CIVIL INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES - THEIR CHRISTIAN ORIGIN AND CHARACTER - STATEMENT OF THE SOURCES OF PROOF OF THIS FACT - CHRISTIANITY THE PERVADING ELEMENT- OBJECT OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE REPUBLIC - SYMBOLS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENTS - CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTIONS AND STATE PAPERS- THE REVOLUTION INSPIRED BY RELIGION - CHRISTIAN ANNALS OF THE REPUBLIC - CHRISTIAN FAITH OF THE MEN WHO FORMED OUR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS - DUTY OF AMERICAN CITIZENS TO STUDY THE CHRISTIAN ORIGIN AND GENIUS OF THEIR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS.

The history and genius of the civil institutions of the United States must ever be a subject of profound thought and interest to the American citizen. Their establishment and progress to completed forms of government, and their influence and fruits upon thirty millions of people and on the nations of the earth, constitute a new era in the science of civil government and the progress of human liberty, and commend them to the reverent study of the statesman, the patriot, the Christian, and the citizen.

The institutions of the North American republic had their birth and baptism from the free inspirations and genius of the Christian religion. This fact has given to the state its political power and moral glory, and shed new light on the benign nature and adaptation of the Christian system to secure the highest political prosperity to a nation.

"Christianity is the principal and all-pervading element, the deepest and most solid foundation, of all our civil institutions. It is the religion of the people, - the national religion; but we have neither an established church nor an established religion. An established church implies a connection between church and state, and the possession of civil and political as well as of ecclesiastical and spiritual power by the former. Neither exist in this country; for the people have wisely judged that religion, as a general rule, is safer in their hands than in those of rulers. In the United States there is no toleration; for all enjoy equality in religious freedom, not as a privilege granted, but as a right secured by the fundamental law of our social compact. Liberty of conscience and freedom of worship are not chartered immunities, but rights and duties founded on the constitutional republication of reason and revelation."

The theory and faith of the founders of the civil and political institutions of the United States practically carried out these statements. They had no state church or state religion, but they constituted the Christian religion the underlying foundation and the girding and guiding element of their systems of civil, political, and social institutions. This proposition will be confirmed by the following summary of historic facts, which have an extended record in the various chapters of this volume.

First. The Christian inspirations and purpose of the founders and fathers of the republic.

It was a popular legend of the ancients, which gave to their laws, literature, and religion a sacred solemnity and power, that the founders of empires received immediate inspiration from the gods, and that their systems of government came from the responses of the deities who presided in their temples of religion. This myth, in a Christian sense, was a grand and glofious fact with the wise and skilful workmen who, under God, created and completed the civil institutions of the United States.

No claim to special inspiration from heaven is set up for the fathers of our republic. It would, however, be a violence to historic truth not to affirm and admit that they were under the special and constant guidance of an overruling Providence. The Bible, as the divine charter of their political rights, as well as of their hopes of immortality, they reverently studied, and on it laid the corner-stone of all their compacts and institutions. The Mosaic system of political jurisprudence, which "contains more consummate wisdom and common sense than all the legislators and political writers of the ancient nations" the founders of the American republic thoroughly understood, and incorporated its free spirit and democratic principles into their organic institutions.

Secondly. The Christian men who formed our civil institutions were trained and prepared for their work in scenes of conflict in which the truest ideas of liberty and religion were developed.

Great ideas, and the forward movements of the ages, have received their inspiration and impetus from civil and religious agitations and revolutions. This fact has its historic analogy in the conflicts that preceded the planting of a Christian republic on the North American continent. "The whole of the sixteenth century was a period of active preparation for future times; and all that is great in modern science may be said to have received its foundation in the agitations that grew out of that period of the world. It forms one of the grandest and richest eras in human history." Whilst it was an age replete with the most splendid triumphs in science and literature, it was pre-eminent, also, for its elaboration and vindication of the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty.

The persecutions of the Puritans in England for non-conformity, and the religious agitations and conflicts in Germany by Luther, in Geneva by Calvin, and in Scotland by Knox, were the preparatory ordeals for qualifying Christian men for the work of establishing the civil institutions on the American continent. "God sifted," in these conflicts, "a whole nation, that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness;" and the blood and persecution of martyrs became the seed of both the church and the state.

It was in these schools of fiery trial that the founders of the American republic were educated and prepared for their grand Christian mission, and in which their faith and characters became strong and earnest with Christian truth. They were trained in stormy times, in order to prepare them to elaborate and establish the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty and of just systems of civil government.

Brewster, and Winthrop, and Roger Williams, and Penn, and George Calvert, and Oglethorpe, and Otis, and Adams, and Jefferson, and Washington, with their illustrious co-laborers, could trace their true political parentage to Pym, and Hampden, and Wickliffe, and Milton, and Cromwell, and to the ages in which they vindicated the principles of liberty, and sealed, many of them, their faith by martyrdom.

Thirdly. Thus inspired and prepared, the Christian men of Puritan times and of the Keyolution presented and developed the true symbol of civil government.

A nation, in the embodied form and spirit of its institutions, is the symbol of some one leading idea. This rules its civil administration, directs its social crystallization, and forms its political, martial, and moral character.

The Hebrew commonwealth was the symbol of a theocratic government. Its rituals of religion and liberty maintained the form and diffused the spirit of freedom and of a true republican government. Its nationality, growing out of peculiar and local causes, after ages of historic grandeur, passed away. It was the first and the last type of a national theocratic republic.

The Roman empire, in its colossal unity and form, was the symbol of law, of the stately grandeur of a strong government, of the reign of military rule and conquest. Its fabled origin, and the mythical communion of its founder (Numa) with the divinities, gave a rigid religious cast to its civil and military institutions and transactions. The science of Roman jurisprudence educated the citizens of the empire in the cardinal virtues of loyalty and patriotism. Religion is a Roman word, signifying obligation to the government. A Roman citizen could no more be disloyal to his country than to the gods. This conviction gave to the government a religious character, and made it invincible in war and strong in governmental authority and influence. Cicero, in one of his addresses, refers to the religious element of the Roman empire in these words: - " However much we may be disposed to exalt our advantages, it is, nevertheless, certain that we have been surpassed in population by the Spaniards, in physical force by the Gauls, in shrewdness and cunning by Carthage, in the fine arts by Greece, and in mere native talents by some of our Italian fellow-countrymen ; but in the single point of attention to religion we have excelled all other nations, and it is to the favorable influence of this circum- stance upon the character of the people that I account for our success in acquiring the political and military ascendency we now enjoy throughout the world."

This pervading religious element produced, also, the loftiest martial enthusiasm in the Roman citizen. "The attachment of the Roman soldier," says Gibbon, " was inspired by the united influence of religion and honor." In union with these civil and martial virtues in Roman citizens, the symbol of their government resulted in producing and blending some of the milder virtues of social and domestic life. Female character was formed on the most finished models of pagan excellence; chastity was a golden virtue; and to educate sons for statesmen or soldiers was the highest ambition of the most illustrious ladies of Rome.

The symbol of the Greek republic was the ideal and the actual of Beauty. "The Greek," says a writer, "saw the world almost only on the side of beauty. His name for it was Kosmos, divine order and harmony." This idea, in the mind of the Greek, was developed in artistic creations, and in the ornamental more than the useful. The fine arts - literature, painting, statuary, music, poetry, and oratory - were the natural and genial results of the Grecian symbol. It gave to the Greek religion and government the same ideal features, making the first a realm peopled with gods, and the second a system of but little political force or permanency. The Greek democracies were subject to sudden changes, and were wrecked amid the wild and tumultuous waves of liberty. "It was said of the popular assemblies of Athens that if every Athenian were a Socrates, still every Athenian assembly would be a mob," The political and civil institutions of the Greeks accomplished less, perhaps, for liberty and the rights of man than any other ancient republic.

The symbol of the British empire, from its earliest history till the present, was national aggrandizement and selfishness, originating in the feudal system. The landed estates became invested in a few, who grew into an aristocracy of wealth, of social caste, and of political power. The people were reduced to vassals, and had but few political rights and privileges. This aristocracy of wealth and of social position converted the government into a system of political selfishness and of national aggrandizement, at the expense, often, of international justice, honor, and right. Commerce, and territorial expansion, and the perpetuity of its nobility with all their hereditary privileges, have ever been the leading purposes of the British government. The prestige and unlimited power of this symbol of the empire of Great Britain have realized the words of Webster, who, alluding to the gigantic nationality of the empire, said that she " had dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeats, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circle the earth daily with one continued and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."

The symbol of the French empire is glory. This has ever been the star of destiny that has ruled the nation and converted its institutions into a mission of martial glory. The great evil of this symbol of the French empire was, that it displaced the moral basis on which every nation must permanently rest. Atheism, practical and theoretical, has ruled the French empire, and its fatal power has more than once threatened the very life of the nation. " Open the annals of the French nation," said Lamartine, " and listen to the last words of the political actors of the drama of our liberty. One would think that God was eclipsed from the soul, - that his name was unknown in the language. The republic of these men without a God has been quickly stranded. The liberty won by so much heroism and so much genius has not found in France a conscience to shelter it, a God to avenge it, a people to defend it against the atheism which is called glory. All ended in a soldier. An atheistic republic cannot be heroic."

The founders of the Christian republic of North America adopted the symbol of civil and religious liberty as the great idea and end of all their civil institutions. They had the most glorious conceptions of the genius of the Christian religion, not only as a system of spiritual doctrines, but as designed and adapted to create and carry on the best and freest forms of civil government. They held to the faith that civil government was an ordination of God, and that its administration ought to harmonize with the law and will of God as revealed in the Bible. This great object was kept before the minds of the founders and fathers of the republic, and their beau-ideal of civil government was that which was found in the Christian religion. As the fruits of this symbol, or leading idea and purpose, contrast the Christian republic of North America with the fruits of ancient and modern nations.

"What is the spirit," says Grimke', "of the civil and political institutions of America? Is it not free, magnanimous, and wise, frank and courteous, generous and just, in a degree far surpassing that of ancient Greece ? Who would suffer, much less institute, a comparison between our natiorial government and the council of Amphictyon, or between our State systems and the compound of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy to be found in the Grecian States? As fountains of noble thoughts and high aspirations after public power, duty, and happiness, far above the triumphs of antiquity, who does not look with a virtuous pride, with grateful exultation, on the Senate of the United States, on the Chamber of National Representatives, and on the Supreme Court of the United States? If the system of the Grecian excelled that of other ancient states in its fitness to develop intellectual and moral freedom and power, who will not acknowledge, in the civil and political institutions of our country, a far superior capacity for the same ends ? What is there in the constitution or administration of the Greek governments that can fill the soul of a freeman with such a sense of his own dignity, power, and duty as our written constitutions, the jury system, and the laws of evidence, the scheme of representation, the responsibility of rulers, and the independence of the judiciary ? And what, in the most glorious age of Greece, was comparable to the genius and past fruits of our government and coiintry, - so august, magnanimous, and benevolent in the eyes of the world, - and to the prospect before us, not of selfishness, ambition, and violence, at home or abroad, but of harmony, virtue, wisdom, culture, at home ; abroad, of duty, of usefulness, and love to all the nations of the earth?"

Fourthly. The Christian religion has a clear and full recognition in the civil constitutions and state papers of the fathers of the republic.

Official records express the faith and theory of those who form and administer the civil institutions of a nation. The fathers and founders of the American republic, being Christian men and designing to form a Christian republic, would be expected to imbue their state papers and their civil constitutions with the spirit and sentiments of the Christian religion. This fact is historic in the civil institutions of the country, and gives to its official documents a Christian feature and influence which belong only to American constitutions and American political annals. During the Revolution, the States assumed their separate sovereignties and formed State constitutions. These civil charters, as this work will show, were full and explicit in their incorporation of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion, and their constitutions prohibited men from holding office who did not publicly assent to their faith in the being of a God, the divinity of the Bible, and in the distinctive evangelical truths of Christianity.

The state papers of the Continental Congress were also full of the spirit and sentiments of the Christian system. Under the great seal of state, official documents were sent out to the nation and the world which affirmed the "merits and mediation of Jesus Christ to obtain forgiveness and pardon for sins," and prayed "that pure and undefiled religion may be universally diffused ;" " that vice and irreligion may be banished, and virtue and piety established by grace ;" " that the nation may be made a holy nation, and that the religion of our divine Bedeemer, with all its benign influences, may cover the earth as the waters do the sea ;" " that God would grant to his Church the plentiful effiisions of divine grace, and pour out his Holy Spirit upon all ministers of the gospel;" "that he would establish the independence of these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue," and "diflfuse and establish habits of sobriety, order, morality, and piety;" that he would "take under his guardianship all schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of virtue and piety, and cause pure religion and virtue to flourish," and that he would "fill the world with his glory." All their bills of rights, and remonstrances against the usurpations of the British government, glowed with the fervid and impassioned sentiments of liberty and religion, and their high Christian tone and diction form a rich part of the Christian political literature of the republic.

Fifthly. The popular utterances of the Christian men who formed our civil institutions declare the Christian religion to be the symbol of the republic.

Puritan divines and lawgivers, and the statesmen and patriots of the Revolution, unite their testimony on this point. They affirmed, in every form, the indissoluble union of religion and liberty. They uttered no such political atheism as " liberty first and religion afterwards;" but, maintaining the divine origin of both, they constituted their indissoluble union in the system of civil government which they formed. In the pulpit, before popular assemblies, in the forums of public justice, before the tribunes of the people, in the halls of legislation, in the public press, - in tracts, essays, books, printed sermons and orations, - did the men of Puritan and Keyolutionary times utter their great thoughto, and declare the union of liberty and religion. A divine enthusiasm glowed in all their popular utterances, that swept with electric energy through the public mind and conscience, and which prepared the people for liberty, independence, and a Christian nationality. This historic fact will be conclusively established in the present volume.

Sixthly. The revolution for liberty, independence, and constitutional government had its source in religion, and was the cause of its energy and final victory.

History, as it records the events of ages, and the progress of nations to higher conditions of freedom and prosperity through revolutions, declares that " religion has been the companion of liberty in all her conflicts and in all her battles." The American Revolution adds another grand illustration of this great historic truth. That splendid victory for liberty and constitutional governments was not won by numbers, nor military genius, nor by armies and navies, nor by any combination of human means, but only through liberty intensified and made heroic through religion. This was the breath of its life, and carried it sublimely on till victory crowned our arms and our banners waved over a free republic. It was the inspirations of religion that girded our heroes for war, that guided our statesmen in civil councils, that fired and filled the hearts of the people with hope and courage, and gave to all the scenes of that grand conflict a Christian beauty, power, and glory.

Its influence flowed from every source. The cradle-songs of childhood ; the home scenes of prayer and piety ; the common and academic schools of the country; the Christian colleges of the republic ; the literature of the age ; the songs of patriotism and religion ; the eloquence of the forum and the pulpit ; the councils of civil cabinets and the military camps; public men and private citizens of ail classes, became the medium of diffusing the religious spirit and power of the Revolution. This fact induced Washington to say, " I am sure that there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interpo- sition in their affairs than those of the United States ; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which was so often manifested during the Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them. He most be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations."

Seventhly. The Christian annals of the republic declare that religion was the ruling influence and moral power of the republic.

The historic grandeur and moral significance of the civil and political annals of the American nation consist in their Christian spirit and declarations. The inspirations and ideas of civil and religious liberty which they embody ; the fundamental and inalienable rights of human nature which they announce and defend ; the eternal laws of civil and political science which they affirm ; the basis of just and orderly organic governments, and the civil structures which have risen and rest upon it, and which the annals of the republic present and unfold ; the Christian nationality which they historically declare, and which they have contributed to form; the spirit and language in which the annais of the nation are written, and which permeate the state papers of the republic from the Puritan to the Revolutionary era, and in some good degree from the era of the Revolution to the present time ; the philosophy and language of American history and American literature, whether poetic, scientific, educational, political, or religious, - all these constitute the facta and moral glory of the annals of the nation, and unite in recording and presenting them in a Christian form and spirit. Divest American annals of this their grandest and most important feature, and their value and glory would vanish.

The reverent and careful student of the annals of the American republic will find them imbued with the "benign, masculine, thoughtful spirit of the Christian religion." This feature gives them an interest, influence, and importance, a political and moral pre-eminence, over the annals of every other nation, whether ancient or modern.

Eighthly. Christian monuments and altars of religion and liberty.

Nations which are rich in historic grandeur have numerous memorials whose inspirations and influences aid in the diffusion of a healthy public sentiment and in the formation of a true nationality. They educate the people to admire and imitate the heroic virtues of the men and scenes of moral or martial glory which the memorials are designed to commemorate and perpetuate. The custom is coeval with time, and has a divine sanction. The annals of the Hebrew commonwealth recordthe consecration of numerous altars, places, and temples to religion and liberty. These were the symbols of their faith, and from them flowed beneficent and copious influences to form the intense religious nationality of that remarkable people, and to mould all their institutions* It was a divine injunction, as well as a work of piety and patriotism, for the Hebrew people to "walk about Zion, and go round about; tell the towers thereof; mark well her bulwarks ; consider her palaces ;" that they might tell it to future generations that " this God was our God."

The annals of American piety and patriotism have many similar memorials. A republic, the outgrowth of the Christian religion, whose history glows with the manifest preseoce and providences of God, and whose freedom is baptized with the sufferings and blood of martyred patriots and saints, would hallow many memorials of historic associations and grandeur. The American republic is rich in the monuments of piety and patriotism, and their influences and associations have had, and continue to have, the highest historic value and instruction for every American citizen, and are fraught with some of the noblest and purest lessons of religion and liberty. Their geniai and inspiring power has been diffusive and beneficent in infusing fresher love for our civil institutions, and deepening and strengthening that intense enthusiasm ibr our freedom and free institutions which is characteristic of every loyal American. American history, in the Christian and patriotic scenes, achievements, and men which it records, is peculiarly grand and rich in this element and influence of our national sentiment and power. The altars of religion, the monuments of nature and art, the scenes of martial and moral glory, the halls of constitutional freedom, and the temples of legislation and organized civil governments, around all of which cluster memorable associations and glowing inspirations, are eminently worthy of record, and should be reverently studied by every patriot and Christian.

Ninthly, The Christian faith and character, personal and political, of most of the men who originated and constructed our civil institutions, affirm the presiding genius and power of the Christian religion.

Sacred history, and the institutions which it unfolds, have their life and glory from the good and great men whom the providence and Spirit of God raised up and qualified for their varied and important missions. " In nothing does the superiority of the Bible over all other books appear more manifest than in its graphic and inimitable delineations of human character. From first to last it opens to our view, besides poets and orators, a magnificent succession of living characters, - kings and statesmen, heroes and patriarchs, prophets and apostles," who constituted the glory of the age and nation in which they acted, and whose character and influence are a rich part of the political and moral wealth of the world.

The American republic, like the Hebrew commonwealth, has its chief glory from the good and great men who have adorned its civic and Christian history, and were the active agents in building up the organic forms of the social and political life of the republic. The Puritans, and the men of colonial history, were stalwart, noble Christian men. The men antecedent to and actors in the eventful drama of the Revolution were, most of them, men whose minds were illuminated by divine influences, and whose characters and lives bore the superscription and the image of Christ. All were not public professors of the Christian religion, but almost all acknowledged its divinity and necessity to the existence, welfare, and stability of the state. Their Christian faith and characters not only constitute the enduring glory of our republic, but are also the sources of the Christian features of our civil institutions.

The true and lasting fame of the American nation - its political and moral glory - consists in the eminent and illustrious characters which have, in eachsuccessive age of the republic, adorned the state and directed its political destinies. Trained in a Christian school and formed under Christian influences, and deriving their ideas of civil and religious liberty from the Bible, their practical faith led them to adopt it as the rule of life and to consult it as the source of their civil and political views and principles, as well as of their religious belief and hopes. The monument of these men of Puritan and Revolutionary times is in the great Christian ideas and truths they elaborated and incorporated into the civil institutions of the iiation, and in the Christian virtues, public and private, which they bore as the fruits of their Christian faith.

The leaders of our Bevolution were men of whom the simple truth is the highest praise. They were singularly sagacious, sober, thoughtful, wise. Lord Chatham spoke only the truth when he said to Franklin of the men who composed the first Colonial Congress, " The Congress is the most honorable assem- bly of statesmen since those of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the most virtuous times. They were most of them profound scholars, and studied the history of mankind that they might know men. They were so familiar with the lives and thoughts of the wisest and best minds of the past, that a classic aroma hangs about their writings and their speeches ; and they were profoundly convinced of what statesmen know and mere politicians never perceive, - that ideas are the life of a people, - that the conscience, not the pocket, is the real citadel of a nation."

"Events," says a living American divine, "march in the train and keep step to the music of that divine Logos which was, and is, and is to come. In order to act the right part in them, and in order to understand them when they do come to pass, our intelligence must be in vital sympathy with that of their invisible Author and Arbiter. The divine purpose which is forcing its way into existence, and preparing for itself a local habitation and a name, must be reproduced in our own consciousness and embodied in our own life. This is the only way for men to become coworkers with the Most High in executing his sovereign behests.

"This is the ancient method by which from age to age mighty nations, and all the elect spirits of the race, have comprehended their heaven-appointed missions, fulfilled their tasks, and rendered themselves illustrious in human annals. This is the secret of that sacred enthusiasm which transformed Eastern shepherds and nomads of the desert into venerable patriarchs, seers, warriors, and kings, which changed fishermen into apostles and evangelists, and which is able still to bless the world - with heroes, saints, and martyrs.

"It is the prevalence of some divine idea in the soul, actuating the whole being and illuminating the path of life. Let a man grasp, in honest conviction, a real thought of God, and spend bis days in striving to realize it, and he is on the highway to glory, honor, and immortality. Let a whole people grasp, in honest conviction, some sacred cause, some principle of immortal justice, and consecrate themselves to the work of vindicating that cause and enthroning that principle, and we have the grandest spectacle ever witnessed on earth."

The grandeur of such a spectacle was seen in the faith and purpose of the fathers and founders of the American republic. These men, as well as the people, did grasp a great and " real thought of God," and devoted themselves to its glorious realization ; and the result was the vindication of eternal right and justice, and the creation and establishment of civil institutions in conformity to the principles and teachings of the Christian religion. It is in the light of this great historic fact that the faith and labors of the Puritans and the men of the Bevolution are to be read and studied.

This summary of the Christian facts and principles which belong to the history, formation, and progress of the civil institutions of the American republic impresses the patriotic and pious duty of giving diligent attention and study to the annals of our nation and the origin and genius of our institutions.

The ancient republics regarded it as a high political necessity and duty to educate their citizens into the history and spirit of their peculiar institutions. " The young men of the Roman empire," says Gibbon, " were so devoted to the study of the genius and structure of Roman law and government, that the celebrated Institutes of Justinian were addressed to the youth of his dominion who had devoted themselves to the science of Roman jurisprudence, and they had assurances from the reigning emperor that their skill and ability would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the government of the republic."

"The Greek citizen," says Grimke', " was subjected, from the cradle to the grave, to the full, undivided, never-varying influence of the pecidiar institutions of his own country. The spirit of those institutions was forever living and moving around him, - was constantly acting upon him at home and abroad, in the family, at the school, in the temple, on national occasions. That spirit was unceasicgly speaking to his eye and ear; it was his very breath of life; his soul was its habitation, till the battle-field or the sea, banishment, the dungeon, or the hemlock, stripped him equally of his country and his life."

If these duties were so faithfully discharged by the people of the ancient republics, how much higher and more important that the American people should know the history and nature of the civil institutions of their Christian republic, and live under their constant and full power," and thus be qualified to discharge with fidelity and conscientiousness all the duties of an American citizen!

"Be assured," says Grimke' (changing a word of the passage), "if the American citizen rightly comprehends the genius of Christianity, the spirit of our institutions, the character of the age in which he lives, he must be deeply imbued with the benign, masculine, thoughtful spirit of religion. Let me commend to the profound study of every American citizen the institutions of their country, and the noble illustrations of them to be found in the writings of our historians and statesmen, judges, orators, scholars, and divines. Let me commend to their reverence, gratitude, and imitation the character of Washington, the noblest personification of patriotic duty, dignity, and usefulness that men ever have seen. Let me commend to them to enter with a deep seriousness, yet with a glowing enthusiasm, into the spirit of their institutions and of the age in which they live."

Nothing would have a happier influence on the public men and politics of our day, nothing raise, expand, and purify them, nothing would so exalt their conceptions and aims, or give them higher significance or greater weight, than a thorough and candid study of the Christian faith, characters, and actions of the great and good men who founded our civil institutions and watched over their history and development.

This duty, if faithfully discharged, would unfold the divine source of our civilization and system of civil government, give a higher appreciation of the inheritance received from our fathers, and a firmer purpose to preserve and transmit them, unimpaired, in their original purity and glory, to future ages and generations.

This study would impress the fact stated by Sir William Jones, a great English jurist, who said, with great truth and beauty, that "we live in the midst of blessings till we are utterly insensible of their greatness and of the source from whence they flow. We speak of our civilization, our arts, our freedom, our laws, and forget entirely how large a share is due to Christianity. Blot Christianity out of the pages of man's history, and what would his laws have been? What his civilization? Christianity is mixed up with our very being and our daily life; there is not a familiar object around us which does not wear a different aspect because the life of Christian love is on it, - not a law which does not owe its gentleness to Christianity, - not a custom which cannot be traced, in all its holy, healthful parts, to the gospel."