Excerpt from Philadelphia or the Claims of Humanity, a Plea for Social Religious Reform To do something toward impressing this persuasion, and to suggest, however imperfectly, some of the remedial changes, in our social, political, and religious condition, which appear most essential to its improvement, is what the writer, with much distrust of himself, but with good hope in the destinies of his race, has here ventured to attempt. The reader will perceive, that in the course of these chapters, the author has been led to treat of a consider able variety of stirring and important questions connected with social reform. He is aware that some of the views which are maintained, are likely, at first sight, to appear to many questionable, at least, if not decidedly erroneous yet he trusts that on maturer consideration, they will think of them less unfavourably and that even if he should not be so happy as to convince, he shall still obtain credit for having advocated his opinions from a sincere conviction of their truth and importance, and an earnest desire to do what he could in the service of his fellow-men. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.