brain, are for cutting or stretching all Men to their own Standard of Thinking. I wish Mr. Symmes' Character may secure him from the Woes and Curses they are so free of dispensing among their dissenting neighbours, who are so unfortunate as to discover a Cheerfulness becoming Christianity."