* And while we are thus under these awful frowns of divine Providence and involved as this people are in heavy calamities, which daily increase in number and severity, it is highly becoming towns and individuals to humble themselves before Almighty God, seriously to commune with their own hearts, and seek carefully with tears, for the causes of the prevailing distresses of the land; and while it is apparent, that pristine piety and purity of morals, have given place to infidelity, dissipation, luxury, and gross corruption of mind and morals, there is a loud call for humility, lamentings and reformation; and it is at this time eminently incumbent on one and all, to seek at the throne of the great God for those special and remarkable interpositions of divine Providence, grace and mercy, which have so ofter saved New-England from both public and private distress and misery: and as there is great reason to believe, that in past times we have too much depended upon the exertions of worldly wisdom and political devices, it becomes us in our present melancholy situation to rely no longer on an arm of flesh, but on the arms of that all-powerful God, who is able to unite the numerous inhabitants of this extensive territory, as a band of brothers in one common cause—who can easily give that true religion, which shall make us his people indeed; that spirit, which shall fit us to endure temporal hardships for the procurement of future happiness; that spirit of valor and irresistable courage, which shall occasion our aged and our youth to jeopard their lives with joy, in the high places of the field, for his name and service sake, for the preservation also of this goodly heritage of our fathers, for the sake of the living children of our loins, and the unborn millions of posterity. * We believe that there are very many, who in these days have kept their integrity and garments unspotted, and hope that God will deliver them and our nation for their sake. God will not suffer this land where the gospel hath flourished, to become a slave of the world; he will stir up witnesses of the truth; and in his own time, spirit his people to stand up for his cause, and deliver them. In a similar belief, that patriot of patriots, the great _Algernon Sidney_, lived and died, and dying breathed a like sentiment and prophecy, touching his own and the then approaching times, a prophecy, however, not accomplished until a glorious revolution. Approved of by vote of the town, without contradiction. SYLVANUS HOW, per order.