The crazy excuses which men render to their
consciences, are only such as every villain makes, who is unwilling to
look upon the black face of his crimes.

He who will receive a conveyance of property, knowing it to be illusive
and fraudulent, is as wicked as the principal; and as much meaner, as the
tool and subordinate of villany is meaner than the master who uses him.

If a church, knowing all these facts, or wilfully ignorant of them,
allows a member to nestle in the security of the sanctuary; then the act
of this robber, and the connivance of the church, are but the two parts of
one crime.

6. BANKRUPTCY, although a branch of debt, deserves a separate mention. It
sometimes crushes a man's spirit, and sometimes exasperates it. The
poignancy of the evil depends much upon the disposition of the creditors;
and as much upon the disposition of the victim. Should _they_ act with the
lenity of Christian men, and _he_ with manly honesty, promptly rendering
up whatever satisfaction of debt he has,--he may visit the lowest places
of human adversity, and find there the light of good men's esteem, the
support of conscience, and the sustenance of religion.

A bankrupt may fall into the hands of men whose tender-mercies are cruel;
or his dishonest equivocations may exasperate their temper and provoke
every thorn and brier of the law. When men's passions are let loose,
especially their avarice whetted by real or imaginary wrong; when there is
a rivalry among creditors, lest any one should feast upon the victim more
than his share; and they all rush upon him like wolves upon a wounded
deer, dragging him down, ripping him open, breast and flank, plunging
deep their bloody muzzles to reach the heart and taste blood at the very
fountain;--is it strange that resistance is desperate and unscrupulous? At
length the sufferer drags his mutilated carcass aside, every nerve and
muscle wrung with pain, and his whole body an instrument of agony. He
curses the whole inhuman crew with envenomed imprecations; and
thenceforth, a brooding misanthrope, he pays back to society, by studied
villanies, the legal wrongs which the relentless justice of a few, or his
own knavery, have brought upon him.

7. There is a circle of moral dishonesties practised because the LAW
allows them. The very anxiety of law to reach the devices of cunning, so
perplexes its statutes with exceptions, limitations, and supplements, that
like a castle gradually enlarged for