Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/122

 I allow this kind of reasoning, to the interested parties, may sound rather grating to the ear: but, be it remembered, I have not undertaken the task of panegyric, but plain truth, which needs no high-flown language to express it: nor have I a wish to make an invidious remark upon the conduct or behaviour of any man, and much less to include a whole body of them. But what success in trade, if such they have, can make the smallest atonement, on a death-bed, or come nearly adequate to the loss of a poor soul, whom they may have been the means of casting into the utmost misery and distress, and forcing to seek an asylum in the jaws of perdition? Would but a mind, capable of the smallest feelings of humanity, reflect on the many sacrifices made to this voluptuous avarice, and, in time, spare themselves that pungent remorse due to such severe reflections.

But, says the reasonable enquirer, with regard to suppressing this ancient custom, which is pointed out as productive of so much evil, supposing an expedient is found out, will it not be attended with such a number of incon-