ment shall cease; when there shall be no wickedness to require the repressing arm of power; when terrour to the evildoers, and praise to them that do well, shall no longer be needed, because none will do evil, though there be no ruler to punish, and all will do well from higher and better motives than the praise of man."

In view of the auspicious changes in the economy of society, to which we have now adverted, it will be permitted to the philanthropist to felicitate himself and his species. Referring ourselves to the "coming on of time," it is a cheering vision which spreads itself before us. The multiform exactions, scourges and oppressions, growing out of the various forms of corrupt government, done away,-no odious restrictions fettering any department of human industry,no horse-leech customs and imposts, under the plea of needful revenue, sucking the vital current from the veins of commercial enterprise,-no unjust monopolies, aggrandizing one part of the community at the expense of another,—no retaliatory tariffs, obstructing the kindly intercourse of nations, of nations now merged into one great fraternity of love, mutual helpers, instead of envious rivals, of each other's weal. Time and many changes are doubtless requisite for this grand consummation; but time, and truth, and providence, will eventually work the issue, and the charge of a vain Utopianism will attach, not to those who hold, but to those who deny it.

As the spirit of Christianity is essentially the spirit of freedom, it were naturally to be expected, that those forms of government which encroach least on the personal rights and liberties of the subject, should be least obnoxious to those invasions which threaten all others, and should therefore bid fairest for perpetuity. Mr. Dymond remarks, that "if the world were wise and good, the best form of government would be that of democracy, in a very simple state;" and again, in speaking of the future probable condition of the world, he says, "there is reason to think that the popular branches of all governments will progressively increase in influence, and perhaps eventually predominate. This appears to be the natural consequence of the increasing power of public opinion....If public opinion governs, it must govern by some agency by which public opinion is expressed; and this expression can in no way so naturally be effected, as by *Dymond's Essays, p. 266.

some modification of popular authority. These considerations, which appear obvious to reason, are enforced by experience. There is a manifest tendency in the world to the increase of the power of the public voice; and the effect is seen in the new constitutions which have been established in the New World and the Old."

It becomes then a question replete with interest to the American citizen, whether the civil polity which we enjoy has so much affinity, in its leading principles, with the genius of Christianity, as to insure its permanence amidst the wreck of systems not possessing the same vital elements. Although, from our being a strictly autocratical people, we are exempt from many of the dangers which continually threaten the stability and the being of other governments, yet, viewed in relation to the predicted influences of Christianity, there are doubtless evils and perils connected with the structure of our civil institutions, of a most menacing aspect, such indeed as may possibly, in the end, necessitate the dissolution of the entire fabric. Our principal danger arises from the boundless scope which republicanism gives to the promptings of ambition. Where the highest prizes are in the reach of the humblest citizen, it must require a virtue well nigh superhuman, to withstand the temptation to secure those prizes by corrupt means. But in accomplishing this, a widely extended agency of panders and partisans must be employed. The relations of prominent public men are almost infinitely ramified through the nation, and hence it is obvious that where the principal is one who evinces but a slight regard for considerations of morality in compassing his ends, the accessories will usually find the barrier equally weak, and thus a gradual but general relaxation of the eternal rules of right will be apt to spread through society. This, moreover, is an evil which will be likely to grow with the growth of our territorial, numerical, and commercial greatness. The more vast, distinguished and powerful the political body, the higher the honour of being ranked as the political head; and as in all lotteries, the greater the prize, the greater the hazards which men will run for it, so in the tempting game for power, it is to be feared, that increasing corruption will mark the progress of our republic to increasing grandeur. How deep and deadly an influence is exerted in this way on the tone of morals in the community, we are probably, for the most part, but little aware, nor how VOL. I.

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serious the danger which from this source threatens the permanence of our institutions. If virtue, even more than intelligence, is the grand safeguard of a popular government, how fearfully is this security weakened by the prevalence of a lax morality in the conduct of political schemes!

Again; in taking a Christian view of this subject, we cannot be insensible to an unhappy tendency of governmental matters to become the grand engrossing theme of all classes. The government, in its various aspects, is the great Maelstrom which sucks in and swallows up " in its vortiginous and giddy whirl," nearly all the interest, the zeal, the mental energy, and enthusiasm, of all orders of society. But could not this vast expenditure of interest and zeal be bestowed upon higher objects? Does not Christianity propose higher objects? And does not the government, therefore, by abstracting the general mind from paramount interests, present a serious obstacle to the elevation of the moral nature of man? Could but the same amount of thought, feeling, and effort, go forth in schemes of benevolence for promoting the substantial happiness of the race, what blessings would they not pour upon a fallen world!

Once more; we have little sympathy with that philosophical security which sees no danger to our republic in the demon influences of party spirit and party strife, especially as evinced in the issues of the daily and weekly press. Viewing the subject as Christians, and not as politicians, how can our augury but be dark and dismal, when we contemplate the press as the organ of party? How redolent of wrath its emanations! How gorged with the venom of unholy passion! How replete with the language of abuse and defamation! How instinct with the spirit of falsification and slander! How heaven-wide at variance with the meekness, gentleness, and long-suffering of Christ! How destructive of all the tender charities of life! Can we then avoid the conviction, that a most disastrous influence is bearing down from this quarter upon society, and overwhelming, as with an avalanche, the peaceful virtues of the Spirit,those very attributes of individual and social man, upon which the permanence of civil institutions mainly depends? Yet as these evils are necessarily incident to an extended representative government, how can we hope for a radical cure, but by some process which shall lessen the value of the objects exciting the contention? And how can this be

done, but by the eventual breaking down of the huge fabric of our government into simpler elements?

Such, we conceive, are some of the evils and dangers growing out of the very structure of a government, which is at the same time beyond question the best modelled of any civil polity on earth. And if the picture be not overcharged, we ask whether, in such a state of things, our divine religion can have its perfect work, or secure any very considerable advances? Is it, moreover, a state of things upon which the people of God are to look with an eye of indifference, and as if no remedial influence were to emanate from them? Is not their agency to be subsidized in that great change which is destined to come over the face of all existing institutions? Are they to say, "Let the dead bury their dead," and to let the interests of this world be jeoparded, while they are anxiously looking after those of another? Not, as before remarked, that we expect them directly to assail the established order of things, but to endeavour, by the silent infusion of a salutary leaven, to effect the transformation of the whole system. Is such a political amendment a matter of indifference to them? Because they are Christians, or Christian ministers, shall they cease to be citizens, and sell their birthright? Is it not as important to them as to others, that a sound social constitution should bless the land in which they live, in which all their earthly interests are concentred, and in which their children are soon to take their station, and find their weal or wo? Shall they be deterred by the senseless and malignant clamour of "church and state," from asserting their just prerogatives under the charter of our common liberties? Though popular prejudice may array itself against such participation, and say,

""Twere well, could you permit the world to live
As the world pleases.- What's the world to you?"

yet they may answer,

"Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk,
Sweet as charity, from human breasts.

I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,

And exercise all functions of a man.

Pierce my vein,

Take of the crimson stream meandering there,

And catechise it well; apply the glass,

Search it, and prove now if it be not blood,
Congenial with thine own; and if it be,

What edge of subtlety canst thou suppose,
Keen enough, wise and skilful as thou art,
To cut the link of brotherhood by which

One common Maker bound me to the kind?"

It would doubtless be peculiarly acceptable to that class of men who find the institutes of Christianity a special annoyance to them, in constructing and carrying on their chosen system of civil polity, that all dissentients from their views should quietly withdraw from the contest, and give them the entire possession of the field. It is in this way that signal advantages have already accrued to the contemners of Heaven's scheme of political regeneration, and Christians instead of standing forth as a grand conservative party—not in party organization-have rather retreated from the din and dust of the political arena, and, from the loop-holes of their pious privacy, have been mere spectators of the "vain stir." But "a change has now come o'er the spirit" of the times, and though we would not incite either the ministers, or the members of the church, to rush into the whirlwind of party contention, or enlist in a wild and radical crusade against our present institutions, yet we would not have them forego their inalienable rights, nor, because they are inheritors of another world, to disfranchise themselves in this. And to the ministry in particular, we would respectfully suggest that they should stand less upon the privileges of their order, as a consecrated and official class, and mingle more with their fellow-men, placing their chief reliance for usefulness rather upon moral character, than upon official rank, or conventional repute. While they thus disarm the prejudices of men, and bridge over, as it were, the gulf that separates a distinct order from the general fraternity of the race, they will be able to bear with a larger measure of personal influence directly on the secular interests of society, and that too without jeoparding the higher departments of their calling.

The transition from the appointed triumphs of Christianity in the new-modelling of the social organization of the world, to its effects in the abolition of War, is at once easy and natural. Despotism is the foster-mother of war, and the extinction of the former will scarcely fail to be the precursor of that of the latter. The expectation of such a result is certainly warranted by the soberest dictates of reason and of revelation. In casting our thoughts forward to that bright period, towards which the universal groaning creature is "stretching forth the head," it is impossible to conceive of