can not determine the principles of communities, yet, when those practices are criminal and those individuals assume to be prophets and apostles, all men ought to hesitate before committing themselves to their jurisdiction, believing their pretensions, or imitating their examples.
If the following pages, for which I solicit your serious, and candid perusal, accomplish no more, may they at least lead you to a thorough and careful re-investigation of your grounds of faith; while they teach you to remember that new thoughts are not, therefore, true thoughts; nor new light true light. To industriously declaim against the evils existing in the world, does not render proposed remedies necessarily good; and wise men should deliberate before rushing
I am your sincere well-wisher,
THE AUTHOR.
New York, July, 1857
