Advertisement. THE BOSTON INVESTIGATOR IS PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING, AT NO. 45 CORNHILL. HORACE SEAVER, EDITOR. JOSIAH P. MENDUM, PROPRIETOR. TERMS. -TWO OR THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM, according to the ability or liberality of the subscriber, payable INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE. "THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, AND THE LIBERTY OF THE PEOPLE, MUST STAND OR FALL TOGETHER."- -Hume. The "BOSTON INVESTIGATOR" was established as a free, liberal paper, in 1830, by ABNER KNEELAND and others. It was designed as a medium for the discussion of many questions closely related to human progress-questions which received only an ex parte examination from the religious, priest-ridden world. It has shared, in many respects, the fate of all Reform journals; and has struggled with desperate perseverance against obstacles and difficulties that have crushed innumerable stronger establishments. It is now, emphatically, a FREE PAPER, being open to "Church, State, and Laity," upon all questions coming within its professed range. Our past course must be a guaranty for the future, and we shall, to the best of our ability and means, seek to open the public mind to the discussion of those vital questions of reform which affect the welfare of man. We hold that religious bondage is unworthy of the human mind, and in place of it we shall strive to substitute the empire of reason and enlightened self-interest. THE BOSTON INVESTIGATOR. We hold religious fear to be a base, degrading restraint upon the human will; and in place of it would substitute the true, manly motive, -the love of virtue and right, for their own merits. We hold the present wanton expenditure of capital in religious fanaticism and profligacy to be inconsistent, criminal, worse than useless; and in place of it would substitute a systematic course of benevolence and universal education. We hold that LABOR should be emancipated from its degrading vassalage to Capital; that all Legislation in favor of Capital and against LABOR should be immediately rescinded. We hold that the present systems of Banking and Landholding constitute two of the most accursed monopolies that were ever invented to defraud the laboring classes of "wealth, liberty, and life." We hold that the Bible, being the source of religious faiths, is also the source of social abuses, which now hang like a millstone upon the neck of society; and that there will be no social concord, no true principle of fraternity in society, while one class are set up as God's elect, and another set down as God's vilest reprobates. We hold that society can never be entirely purged of its abuses, of its monopolies, of its cruel and despotic customs, until the Bible and its slave-holding, man-debasing, rum-distilling, war-sanctioning, and its gallows-blessing churches, are cast together into the sea of -oblivion. For all that pertains to the welfare of humanity; for all that tends to alleviate the burdens of labor; for all that tends to enlighten and reform; for all that tends to increase happiness and lessen misery; to promote good and discourage evil; and, above all, for FREE DISCUSSION, tempered with brotherly love, the INVESTIGATOR shall ever continue the unflinching advocate. And in our war upon abuses, of whatever nature, we shall uniformly endeavor to make the proper distinction between error and the erring-between the sin and the sinner; always regarding our own conviction of right and wrong as the only guide, and measuring that right and wrong by the utility and happiness they produce or prevent. As a friend and champion of freedom, in its most beneficent application, the INVESTIGATOR has received the eulogium of friends and the respect of its religious opponents. And its friends may rest |