youth out of harm's way it would do well. But it is to be hoped, if
their parents, masters, or mistresses, should oblige their attendance at
public devotion, they would edify by what they should hear, and many
wicked acts would be stifled in their infancy, and checked even in the
intention, by good and useful doctrine.

Our common people make it a day of debauch, and get so drunk on a
Sunday they cannot work for a day or two following. Nay, since the use
of Geneva has become so common, many get so often drunk they cannot work
at all, but run from one irregularity to another, till at last they
become arrant rogues. And this is the foundation of all our present
complaints.

We will suppose a man able to maintain himself and family by his trade,
and at the same time to be a Geneva drinker. This fellow first makes
himself incapable of working by being continually drunk; this runs him
behindhand, and he either pawns or neglects his work, for which reason
nobody will employ him. At last, fear of arrests, his own hunger, the
cries of his family for bread, his natural desire to support an
irregular life, and a propense hatred to labour, turn but too many an
honest tradesman into an arrant desperate rogue. And these are commonly
the means that furnish us with thieves and villains in general.

Thus is a man, that might be useful in a body politic, rendered
obnoxious to the same: and if this trade of wickedness goes on, they
will grow and increase upon us, insomuch that we shall not dare to stir
out of our habitations; nay, it will be well if they arrive not to the
impudence of plundering our houses at noonday.

Where is the courage of the English nation, that a gentleman, with six
or seven servants, shall be robbed by one single highwayman? Yet we have
lately had instances of this; and for this we may thank our effeminacy,
our toupee wigs, and powdered pates, our tea, and other scandalous
fopperies; and, above all, the disuse of noble and manly sports, so
necessary to a brave people, once in vogue, but now totally lost among
us.

Let not the reader think I run from my subject if I search the bottom
of the distemper before I propose a cure, which having done, though
indeed but slightly, for this is an argument could be carried to a much
greater length, I proceed next to propose earthly means in the manner
following.

Let the watch be composed of stout able-bodied men, and of those at
least treble the number now subsisting,