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An Address to the Rev. Dr. Alison - 10

than the Purposes intended by the Contributors, without their Assent.—If this be really your Design, Might you not as well have laid before the same Gentlemen, the whole Accounts of this charitable Donation, containing the Amount thereof, the Sums you have expended, and the Ballance now remaining in your Hands? This would be acting the Part of Men of Honour and Honesty. It would give the Contributors in England the Satisfaction the are entitled to, which they have often complained of the Want of; and which they will undoubtedly find out Measures to compel you to do, should you trifle with them much longer.

I will follow you still further in your boasted Charities to the back Inhabitants. "When ready to perish for want of the Necessaries of Life," you say, "our Society sent them £. 150, and soon after Collections were made by every Religious Society in this City, the Quakers only excepted." It is not my Inclination to depreciate from the Charities of any Religious Society; nor would I willingly employ my Pen to so odious and unchristian a Purpose. This kind of Work, I would chuse to leave to such Lovers of Defamation and Falsehood as are the Authors of the Letter in question. I have Reason to know, that there are many worthy Religious and Loyal Subjects among the Presbyterians in this Province; and I am confident there would be yet many more, had you confined yourselves to the Duties of your sacred Functions, and never dabbled in Politicks. A Science you do not understand; or did you, you could not put your Knowledge in Practice, consistent with your Stations in Life, and the Offices you have undertaken. The Influence you have among your People in the City, the Authority you have assumed over all the Presbyterian Clergy, and their Congregations in the Country, to which the Majority of them implicitly submit, as is plain by the ready Obedience they paid to your Circular Letter, describing the Change from a

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