Kentucky Gazette

A WORD TO SLANDERERS AND HYPOCRITES.

In noticing the criticism of the London Quarterly Review on Mr. Birkbeck's "Notes on America," the Editor of the Edinburgh Scotsman handsomely and ably vindicates the character of that gentleman and of America; and he exposes to the contempt and indignation of every honest man, the practice of the Quarterly Review, in substituting for arguments "insinuations against the characters of its opponents, especially on the score of religion." As this system of calumniating gentlemen on the score of religion, and outraging all decency on the subject, has been in operation for some time in Lexington and certain other places in the west, we transcribe the remarks of the Scotsman in relation to it, and recommend them to the attentive consideration of the hypocritical slanderers of their neighbours and betters.- "We can, says the Scotsman, conceive no disposition of mind more mean, base and treacherous, than that which leads a man to rake into the private life of an opponent, and by wilful falsehoods or distorted statements of facts, to blacken his character; to drag into light circumstances that may wound his feelings, without having the slightest bearing on the matter at issue before the public. But of all the kinds of poisoned weapons used in this savage mode of warfare, the worst are insinuations against a man's religion. Such attacks have no other object than to draw upon an individual the blind and furious prejudices of the ignorant; yet, we must say, they are less offensive for the remorseless rancor that dictates them, than for the audacious hypocrisy that gives them to the world. When christianity is really attacked, it will never want conscientious and able defenders; but no man of any discernment will confound the friends of religion with those slanderers who use it only as a weapon for the destruction of their neighbour's good name-whose style and conduct render it no uncharitable supposition, that they come reeling from the tavern or the brothel, and pour out their rhapsodies of disgusting cant to destroy the characters of men guilty of no other crime than that of being their political opponents," or that of being their superiors in all that constitutes the gentleman, the man of honour, of real practical religion, of character and of talents.