The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

Rhodislando, to whom we are not disposed to deny the appearance of moderation, has holdily avowed himself the author of the Note which we were justified in imputing to the Editors of the Patriot. Is he prepared to assert that he was not employed or solicited to write the Note in question, or that it was not the fruit of a connivance?

Rhodislando seems to deprecate what he terms "an indiscreet zeal prejudicial to the interests and success of the Female Tract Society." How and by whom has this indiscreet zeal been displayed? Surely not by the Editors of the American, who, at the request and on the authority of the Society, published the deplorable statements which have been objected to as false or exaggerated. Rhodislando has failed to produce any adequate reasons to justify a disbelief of these statements. He admits that they were warranted by the Report; but adds that they were, even if true, extremely injudicious. On this point, in particular, we cannot consent to adopt the opinion of Rhodislando; for we conceive the case before us to be one of those which forbid all reserve in the declaration of the truth. Unless an evil be made known in its fullest extent, how is an effectual corrective to be applied? How is any improvement to be effected in the morals of the people, if, under the guidance of false notions, we unwisely conceal or flatter their corruptions? It is unhappily often difficult to arouse attention to the cardinal interests of society, and there are many who are quite willing to disbelieve the existence of immoralities and ignorance among those whom they might be reproached for neglecting. The truth, and the whole truth, ought to be known, if we are sincerely desirous of removing all grounds for "those solemn prejudices and supercilious opinions against this State" which Rhodislando seems so feelingly to deprecate.

The lady who penned the objectionable paragraph, which was embodied in an editorial article in this paper, we are told, is now absent from the State, and cannot, therefore, repel the numerous assaults upon her integrity and her understanding. She is, as we are informed, a woman of ardent piety and cultivated intellect, and had abandoned the security and the charities of a well ordered home, and voluntarily assumed the perilous but benevolent task of instructing those who are destitute not merely of evangelical views of Christian truths, but whose lives are stained by vices the most offensive to Christian precepts.

We are far from thinking that the vice and ignorance of which a specimen has been presented, are peculiar to Rhode-Island; and, though not familiar with the places in Connecticut and Massachusetts which Rhodislando mentions as the rivals of our little village, yet we are disposed to deny neither their existence nor their claims to the unenviable distinction which has been awarded them.

We now take our leave of Rhodislando, and of a controversy which we had no agency in commencing, and which, like most other controversies, will probably leave all parties adhering to the same opinions which they espoused at the outset.