Gazette Of The United States

For the GAZETTE of the UNITED STATES.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in the country to his friend in Philadelphia.

I REGRET, with you, that the newspapers should in any instance be the vehicles of irreligion and profaneness. I have observed, upon several occasions, that some pieces of very absurd nonsense and infidelity have been retailed, through that channel, to the great injury of those superficial readers, who derive the greatest part of their knowledge, both in politics and religion, from this source. It is to be lamented very much, that any editor of a periodical paper, should appear intent upon disseminating principles of infidelity through the United States, and for this purpose, should stuff his papers with such things from time to time; and it is rather surprising that those impositions should be copied into other papers, as if they merited a second publication.

A passage in a certain Gazette, of Dec. 8, ult. which I noticed amongst other trash of similar kind, in the papers which you sent me, is a gross imposition as to its original, and a gross insult, not only upon the Established Church in Scotland, but also upon most of the Protestant Churches, which generally agree in the particular doctrines reprobated so much in that paper. It is pretended, I observe, that the piece alluded to is a translation from French Letters, dedicated to the National Assembly; whereas the fact is, that it is taken from a publication at Edinburgh, and has been there solidly refuted, and at greater length than I think it deserves; the misrepresentations being very gross, and the assertions, as to facts, perfectly false, and indeed, in some things, directly the reverse of what is there suggested. It would not be difficult to expose such scurrility and impudence in its proper deformity: yet I think the newspaper is not the most proper place for such exhibitions.

Indeed I cannot but wonder at the indiscretion and absurdity of publishing reflections against religion, or particular systems of it, in a newspaper. Such morceaux of impiety ought to be published by themselves, and sold as choice communications from Pandemonium; and then their merit will be determined by the public, and they who approve them, will have the pleasure of perusing them, and the benefit of preserving them. But to publish such things in a Gazette, where we are looking for political information, is cramming impiety down our throats, whether we will or not. I hope the generality of your editors of newspapers will conduct their papers with superior propriety and decorum, and let any Gazette, remarkable for the contrary, have the single and undivided honor of being the repository of profaneness and irreligion.