It must be confessed, that
although religion cherishes our best feelings, it also often proves a
cloak for the worst."
I told him that our clergy were superior to this weakness, most of them
manifesting a proper sense of the bounty of Providence, by eating and
drinking of the best, (not very sparingly neither); and that in New-York,
we considered some of our preachers the best judges of wine among us. Soon
afterwards, we again sallied forth in quest of adventures, and bent our
course towards the suburbs.
We had not gone far, before we saw several persons looking at a man
working hard at a forge, in a low crazy building. On approaching him, we
found he was engaged in making nails, an operation which he performed
with great skill and adroitness; and as soon as he had made as many
as he could take up in his hand at once, he carried them behind his
little hovel, and dropped them into a narrow deep well. Some of the
by-standers wished to beg a few of what he seemed to value so lightly,
and others offered to give him bread or clothes in exchange for his
nails, but he obstinately resisted all their applications; in fact,
little heeding them, although he was almost naked, had a starved, haggard
appearance, and evidently regarded the food they proffered with a
wishful eye.
The lookers on told us the blacksmith had been for years engaged in this
business of nail-making; he worked with little intermission, scarcely
allowing himself time for necessary sleep or refreshment; that all the
fruits of his incessant labour were disposed of in the manner we had
just seen; and that he had already three wells filled with nails, which
he had carefully closed.
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