their lands and moneys, and thus led the way to a right use
of things, so great a number of people might be employed in things
useful, that labor both for men and other creatures would need to be no
more than an agreeable employ, and divers branches of business, which
serve chiefly to please the natural inclinations of our minds, and which
at present seem necessary to circulate that wealth which some gather,
might, in this way of pure wisdom, be discontinued.

[Footnote 5: A Quaker preacher, a native of New Jersey, whose Travels
and Autobiography have been much admired abroad, notably by Charles
Lamb.]

* * * * *

=_John M. Mason,[6] 1770-1829._=

From the Address in behalf of the Bible Society.

=_18._= GRANDEUR OF THE ENTERPRISE.

If there be a single measure which can overrule objection, subdue
opposition, and command exertion, this is the measure. That all our
voices, all our affections, all our hands, should be joined in the grand
design of promoting "peace on earth and good will toward man"--that
they should resist the advance of misery--should carry the light of
instruction into the dominions of ignorance, and the balm of joy to the
soul of anguish; and all this by diffusing the oracles of God--addresses
to the understanding an argument which cannot be encountered; and to the
heart an appeal which its holiest emotions rise up to second....

_People of the United States_; Have you ever been invited to an
enterprise of such grandeur and glory? Do you not value the Holy
Scriptures? Value them as containing your sweetest hope; your most
thrilling joy? Can you submit to the thought that _you_ should be torpid
in your endeavors to disperse them, while the rest of Christendom is
awake and alert? Shall _you_ hang back in heartless indifference, when
princes come down from their thrones, to bless the cottage of the poor
with the gospel of peace; and imperial sovereigns are gathering their
fairest honors from spreading abroad the oracles of the Lord your God.
Is it possible that _you_ should not see, in this state of human things,
a mighty motion of Divine providence? The most heavenly charity treads
close upon the march of conflict and blood! The world is at peace!
Scarce has the soldier time to unbind his helmet, and to wipe away the
sweat from his brow, ere the voice of mercy succeeds to the clarion of
battle, and calls the nations from enmity to love! Crowned heads bow to
the h