Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/56

 pass against thee, go and tell him his faults: but if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established; and if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto them as an heathen man and a publican.

But by what means, less than enquiry, are we to know who our offending brother is? or why, in this enlightened age, is a business of so much consequence neglected! a business on which nothing less than the ruin or prosperity of a state depends; independent of Christianity or humanity, the great characteristic of the nation. Then, in a case where the whole is so strongly connected, why delay a single moment in the research. Indeed, it is a well-known maxim, and must be allowed, that those who are not forward in a cause, may be justly said to be against it; or, in other words, whoever is not the encourager of virtue, must unavoidably be the encourager of vice. But let the breast of sympathy participate in the sufferings of their fellow creatures. Let the tender eye