Auburn, Middlesex, Greenville, Clarksville, and Rochester, to attend associations of Baptist ministers in those places; but shall only be able to attend the Rochester association, as my time will be otherwise occupied.

"September 12th, Whitesborough.-President Green took me to where I preached on the subject of chastity: some sensitiveness on the subject. The house is owned by different denominations. A Methodist class-teacher left the house, and was followed by two or three other men. What an abomination! A teacher in God's house to frown on God's truth! Horrible!

"September 20th.-Preached for the Rev. Mr. Pettibone, the Presbyterian minister, on the subject of licentiousness. Heard that some females went to the Baptist meeting to avoid hearing the subject discussed: said certain young men, we now know enough to excite our suspicions of certain females. Perhaps this insinuation is cruel-perhaps it is well-founded. As to the discourse, it was apparently well received. In my discourse, I stated the results of investigations in the town to be

"1st. That about one dozen houses in Whitesborough had been recently occupied at intervals, and for short periods, as brothels.

"2d. That sometimes one, two, or more females, tenanted each house, till public opinion banished them from that town into the next; then public sentiment in the neighboring town banished out of itself its own vile women, who came into Whitesborough; and that this was an illustration of the state of things in most or all the towns on the canal.

"3d. That on the borders of the canal, between Buffalo and Albany, judging from the facts obtained in Whitesborough, there are more than four hundred temporary brothels, and more than eight hundred straggling harlots.

"4th. That, according to the estimate of some intelligent people, there were on the canal not less than two thousand

boats of ten thousand persons, two thousand of whom were females, probably not five hundred of them were chaste, and not probably five hundred men and boys were moral, making in all eleven thousand six hundred licentious persons who are continually upon the canal navi gating the boats on it. This statement may be too high or too low; I merely give the result of facts which have been stated to me by intelligent persons.

"To the above I added that one hundred persons or more, laboring under the disease attendant on lewdness, had applied to physicians in Whitesborough the year past, and many others in like condition apply only to persons who, having had the disease, prescribe for the complaint. Most of these diseased ones are from the canal.

"Supposing the canal to be three hundred and seventy miles long, and Whitestown ten miles long, and that each ten miles on the Erie canal, on an average, including the cities and large villages on its borders, is equally infected, it follows that there are on the Erie canal and on its borders three thousand seven hundred persons diseased by licentiousness.

"September 23d.-Sent my Report to Troy, New-York, to my brother, and left for Rochester, one hundred and sixty miles from this place.

"O. R. Parker, of Oneida Institute, states that a common school teacher in Jefferson county, presented before a young lady, a member of his school, a book of a vile character, and opened at one of its licentious plates in school hours.

"Rev. Mr. Pettibone, of Whitesborough, said that a boy about fourteen years old had an obscene book while a student in his school; that the boy, on coming to manhood, became an abandoned wretch.

"Dr. Clark states, that a young man in his office was polluted by an obscene snuff-box; was led into the company of bad women, and ruined. He was a professor of religion.

"About four weeks since, three prostitutes were arrested in a house near the east end of the town, and imprisoned in the county jail in this village. Two days after their imprisonment, two children were the only occupants of the house. One child was three years old, the other five. During these two days, these two children had no food except what they begged. The mother had an infant, and took it to the prison. Some months before, her husband was arrested and put in prison for stealing.

"Five merchants were on the boat on the Erie canal. At Lockport they took a harlot on the boat, and discharged her after she had gone twenty-four miles with them.

"They became diseased before they reached Utica, and employed a physician. One stopped till he was restored to health; the others went on, and suffered, and some came nigh to the gate of death.

"In Whitesborough, several boys, some only about fourteen years old, and others more aged, have been under medical treatment by this sinful disease, in 1835; also more aged persons. Probably not less than fifty cases have occurred in the village this year. The canal is the grand corrupter. Utica, too, exerts a polluting influence on the place. Some Orishany and Utica boys call on physicians in this village; also persons from a greater dis

tance.

"There is a young man now diseased in this town. He went to Buffalo, and ignorant of the arts and the end of the lewd, he fell under their influence, and is now at his father's, a diseased, emaciated, and miserable wretch; a bitterness to her that bore him-a shame to his father— and burden to himself.

A doctor of divinity told me that nearly a dozen ministers of the Gospel (of different denominations) had been deposed from the ministry for their licentiousness, in the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady. He

repeated the names of these licentious ministers, and told me he knew the men.

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An agent for my Journal told me that he called at a certain place, to ask permission to hold a meeting in the house of worship there. The chief man refused to let him have the house, adding, there is none of the vice of licentiousness in this place.

The agent passed on, and learned at the next place at which he stopped, that the brother of the man who told him that there was no vice in the place, was an elder in that church, and that this elder had seduced a minister's daughter; that this elder was allowed to retain his standing without being disciplined; that the church was groaning under the influence of his sin, and dwindling away; and that the wicked scoffed at religion. This church is in Western New-York. The case I record as correctly as my memory enables me to relate it. Perhaps I have added or omitted some important part: if so, I have not knowingly done it.

Erie Canal.

“September 24th.-Conversed with the helmsman on the boat. He confessed that he was lewd; and he expressed his opinion that most of those who navigated boats were licentious. Several years since he went with a number of youths to New-York; that they took him into a brothel. All except one were soon after diseased.

"Sept. 26th, Rochester, New-York.-Arrived at 6 A. M. put up at the Clinton House. Common fame says, that

about four miles from Rochester there is a house where certain lewd persons of the baser sort, though at the very top of society, associate for impure purposes. Ladies of unquestionable reputation visit the place. There are

"Probably the Editor of the New-York Observer had not heard of this when he stated, since Mr. M'Dowall's death, that more ministers had become licentious since the publication of Mr. M'Dowall's Journal than had been known to be for many years preceding,

springs near the house, and medicinal properties attributed to the waters.

"A stage driver kept girls in Rochester for lewd men. He boarded the females in virtuous families. He had several women in his custody. He stole from one of them, and fled for safety. It was his custom to seek out men for these women. At one of the hotels in this city, a waiter used to receive money from strangers putting up at that hotel to furnish them with women. A root doctor was indicted for procuring abortions in this city. He boasted of having procured sixty-six in a few months. The trial never came on. It was suppressed, but known to those who managed the public prosecution.

"A physician said that he believed one half of Rochester was guilty of licentiousness.

"At the High School in Rochester an obscene box was passed round among the scholars and young ladies. One young man saw it and frowned upon it. A price was asked for a sight of such things, and children asked their parents for money to see the lewd sight. Children kept the show; children bought those articles in Rochester, of one who kept them for sale. A pastor said it was difficult to get discipline enforced against licentious church members. I have heard of one church in this place that has one or more members undoubtedly of lewd character, and still the guilty member retains a standing in the church. I saw a man in Rochester who was recently deposed from the ministry for riding about the country with a woman (as his wife,) though he was not married to her. All these facts admonish us of the frailty of human nature, and should serve as beacons to warn us to beware of tampering with lewd thoughts, and to convince us of the necessity of being pure-entirely holy. Lord, surround me with such circumstances, and impress my mind with such a dread, and fear, and hate of sin, as effectually to protect me at all times from the commission of iniquity.