the Bible. Where the Scriptures have found men without any social bonds, there they have laid the foundations and reared the superstructure of institutions that have endured for ages. Where they have found society loose and disjointed, and formed upon principles that must ensure its overthrow; there, as fast as they could exert their influence, have they, without fail, reduced this chaos to order and beauty. And where they have found it unrefined and impure, gross and cruel; there have they, even in the most corrupted ages of Christianity, silently effected a change in the social relations which has gradually elevated the minds and habits of men to a visible and acknowledged superiority over all pagan lands.

There seem to be two sources from which man might of himself arrive at a considerable degree of social culture and enjoyment. The first is from the invention of some system of religion, which, by superstitiously influencing his fears and his hopes, would restrain him from crime, and by its imposing ceremonies and dark mysteries, influence him to virtue. The second is by the careful cultivation of those intellectual faculties which God has given him, by the exercise of which his more base and degrading propensities may be subdued, and his intellectual and moral nature be improved and elevated. But to show how insufficient these are to produce the end in view, look at the two celebrated nations of antiquity, which have the most to boast of in these respectsPersia and Rome. The religion of the Persians was the purest of all uninspired religions, and the most calculated to elevate the soul. In the heavenly bodies, they worshipped their unknown author, and in the two presiding principles they sought an explanation of the mingling of good and evil upon the earth, that

problem which has so long perplexed and confounded unenlightened reason. But their creed, however ingenious, could only exercise the intellect, and amuse the curiosity of its followers. It was destitute of all salutary influence upon their social relations. The history of Persia is a compendium of crimes, suffering and intolerance. A despot ruled the state, and polygamy, that despotism in miniature, gave law to the private and domestic relations of the people. In all that philosophy and moral culture alone can do for the social institutions, ancient Rome stands preeminent among all nations. Their religion was indeed gross and puerile in the extreme, exercising an unhappy influence upon the lower orders, but disbelieved by the priests who taught it, and by the worshippers who in secret, ridiculed it. Yet so far as the most ingenious and sublime speculations of their sages could refine and improve them, they were favoured beyond example. Look then at their history. In proportion as their philosophy improved, the integrity, the purity, the happiness of their social relations declined; until the state became the legalized organ of oppression and cruelty, the marriage bond the pledge of encouraged licentiousness, the domestic circle the scene of terror, and that love of country for which Rome was distinguished in the best days of the early republic, was extinguished in the blood. which flowed indiscriminately from her friends and her enemies.

I have anticipated much that might be said in regard to the relation which exists between the state and its citizens, as these relations are developed in pagan and antichristian countries, in the lectures on the influence of the Bible on human laws and government. If any man will examine the government of

Rome from the institution of the regal government, to the expulsion of Tarquin; from the consulship established by Brutus, to the magistracy of the military tribunes; from the usurpation of Cinna, to the supreme power of Augustus; from the empire of Augustus, to that of Nero; from Nero, to Valerian, and from Valerian to Constantine; he will see dissimulation, revolt, tumult, slaughter, revolution, despotism, servitude, peace and war, and where the evils of peace were not unfrequently the worst calamities. Often was that fair land deluged with blood from the ambition of rivals to the throne. And then again, new schemes of mutual ambition would carry fire and sword to the remote and peaceful nations, till the flames of civil war raged in almost every part of the world. The resources of some great mind, increased and irritated by his calamities, possessing all the vices and none of the virtues of his species, would develope itself in all its hideousness, and wreak its vengeance in atrocities that cannot be thought of without horror. While, as often, elated with success, and dazzled with the pomp and consequence of sta- · tion, it would again seek repose in brutal indulgence, or sanguinary persecutions. And how much better was ancient Greece, or Gaul, or Germany, or Britain ? How much better are the modern nations of paganism, where the power of Christian laws does not restrain their ferocity?

Just in the measure in which the influence of the Bible has been extended to the nations, have these evils been diminished, or entirely removed. "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me," says the anointed king of Israel, "and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in

the fear of God: and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." The relation existing between the state and its citizens, the Bible recognizes as of divine appointment. The foundation of civil government is the will of God. Life, liberty, and property, peace and order, public morals and religion, have never been left by the benevolent Author of our social existence, to chance, or anarchy, or the social compact. Government is an ordinance of heaven. "The powers that be, are ordained of God," not for their own honour and aggrandizement, but for the good of their subjects; not to gratify the pride, minister to the lusts, and subserve the ambition of rulers, but for the tranquillity, virtue, and prosperity of those they govern. Where, in pagan, and Mahometan lands, are rulers taught this important and salutary lesson from any such sources as make them feel its authority, or constrain them to respect the rights of the people? Or where, except in lands illumined by the light of super-natural revelation, do the people, on the one hand, know and feel that they have rights, and are themselves clothed with the authority to see that they are respected; or on the other, know and feel that government is an institution of heaven? Christian princes, it is true, have not always exerted the happy influence which the God of nations requires them to exert. Nor have Chris tian nations always respected their rulers, or asserted their own rights with firmness, and with the meekness of wisdom. But where have antichristian and pagan princes done it? And where have pagan nations, in a single instance, been influenced by any other motive than the restive, factious determination to put down

one despot for the sake of elevating another? But look through Christian lands, and see how often the prerogative of the prince has been limited, and the rights of man asserted by a free and virtuous people. Witness the condition of England from the time of Alfred to the present hour. Witness the condition of France, though more often scourged by severe persecutions, from the reign of Clovis to the accession. of Louis Philippe. Witness the triumph of Germany over Leo X. and the fifth Charles. And witness our own memorable Revolution. What had been the condition of this brave and high-minded people in those days of peril, but for the Bible? And what had been our condition at many a fearful crisis of our public affairs, since that period, had these American States not been restrained and governed by the spirit of that holy book? Our obligations to the religion of the Bible, are not always, in this respect, duly appreciated. Why is it, that at every popular election, instead of some petty broil, we are not involved in oceans of blood? It is because there is found, through the blessing of Almighty God, a mass of public virtue, a weight of moral principle; virtue and principle founded on the word of God; that subdues and restrains the "wrath of man." Why is it, that with every calamitous and disastrous measure of our government, we do not witness the scenes that were exhibited in Rome, under the reigns of Tiberius and Nero? It is because we have been taught from the lips of the divine Saviour himself, to "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." It is because his holy apostles have given us the injunctions, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; submi yourselves to every ordinance of man for the