Page:Conciones ad populum. Or, Addresses to the people (IA concionesadpopul00cole).pdf/59

 the People, unless it should be thought, that they, who permit, perpetrate. The depravation of private morals is a more serious and less transient evil. All our happiness and the greater part of our virtues depend on social confidence. This beautiful fabric of Love the system of Spies and Informers has shaken to the very foundation. There have been multiplied among us "Men who carry tales to shed blood!" Men who resemble the familiar Spirits described by Isaiah, as "dark ones, that peep and that mutter!". Men, who may seem to have been typically shadowed out in the Frogs that formed the second plague of Egypt: little low animals with chilly blood and flaring eyes, that "come up into our houses and our bedchambers!" These men are plenteously scattered among us: our very looks are decyphered into disaffection, and we cannot move without treading on some political spring-gun. Nor here has the evil stopped. We have breathed so long the atmosphere of Imposture and Panic, that many honest minds have caught an aguish disorder; in their cold fits they shiver at Freedom, in their hot fits they turn savage against its advocates; and sacrifice to party Rage what they would have scornfully refused to Corruption. Traitors to friendship,