Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

To the Church of Peterboro.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 460

To the Church of Peterboro:

A short time ago, the amazing doctrine was started among us, that a Church is not at liberty to except, on the score of his faith, to a candidate for the pastorship, so long as it admits, that he is a christian, and has aptness to teach. And, now, another strange doctrine is broached among us.

There is a tea, coffee, and liquor merchant. He has one clerk for his tea department, one for his coffee department, and another for his liquor department. It is admitted, for the sake of the argument, that these clerks are all hostile to each other's departments, and turn up their noses, very high, at the immorality of each other's employment.

Now, the strange doctrine referred to is, that the tea and coffee clerks, notwithstanding they receive their wages out of the profits of the store, and notwithstanding when endeavoring to collect a debt due to the store, they do not pause to inquire, if liquor for a beverage be not a part of the consideration of the debt, and notwithstanding they admit, that the liquor department stamps the store and its owner with wickedness - the strange doctrine, we say, is that the tea and coffee clerks are not also to be charged with wickedness, and with holding a guilty relation to the store and its owner.

It is, sometimes, said, in order to show, that this relation is an innocent one, that the liquor department is a small affair - is not established, or maintained, for its own sake - but, merely, to accommodate, please, and multiply, the customers of the other departments. But, how does this help the strange doctrine? Suppose, that the liquor room be converted into a gambling room on a small scale, or a brothel on a small scale, and that the object of the conversion be not direct profit from either the one or the other, but only to accommodate, please, and multiply, the customers of the tea and coffee departments - would not the connexion of these departments with the gambling room or brothel, however small an affair might be the gambling room or brothel, be a guilty connexion? And, pray, how is the principle, involved in the case, at all affected by having, instead of at, attraction to rum-loving customers, an attraction to card-playing customers, or an attraction to licentious customers? In former times, it was the practice of country merchants "to treat their customers, to the end, that their customers might not only come again, but might be excited to buy more freely of the cloths, teas, ribands, &c. Now the "treating" was, in itself, a loss - an entire loss of all the liquor used in it. Nevertheless, did it not stain with sin the sales, which were made of the cloths, teas, ribands, &c.?

It is argued, that the tea and coffee clerks, in the given case, are no more responsible for the liquor department than are the ostler and maid of a rum-tavern for its liquor department. But, that is responsibility enough. The liquor of the rum-tavern is largely relied on to attract custom; and, therefore, does the liquor of the rum-tavern go far to create demand for, and furnish the means to pay the wages of, ostlers and maids. Moreover, a tavern is a unit; and the employment in one part of it is responsible for the character of the employment in another part of it. So, too, is a store a unit; and wickedness in one branch of it taints with wickedness every other branch of it.

Ingenuity has taxed itself to the utmost to commend to you this strange doctrine, of which we have been speaking. Your sympathies have been appealed to in behalf of one, who, unhappily, has identified himself with this doctrine. Your warnings of him, however warm and pure the love, which prompted them, have been construed into persecution; and, in the view of some, who are very partial to him, the arguments against his strange doctrine are utterly destitute of force, if not, also, of honesty.

We have reason to rejoice, however, that, with some two or three exceptions, you have set yourselves against this strange doctrine. Alas, that there should be these few exceptions! Few as they are, they may, nevertheless, suffice to encourage our offending brother in his sin and shame, and in his mischief to the cause of temperance and religion. Oh, that we might speedily try the power of our united testimony in bringing him to repentance

God grant, that the Church of Peterboro may stand fast in its integrity. It is true, that the excitable and unstable multitude have, of late, pressed hard against it. No less true, and infinitely more lamentable, is it, that there are still some remains of internal divisions to weaken our hands, to bring reproach upon our name, and to diminish our influence and usefulness. But, God be praised, that it is, also, true, that, under His vouchsafed care and love, an unflinching adherence on the part of the Church of Peterboro to her temperance principles and her other principles will save her from being overthrown.

PETERBORO, July 20th, 1849.