These bad times a product of bad morals...

In 1837, an economic Panic brought on by excessive speculation launched America into a depression with many bank closings, a restriction of credit and high unemployment. In May of 1837, the Rev. Samuel J. May, an ardent abolitionist, crusader for women's rights and educational reform, and, at the time, minister at Second Parish in Scituate MA (now First Parish Norwell) preached a sermon that was later published as "These Bad Times the Product of Bad Morals" Some excerpts:

"...let any one go to our cities, and he will see in almost every face the expression of anxiety, and hear from almost every lip the language of lamentation and alarm. Thousands, who a few weeks ago were at ease in their possessions, were accounted by others and believed themselves to be rich, have suddenly been waked up from their dream of prosperity, and find themselves stricken with poverty. And thousands more, who have been honestly earning a comfortable livelihood by the labor of their hands are now-as it were at a stroke-thrown out of employment, and know not where or how to get their daily bread.

And yet more than all this have we to fear. The obligations between the merchants of this country and Europe are supposed to be very large. The failures that have happened here will undoubtedly cause similar misfortunes there...

I do not presume to think that I am wise enough to understand all the proximate causes of the present disasters of our merchant people. But is is very plain to my view, that they may all be traced back to this great ultimate cause, that the people have forsaken the law of the Lord, and have not obeyed his voice (italics in the original)...I trust, indeed I have no doubt, that great good will issue from this present evil, but the benefit will extend only so far as the people are brought to see the errors of their ways, and to amend them...

My hearers, I conjure you not to look at the commercial disasters of our fellow citizens with the eyes of political partisans. Look at them in a moral point of view. Look at them in the light of Christianity...

Time forbids me to speak of all the sins that have become prevalent in the land. I can mention only two or three. They are idolatry, covetousness and oppression. Enough to ruin any people!...

There are two objects of worship in our country, whose votaries are tenfold more numerous than are the servants of the true God,-Office and Wealth. These are our popular idols...

It is said by foreigners that you cannot be an hour with a citizen of the United States, without hearing something about dollars and cents, or about some pecuniary speculations...Our cities are crowded with chapels, in which the service of Mammon is busily conducted for six days, if no more, of every week...But worse, far worse than all, the unrequited toil of millions of the poor and needy is offered upon the alter of this insatiable divinity, wet with the tears and blood of our victims...

Think not that I would discourage enterprise. I delight to see it. But I long to see it expanded in the pursuit of what is incomparably more valuable than silver and gold. I long to see rational, moral, immortal beings earnestly engaged in endeavors to lay up those treasures, which moth and rust cannot corrupt...treasures of knowledge and virtue and piety, which cannot be shipwrecked, but will float with them, ay, bear them up over the waves of trouble, through all the storms of adversity, to the haven of eternal safety...

My heart's desire and prayer for my fellow citizens is, that they may have a happy issue out of their affliction. happy indeed it will be, if they are thereby withdrawn from their idols, and brought back to the service of the true and living God...Seek happiness, I beseech you, where alone the happiness of rational and moral beings can be found-in the treasures of knowledge, virtue and piety...They shall endure when all else shall fail."

Blessings