"inferior portion of society," and other expressions of the same kind;
because they have an invidious sound, and have indeed very often been used
in contempt. He can only say, that he uses them with no such feeling; that
they are employed simply as the most obvious terms of designation; and
that he would like better to employ any less ungracious ones that did not
require an affected circumlocution.

In several parts of the essay, there will be found a language of emphatic
censure on that conduct of states, that predominant spirit and system in
the administration of the affairs of nations, by which the people have
been consigned to such a deplorable condition of intellectual and
consequently moral degradation, while resources approaching to immensity
have been lavished on objects of vanity and ambition. So far from feeling
that such observations can require any apology, the writer thinks it is
high time for all the advocates of intellectual, moral, and religious
improvement, to raise a protesting voice against that policy of the states
denominated Christian, and especially our own, which has, through age
after age, found every conceivable thing necessary to be done, at all
costs and hazards, rather than to enlighten, reform, and refine the
people. He thinks that nothing can more strongly betray a judgment
enslaved, or a time-serving dishonesty, in those who would assume to
dictate to such an advocate and to censure him, than that sort of doctrine
which tells him that it is beside his business, and out of his sphere, as
a Christian moralist, to animadvert on the conduct of national
authorities, when he sees them, during one long period of time after
another, not doing that which is the most important of all things to be
done for the people over whom they preside, but doing what is in substance
and effect the reverse; and doing it on that great scale, which contrasts
so fearfully with the small one, on which the individuals who deplore such
perversion of power are confined to attempt a remedy of the consequences.