I here send for your acceptance a copy from my last edition of the Lecture on the pernicious effects of Tobacco, and of the other strand in the same cord, ardent spirits, on young subjects.

You may notice in the introduction to this American edition, that I have had recourse to great names, in order to magnify my apostleship.

Dr De Carro in Vienna, informed me that he found some difficulty in obtaining a license for his German edition of it, lest it might injure their revenue from tobacco! This would doubtless create a smile in the cultivators of that popular plant in Virginia. I hope you will give the production a deliberate reading, and if I have preached a false doctrine to tell me so, that I may have time to repent. It contains the sum & substance of all that I know of the origin of chronic disorders.—

I fear that this part of the union will, e’re long, be the region of religious animosity. The more numerous “orthodox” party have, by circular letters, recently organized a large convention of their ministers from all corners of the State, in Boston, probably 200. And they have appointed a committee of thirteen, 12 of whom are high toned Calvinists, to report at their next annual meeting an answer to this question—“What is a christian church, with whom they ought to hold communion?” This is meant to excommunicate us Unitarians. Although they consider us as the “goats,” we absolutely feed cloath & support these persecuting sheep. The whole orthodox flock are fed on goats-milk; for whenever there are meetinghouses to be built, professorships established, or missionaries to be sent, they come with their empty pails to the goats, though brousing on the barren mountains of Satan, & after they have stripped them dry, they are left to be turned off on the left hand to everlasting perdition, while those on the right are basking in glory! As to argument or satire1 with such men, it is chopping a block with a razor.

For more than a dozen years, have the pulpits of Massachusetts been chiefly filled with Connecticut ministers. They have more field-preaching-eloquence than ours, & in our democratical mode of settling a minister, they find a majority in their favour; and when once settled, these men soon drown the still, small voice of reason. In the pulpit, and at the bar, the New Hampshire & Connecticut gentlemen out-talk us. We have great writers & reasoners in Massts but the common people reap little benefit from their labours; for as Swift says

   Stars beyond a certain height,

   Give mortals neither heat nor light.

Our legislature have imitated Congress in choosing a distinguished unitarian for their chaplain; and a worthy man, driven from his pulpit by an association of ministers in Connecticut2 was selected to preach our annual election sermon.3 It is these things that has roused the holy ire of the calvinists. But it will probably end here, as at the reformation,—the minority will ultimately triumph.

While men are scowling on each other, Heaven continues to smile upon us. Our mountains & vallies, our fields & our gardens bear no tokens of a wrathful GoD.—That you may be long continued among us, a benefit & example to our nation, is the ardent desire of your steady friend & humble admirer