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PolWritV1_001-050.indd 38 2/21/12 8:28 AM [4} [ANONYMOUS] [Untitled] BOSTON, 1764 The importance of public virtue for a self-governing people, and the importance of religion for public virtue, were constant themes during the founding era. This short piece, published in the September I7, q64 issue of the Boston Gazette, is representative of many similar essays to be found in newspapers throughout the founding era. To the PUBLISHERS, &c. There is an inseparable connection between publick virtue and publick happiness: Individuals, we are assured, must render an account hereafter of every part of their moral conduct in this state; but communities, as their existence will cease with this world, can neither be rewarded or punish'd as such in the next: It therefore appears rational to conclude, that present rewards and punishments are distributed to them, according to their present moral behaviour. Hence we see the importance of morality to a community: It should engage the serious attention of every individual, and his endeavor, to do all that lies in his power in his own sphere to encourage and promote it; and I think it is worth consideration, whether the decay of morality, which is too visible among us, is not very much owing to too much laxness in family government: I am far from being austere in my principles ofthe government of a family: I believe that too rigid a restraint upon young folks is usually attended with bad effects in the end; yet I will venture to ask whether we are not in general in the opposite extreme, and whether there are not already some instances of the fatal consequences of it? PolWritV1_001-050.indd 39 2/21/12 8:28 AM [ 39} ANONYMOUS I believe it will be allowed by all christians, that a due observation of the Lord's Day is one material branch of moral duty: The legislature of Great-Britain, and every subordinate legislature in her dominions, and to be sure the civil authority ofthis province, have always consider'd the first day of the week as wholly set apart for the purposes of devout religion: If then the supreme civil power; & if by far the greater part, if not every private individual, who is a serious christian, are not all mistaken in this matter, it must be very affecting to see the contempt that is cast, and the opposition that is made by some of our youth, to the good and wholesome laws ofthe province for the strict observation of that day. It is evident I think, that it is not only the particular law lately made that gives offence to these young people: let any one recollect four or five years ago, before this law was pass'd, what opposition was made to the Sabbath laws then in being: this his Honor the chief justice was pleas'd to observe upon in open court, the last Week: As much contempt was cast upon the justices of the peace who executed those laws then, as is now cast upon the gentlemen appointed to execute this: so that it rather seems to be an impatience in these thoughtless giddy youth under the restraint of any law at all: such restraint they cry out against as an attack upon their liberty: and so it is, upon a liberty to prophane a part of time which Goo ALMIGHTY at the creation of the world was pleas'd to pronounce holy: corrupt minds are apt to mistake all laws for reformation as an attack upon liberty: these young people it is to be fear'd are countenanced by some others, from whom as citizens at least, better things might be expected: but tis hoped their parents or masters will instruct them otherwise. A good deal depends upon the youth of a country being train'd up to virtue and good manners: They are to act upon the stage of life, when the present generation is gone: It ought therefore to be the common concern of all-magistrates-ministers of the gospel & heads of families-all who have a regard for the future happiness of their country-and may I not say, all who wish that the Supreme Being, (who hath shown so much favor to New England in former and later times) may be honer'd by its posterity, to use all possible means to destroy vice & immorality of every kind, and to cultivate & promote the fear of God and a love to religion in the minds...

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