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Source: Church History Vol. 2 Chapter 31 Page: 722 (~1844)

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722 really exists, and restore the government to its pristine health and vigor.' . .

"Now, O, people! turn unto the Lord and live; and reform this nation. Frustrate the designs of wicked men. Reduce Congress at least one half. Two senators from a State and two members to a million of population, will do more business than the army that now occupy the halls of the National Legislature. Pay them two dollars and their board per diem (except Sundays); that is more than the farmer gets, and he lives honestly. Curtail the offices of government in pay, number, and power, for the Philistine lords have shorn our nation of its goodly locks in the lap of Delilah.

"Petition your State legislature to pardon every convict in their several penitentiaries: blessing them as they go, and saying to them in the name of the Lord, Go thy way and sin no more. Advise your legislators when they make laws for larceny, burglary, or any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon the roads, public works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and more virtue, and become more enlightened. Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of man, as reason and friendship. Murder only can claim confinement or death. Let the penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism: Imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the savage tolerates with all his ferocity; 'Amor vincit omnia:' Love conquers all.

"Petition also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave States, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame. Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from the deduction of pay from the members of Congress. Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire them to labor like other human beings; for 'an hour of virtuous liberty on earth, is worth a whole eternity of bondage !' Abolish the practice in the

(page 722)

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