REV. MR. PIKE’S ELECTION SERMON, I)EI.IVER.KD 1SEF0RE THE (Hotanment of i|t €ommmiteaIt| of ltaMc|asdts, JANUARY 7, 1857. ! ! A SERMON \ DELIVERED BEFORE HIS EXCELLENCY HENRY J. GARDNER, GOVERNOR, HIS HONOR H. W. BENCHLEY, LIEUTENANT- GOVEKNOK, JtoiwrabU taiuil, AND THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, THE ANNUAL ELECTION, WEDNESDAY," Jan. 7, 1857. By JOHN PIKE, FASTOR CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, ROWLBT. » BOSTON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 1 857 . ' * ■ 2S-£ (Cnimnnnintnltji nf JtasarljrattH. In Senate, January 8, 1857. Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to present the thanks of the Senate to the Rev. John Pike, for the Sermon delivered by him, on Wednesday last, before the Government of the Commonwealth, and to ask a copy for the press. And Messrs. Hunking, Warner and Taylor are appointed on said Committee. Attest : P. L. Cox, Cleric. ' (Cmnmnnnitaltli nf jEtasarjiitsflts. In Senate, January 14, 1857. The Committee appointed to tender the thanks of the Senate to the Rev. John Pike, for his Sermon, delivered before the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Government of the Commonwealth, and to request a copy for publication, have attended to the duty-assigned them, and respectfully report that they have received his compliance with the request, with a copy of the same, which is herewith submitted. They also report the accompanying Order. C. D. HUNKING, Chairman. In Senate, January 14, 1857. Ordered, That the Clerk of the Senate cause to be printed three thousand copies of the Sermon delivered before the Executive and Legis¬ lative Authorities of the Commonwealth, on the 7th instant. Attest : P. L. Cox, Clerk. S E R MON. John viii. 32. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you tree. In one of the cities of Europe they pass into the market place through a temple. The merchants fre¬ quently rest their burdens to turn aside and pray. The responsibilities of trade may be great, but those of legislation are greater. It is well for the legislator, if the temple is over against the State House, and he may pass to the business of the latter, through the service of the former. But he must be careful through what temple he passes. The great question is, whether its service is truthful; for it is only God’s truth that makes free. It is hardly needful to say that some traces of God’s truth are found in every false system of religion; but they are too much covered or perverted to qualify its servile power. It is only the Protestant faith that most richly embodies and most accurately expresses Christian truth. So the ancient legislators of the Commonwealth thought. It seemed to them the well- 8 spring of freedom. They expected it would flow away in streams of national glory that a distant future must be left to fathom and compass. And it may be well to spend a service which had its origin from their Christian sympathies, in showing the connection there is between the Protestant faith and civil freedom, and national prosperity. First. There is a close connection between Protes¬ tant truth and civil freedom. This is manifest, both from the principles of Protestantism, and the facts of history. Brownson says, “ the Protestant, as such, has no principles, his solitary principle being that he pro¬ tests.” But the question whether he has positive prin¬ ciples, must depend upon what there may be of posi¬ tive, in the authority against which he is protesting. The Declaration of Independence is mainly a protest¬ ing document; but its positive principles are as mul¬ tiplied as the unwarrantable ideas and acts against which it is directed. So that this reviewer has only to give many of his own principles a negative form, to have the broad and multiplied positive ones upon which the Protestant relies. One of the leading ideas of Protestantism is —free thought. A celebrated French writer says: “ If there be any thing constant in Protestantism, it is undoubtedly the substitution of private judgment for public and lawful authority.” It is certainly distinctively Pro¬ testant to prefer private judgment to public authority. Thought, with the Protestant, is not only a privilege, 9 but a duty. There is no material thing, no intellectual sentiment, no heavenly truth which may not be sub¬ ject to examination. Luther’s doctrine of “justifica¬ tion by faith ” involved the idea that a man is to search into and understand the Gospel, through which he is to live. He does not know that even the book which is called the Bible comes from God, till he has bal¬ anced what may be said for and against the heaven- inspiring idea. He reaches his overpowering belief through such severe questionings, as for a time may leave him in doubt. He meets truth naked, as the Olympian wrestlers met each other, and if he finds it so closely knitted, proportioned and firm that he can¬ not overthrow, he is ready to reverence and defend it. Thought, like our breath, is essentially free. It is for God to say to both: “ thus far shalt thou go.” The Apostle submitted his truths to the reflections of his readers: “ I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say.” Nor did he praise the Bereans for an unthink¬ ing reception of his words. The axiom of Luther w r as, that “ thought is toll free.” The Inquisition sent its minions to coil at firesides, and hide in sleep¬ ing chambers, and glide along the avenues of trade, till they could find out sentiments that had never been uttered, but which fagot and flame could not make noble and honest men deny. The Constitution that first came into shape in the Mayflower was from the free thought which English authority could not bind, and which, bubbling up thousands of miles away, 2 10 rushed across the Atlantic with a Gulf-Stream force, but in a contrary direction, and spread itself out in the full blessings which are the glory of the Church and State and Nation. Tyrants hate a free license of thought. Philip suspects William the Silent to be a dangerous man, because he “ thought so much.” It was the deep ground-swell of his thought which he imagined about to sweep away the iron laws of Spain, as the raging ocean that no dikes could be made to control had swept away her armies. The English poet put this saying into the mouth of Julius Caesar: — “ Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much;—But I fear him not; Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads, He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men.” •• This is not merely a Shaksperian fancy, but a historic fact concerning the suspicions and fears of Caesar. A second leading idea of Protestantism is —-free speech. The scenes in our national Protestant Senate do not indeed indicate this. But it is a cold ray that falls upon the mountain’s summit, and the softness and warmth of religion are spent before it climbs to the high places of the nation. Yet every Puritan village feels that one of its cardinal principles has been out¬ raged, and the outburst of its indignation has been so strong, that it has rushed upward with volcanic 11 force to the highest battlements of society. It was Luther’s grand offence, that he talked out so much his impressions concerning the faith of his times. It was the Puritan’s high crime, that he would have his meetings where the people could speak freely to God. Protestants have been amazingly jealous, that where there was no freedom of utterance there would soon be no freedom of thought. So that they have made caverns their whispering galleries when the world above would not suffer their speech. Bunyan would preach. He would penetrate as a car-man into by¬ alleys and back doors, with a frock on his back and a whip in his hand, if he could preach safely in no other way. Peregrine de La Grange would gallop to his field-preaching, if he had to fire a pistol shot as the signal for his congregation to give attention. The Netherlanders would march armed with javelin and broadsword, if they could not otherwise hear sermons and sing hymns in the open air. One form of free speech is the free press. It is hampered when away from Protestant lands. A printing press in many places has a very brief and narrow history. Years ago an American caravan brought one to Santa Fe. A Mexican guessed at its use and employed it for three weeks in printing a newspaper, by means of which he came to be elected member of Congress. Then the press was no farther used, save for Papal forms of prayer and catechisms. Had the Mexican been under Protestant influence he would have guessed for a 12 thousand others, or rather he would have started up around him ten thousand guessers, who would all have been paying the way to places of trust. And then when the election day was over the press would still have been plying, throwing off its tracts and books and papers of every variety, till the land was called to reading, study, reflection. Tyrants would not like Hoe’s modern mammoth. They would rather have the old dwarf Ramage press at which Franklin first worked. Or else they would give to their “ expurga¬ tory index” as rapid a movement as the printing sheets. The professor of an Austrian university must write out a manual of the branch he teaches, for oral, extemporaneous teaching would leave him free to say what might be objectionable. And the Bible must be. burned lest it should he to petrified institutions, as the thunder and earthquake to a petrified world. Closely allied to this is another leading idea of Pro¬ testantism —the toleration of all religious ideas and sects. It has not always gone into practice. Senator Seward said at the Pilgrim’s landing place, “ each sect has claimed liberty of conscience for itself as a natural right, but with gross inconsistency which invalidated its own argument, has denied that liberty to other sects.” He does not recollect history so well as he does the wrongs of Kansas. He should have remem¬ bered that one of New England’s sects, at least, w^ent to the last extreme upon this question of freedom of con¬ science. If Roger Williams did not proclaim the 13 sanctity of conscience and studiously follow out the idea to all its practical consequences, then no senti¬ ment is capable of being declared or exercised. The multiplicity of Protestant sects shows us what the Protestant sentiment is. Division may not be the highest form of religious life, but then it is far higher than a forced and external uniformity. That was a philosophical reflection of Charles the Fifth in his convent, that the difficulty he found in having any two of his watches and clocks keep time, showed it to he folly to attempt to make men think alike in matters of religion. The lifeless uniformity of a single sect, Protestantism dreads. The sea bound in fetters will be stagnant. Let it have its billows, its currents, its tides, its swell of storms, and it shall he the one, open, free, glorious sea, which mirrors the Almighty. Let there be a harmony of antagonisms and in the balancing of religious forces there may come the moral safety of the world. The Protestant sentiment is against a constraint upon faith ; and it is the grand idea of free countries, that no man is to force another by fire and sword to go to heaven his own way. If freedom in this land has ever risen against the religion of Roman¬ ists, it is not because it separates itself as a distinct religious sentiment. The reason is that it is exclusive, threatens ruin to all the rest and introduces a power superior to the will of the people legitimately ex¬ pressed. Freedom fears only the bramble coming in to rule over all the trees of God’s garden, offering 14 them only a thorny shadow, or else sending forth fire, which will devour all the cedars of Lebanon. The large freedom which is consistent with self-preserva¬ tion has been growing into favor with the American mind, as its Protestant faith has been more fully de¬ veloping. The charm of a single church we leave to tyrants. That the Protestant history has not been free from bigotry, we freely acknowledge. It is no wonder that the Reformers coming up from the night of ages brought many of their prejudices with them. Half blind from their bondage, it might be expected to be long before they see men in any other way than “ as trees walking.” But comparatively where are they 1 How does the oft quoted Servetian death look by the side of the thousand massacred Huguenots over whom “ Te Deums ” were sung at Rome 1 How do the few imprisonments and murders by the Flemish believers compare with the wholesale butcheries of Alva ? How does England, under the Bloody Assizes of Jeffreys and the cruel legislation of James II., compare with Eng¬ land under William and Mary? And what is the history of Protestantism when it has passed beyond childhood, and reached the maturity of manhood strength ? A leading idea of Protestantism is— progress. Not that it seeks change for its own sake, or would shatter society only to reconstruct it. To throw away all our work and begin anew is neither common sense or Pro¬ testantism. Trees do not heave their roots into the air 15 and attract their branches and leaves to the ground in order to be more fruitful and stable. But holding to the root, they each year add their rings and press new buds and shoots. Permanence and progression are not hostile. They are the two great social forces which keep the world’s well being, and insure the world’s gains. To be stationary is to be stagnant, and therefore Protestantism takes what it has gained as the fulcr-ujn for future over turnings, the base line for fresh discoveries." It welcomes the growth of physical science, and rejoices as the blind forces of nature suc¬ cessively arrange themselves to do better for men than the “ eye servants ” they have been accustomed to use. It beckons political science on, where the workings of the body politic shall be left to the minimum of gov¬ ernment, as the natural body is fast being left to the minimum of medicine. It acknowledges the discov¬ eries of sacred criticism, and the new light which comes in upon the Bible from the searches of philosophy, and the surveys of modern travel. It fears no more the attritions which it finds in an investigating and progressing society, than the Copernican system fears the new planet which an improving telescope may dis¬ cover ; for they shall but make clearer and brighter its heavenly principles. And so it is the cheerful ally of freedom; for nothing can be more grateful to freemen than that ancient restrictions are passing by, that the tongue of the world is loosening, that thought is trav¬ elling with an electric haste, and that the pen is fast 16 coming to be a sceptre. They have no sympathy with the struggle against modern improvements. The Pa¬ pal States forbade “gas works” for illumination. With the old Roman shrewdness, some Italians placed their buildings by the side of a lake, where nature was sending up combustible gas. But the Pope gave his “ infallible judgment ” that the illumination with gas supplied by nature, was an invention as wicked as that in which “gas works” are employed. Amid such anti-progressive ideas, what room is there for freedom to shoot'? The Mexican colonies should have out¬ grown the trammels of Spain. The tendency of colo¬ nization is to innovate. But the stale ideas of the past were uttering in every Sabbath service, inspired at every confessional, dignified in every monastery. So they bowed to the yoke. The Pilgrims of New Eng¬ land brought with them a service that was spirit and life; “ ever new, ever young.” Their ideas may have been sometimes irregular, as their graves upon Ply¬ mouth hill. But they were fresh, strong, heaving as the sea which spreads in magnificence before it, indig¬ nantly spurning the tyranny that would mark out their channels, or appoint their bounds. It is a prominent idea with Protestants, that men be usefully employed. So much has it been identified with their history, in distinction from that of other religionists, as to be regarded one of their leading principles. They look upon men as stewards, whose title to amusement is based upon that early duty and « 17 high necessity of their state, useful toil. Now it is this disposition to encourage useful employment which works so favorably for freedom. Freemen understand this. It was said that in the Crystal Palace, at Lon¬ don, the American division comprehended the more solid and useful materials. The reason is, that the Americans are the highest types of freemen, and hence keep their eye out for whatever helps to make toil succeed. They follow the sentiment of Milton, “ every wise nation well knows that its liberty consists in manly and honest labor; that when the people fall to looseness, they as much as lay down their necks for some wild tyrant to get up and ride.” Arbitrary rulers understand this. Cyrus undertook to tame the Lydians. By dancing, feasting and dicing he soon made them slaves. Philip II. reduced the Span¬ iards by his bull-fights and his auto de fes. Arch¬ bishop Laud, by May-poles, jigging, cudgeling and gaming, brought down the high English spirit. And the Papal authority represses the faintest rising of Italian freedom, by its frequent festivals and cere¬ monies. They have all entered into the idea of Balaam’s time, that the luxurious feasts of Baal-peor are surer sources of arbitrary power than all Balak’s forces. It is a leading idea of Protestantism, that men are responsible. Their liabilities to answer for their acts are not subject to a dispensation. No spiritual au¬ thority can overleap its bounds and set princes firee 18 from their promises to their subjects, or subjects free from the laws which their own recognized legislators have authorized. Nor can princes be suffered to turn aside the priesthood from the simple utterance of God’s truth, to be the mere echoes of their own will. Freedom was safe in England under William and Mary. Their banner waved with the cheering motto, “ Protestant truth and the liberities of England.” The new born liberty lay in the truth like a bird in its native nest; for that truth made vows so high and sacred that no pretended authority from God could weaken or set them aside. It is a leading idea of Protestantism, that a man may commune immediately with God. He hands his case over to no created being. The long array of saints is to him but a shadow. From this immediate and high communion he derives an independence to all but God and those to whom he delegates his rights. Accustomed to stand before God with his Bible and self-responsible conscience, he cannot easily bow to the finger of kings, or the toe of Popes. He is to be torn from these near glimpses of Deity, and accus¬ tomed to the enfeebled light of canonized saints, before his own will can sink easily into the will of tyrants. The foregoing arguments, from the principles of Protestantism and its history, establish the connection between Protestant truth and civil liberty. Civil lib¬ erty, however, is not necessarily national prosperity, but rather a prerequisite for the development of na- 19 tional character and resources. I am led therefore to the second inquiry proposedThe connection between Protestant truth and national prosperity. The prosperity of a nation is sometimes considered as made up of success in the arts, manufactures, ag¬ riculture, commerce, and the wide-spread diffusion of the necessaries and comforts of life. Such prosperity is not to be attributed to climate, or soil. The rich valleys and fertile plains and various climate of South¬ ern America have given birth to no animated empires. Holland has been “ an outcast of ocean and earth.” But it had men taught to struggle with the despotism of nature and the fiercer despotism of bigots. Un¬ chained themselves, they have chained the ocean and made the waters that once sunk their soil, but arterial channels through which they reach and bless the ends of the world. Men are not yet reduced to vegetables, and until they are, they will have more agency in the training of climate, than climate will have in their training. Nor is this outward prosperity to be attributed to race. No race is sunk so low, .as not to betray some¬ times the energies that God gave to the “ one blood ” of which men are made. It is not the Celtic lineage that has reduced Ireland. The Celts had as noble an origin, as the Saxon. The Celtic language stands originally among the highest class of tongues which Chevalier Bunsen has arranged, and only waits for cultivation, to show a beauty, delicacy and strength 20 equal to any. And some of the later Celtic names will show the race can branch into high ideas, and bud into enterprises that may redeem the mountains and glens and capes and harbors of Ireland, to the life, wealth and joys- of civilization. Whole regions of Celtic country, when torn from their old faith, have already left their barbarism and flourished in agricul¬ ture, commerce and manufactures. Verily De Tocque- ville said well, that “ physical causes have not so great an influence as is supposed on the destiny of na¬ tions.” Nor must these material blessings be traced to pe¬ culiar governments and legislation. For both these are often but the products of the faith which a people profess. Change them as you will, they inevitably come back to the popular convictions. The Repub¬ lics of South America have always realized the idea of absolute power which entered so much into the State Religion. Burke gives an animated picture of the North American colonies under the embarrassments of English legislation. Fie says, “ they seem to him rather like ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events, than a set of miserable outcasts, a few years ago not so much sent, as thrown out on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate wilderness.” So it has seemed to thousands. You may give to unimprisoned souls whatever gov¬ ernment you please, and they will struggle long to turn it to their magnificent purposes. But if the 21 struggle seems to be vain, they will fly as the pilgrim fathers did, and palsy its touch by the long distance over which it has to travel, and throw out their free energies to grasp the treasures of the land and sea, and turn the desert into a garden and make the wilder¬ ness blossom as the rose. Their unbounded energy may sometimes go out to trample upon the weak de¬ fences of others. And it may launch away into the treacherous Dead Sea of rationalism, transcendental¬ ism, pantheism and atheism. But it will often crys- talize what it has dissolved into a nobler form, and gather in its dangerous cruises much that will be of use to the intelligence and piety of the world. Some of the most ardent champions of the Roman faith in our time, such as Balmez in the old world and Brownson in the new, have said that it has gone be¬ fore any other in its happy influence upon nations. The latter declares that the former has “ ended the ar¬ gument upon the comparative influence of varied faiths.” It is the end of an argument which was never begun rightly. For all men ought to under¬ stand that the early centuries of the Church cover a disputed territory; or rather they ought to know that we claim all the excellent outgrowth of those early periods, as originating from a .religion exceedingly republican and simple. But there is a greater mistake than merely supposing the Papal doctrines to be those of the Apostles and early Christians. It is in think¬ ing that Europe was completely Papal before the 22 Reformation, and that all its life and light were of Papal origin. But it is to be remembered that many hearts rejected the Papal sentiments before Luther burned the “ Papal bull.” The Protestantism that lay buried saved the entombed masses from entire corruption. When we are tauntingly asked, “ where was our re¬ ligion before Luther lived,” we are inclined to take the homely answer of the English boy to the Irish, who asked him, “ what was the condition of your Church before the Reformation.” He replied, “ in the same condition you were in before your face was washed this morning.” Our Protestant religion was this unwashed face with its living, moving power, hindered, but still occasionally shooting out gleams of light and rolling up the lines of inventive thought and energy. It is in vain to tell us of the early glories of Spain. Philip had not yet said, that “ rather than permit the least prejudice to the ancient religion, he would sacrifice all his States.” The great question is, where was it when the Protestant element had been sifted out for a safer place on earth, or for heaven \ Where was it after the idea of the great bigot had been long carrying out, that a wusted land was better than one which heretics made bright and blooming 1 How much of activity and life did France lose when the edict of Nantes was repealed! What an impoverished relic did the Netherlands become, when the Inquisition swept away its skilful and industrious population; checked in their native bed the springs of its life and hope which 23 broke out in other lands, or in the many waters that are sounding joyously around the throne of God ! The saying of the miserable Vargas over the culprit that had committed no crime was indeed true, that “ if he had died innocent it would be all the better for him when he took his trial in another world.” But this last and just trial could not save the land from a present curse because of the loss of its skill and life. It has been said by Mr. Hillard, that the going down of the Campagna is to be attributed to the ac¬ cumulation of land in the hands of distant owners whose hearts never pass down into the soil they till. But perhaps this is not the main cause. It is the sta¬ tionary principle in religion that has kept the Italian land from rising. Let your Protestant principles be suffered to root and spread, and there will be spirits as energetic as Mazzini’s everywhere starting up to make the land ring with the sounds of industry, and the harvests to wave as beautiful as the mists that hang over the valleys, and the shadows that lie along the hills. The Reformation did not call back all the Cantons of Switzerland to the love and practice of our Protestant faith. The celebrated Sismondi, a native of Switzerland, when asked about the land, put his hands together and interlocked his fingers and said: “ In this manner do the cantons intersect one another. The road often leads across the intersecting districts. You may know in the darkest night when you are in a Protestant and when in a Catholic canton, by the 24 state of the road and the very smell of the country.” This is strong language; but there is a great truth involved in it, to which thousands have testified. Papists are aware of the unfavorable contrasts, and sometimes they may explain it upon the singular theory of Paoul Pochette, a zealous Catholic. He says: “ The mediocrity of the Catholics contrasts with the competence of the Protestants, and it would seem at first sight that in this world it is better to live with the latter, than with the former; but there is another world in which this inferiority is probably compensated” This may be Romanism, but it is not the Gospel of Christ. That Gospel is, that “ godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.” But a nation’s strength lies in the national character. True national prosperity, therefore, must be based upon the purity and intelligence of the population. People have advanced in intelligence when their no¬ tions of religion have been exceedingly defective. France is foremost in her contributions to science; but she is only semi-papal. The concordats she has re¬ ceived have been extremely liberal. The underlying moving element of the French, is not any form of religion. It is rather infidelity; and infidelity has never started a crusade against knowledge. It is a better soil for the growth of science than one covered with the superstitions and hatreds which a false faith engen¬ ders. Deists and atheists have read the Bible. And 25 it is more sure for tlie mind’s progress to investigate with an irreverent spirit, than to refuse all investigation. But France is quite defective in a general education. It has enough of the leaders of Bomanism to carry out their idea, that education is to be for the few, while the masses like God’s people of old perish for lack of knowledge. It is for the Puritans alone to make their education, like their gospel, for the poor; to plant their school-house at the same time with their church. It is easy to see where elementary instruction is most cared for. Ten times the number have it among Pro¬ testants, and they receive nine copies of the public journals where one is circulated among those of Papal faith. “ Calvin,” says Bancroft, “ was the father of popular education, and the inventor of the system of free schools.” And it is the glory of men who inherit his Protestant sympathies that their work is mainly done upon immortal minds. Paintings of exquisite finish will perish with the touch of time. Columns of beauty and strength will crumble into dust. But these schools of Protestantism, these free public journals, are to run the fire of their thought down to the last generations of time. These cultivat¬ ed energies are to live on like vestal fires—the safety of republics. Nothing can pour light to wider spaces and more distant times, than the “ people’s school- house.” It will not answer for lands where “ igno¬ rance is the mother of devotion, highly pleasing to God and sufficient to salvation,” where “ an irrational 4 26 obedience is the most perfect obedience.” It will not be well to teach history where the record of struggles for freedom will be offensive, or philosophy whe.re the idea is dawning which Galileo disowned to an “ infal¬ lible church.” These free schools and free presses are not of the nature of safety lamps, which may be taken harmlessly down into the strong holds of tyranny and superstition. They would blow up the pestilent things in a moment. They would dissolve these inanimate, dark, gloomy, embalmed and swathed institutions, just as the first ray of light or breath of air dissolves the bodies dug out of the cities which the volcanic lava covers. It is not only a wide education that Protestantism allows, but a Bible education. It makes the Bible free as the atmosphere and wide as the sunlight. The wisest men have long since abandoned the idea, that the knowledge of physics and political economy will secure the moral and social well-being of a country. Men may choose so to employ their knowledge as to make their moral degradation certain. The Cainites of the primitive world made great progress in intelligence, and the degeneracy to which they sunk is an early lesson, that mere knowledge is utterly insufficient to save men from ruin. In the Farewell of Washington it is said: “ Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Those purest props of the duties of men and citizens, the mere politician equally 27 with the pious man ought to respect and choose. Rea¬ son and experience both forbid us to expect, that na¬ tional morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.” He was right. The idea of prosperity without religious self-control is idle. And religious self-control arises from a free use of the precepts, promises and threats of the Bible; so that to have a self-controlled and high-minded population, it is neces¬ sary that the children be furnished with Bibles. Large portions of our youthful population would be left to the cruel tender-mercies of irreligious families, if the Bible ceased to be a reading-book in our common schools. That was a stirring saying of Mr. Choate: “ Banish the Bible from our public schools 1 Never, so long as a piece of Plymouth Rock remains big enough to make a gun-flint out of!” He might have gone on to say, that Plymouth Rock, or some other thing, would quickly have to be used in making gun-flints, if the Bible had no share in the education of the children. It would be quite as good state policy for the Chinese government to take the doctrines of Confucius, the Turks the Koran, and the priests of India the Shasters and Vedas from their places of instruction, as for Americans to remove the Bible from the schools of America. For it has gone into the whole frame work of American institutions, so that you may expect their force and stability to cease just in proportion, as the Bible ceases to be taught to the whole mass of Ameri¬ can citizens. It is the striking remark of Judge Story, 28 that 44 The Bible is the common inheritance of Christen¬ dom and the world. The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion can never he a matter of indif¬ ference in a well ordered community. It is the special duty of government, to foster and encourage the truth of Christianity among all the citizens.” To restrain men it may be enough to show them bristling bayonets; but to make them grow into virtue, you must keep them near the spring of religious responsibility that is always welling up in the Word of God. The old Bo- mans used to travel through their dwellings with the eye of Cato glancing down upon them. It is better to have the celestial eye, which is peering out everywhere from the Bible. It is enough to make one romantic in hope to see millions of children entering each morn¬ ing into those higher circles of thought, of which God is the central point. They are likely to bring down kindling sentiments, inextinguishable as the stars, that shall light up the darkness in which good and evil sometimes lie mingled, and hum up the selfishness which too often piratically hides itself under the varied forms of trade, to strike unawares upon human joys and hopes. It is said somewhere, that 44 terrestrial charts must he arranged by celestial observations.” So I am sure that to make for men a safe, prosperous and happy course you must keep their eyes upon those stars of glory, which the good are to become,—that upper firmament in which the righteous are to shine so luminously. Burns gives us the beauty and the 29 quiet of the Scottish homes; but it is not the flowers that climb around the window, or the flocks outside, or the pleasant meal within, or the returning children, or the ceasing of the week’s toil that explain the elevating scene. It is when the sire takes down “ The big ha’ Bible, ance his father’s pride,” and says, “ let us worship God,” that you know the secret of old Scotia’s being so loved at home and so revered abroad. Macauley states, that “ on the summit of one of the pillars of Londonderry is the statue of Walker, in one hand grasping a Bible, and with the other pointing down the river from whence help was to come.” He adds, “ it was not needed, for the whole city was a monument.” Yet to our eye it seems to be needed: it is a beautiful emblem of safety and its origin. Walker had kept up the courage of the people through an eloquence inspired by the Bible; and therefore it is fitting that he should stand till the world shall end, with one hand grasping the Bible, and the other, as if prompted by the consciousness to what the sacred thing would give rise, pointing away to the river which was to bear the heavy laden ships, and from which the surrounding regions were to drink in the fruitful harvests. It is more vividly truthful to us Protestants than was Ceres to the ancients, with the sacred poppy in her hand, and the garland of ears of corn upon her head. It is told us that in an old painting Henry VIII. was drawn with a Bible in 30 his hand. The “ offending volume” was ordered to be brushed out by some Papist; but in brushing out the volume the artist took off the royal fingers. He has been called by our world-renowned Prescott, “un¬ lucky but we would call him the luckiest man in the world for hitting so nicely what human experience justifies. To take the Bible from the children is to leave them but mutilated minds and hearts; to take it from the fathers is to rob them of the right arm of their strength. Some in derision speak of a Protes¬ tant Bible. It is a misnomer: ours is an English Bible. “ You might as w T ell speak,” says Dr. Cheever, “ of the English science of algebra being Protestant, or its astronomy being Protestant astronomy, or the stars in America being Protestant stars, or the sun being a Protestant sun. This sun and stars may be seen through an English atmosphere and yet not cease to be the sun and stars of God. And so may the Bible take an English form, and still be the free, un¬ sectarian Word of God for all classes and denomina¬ tions.” The old Pomanists used to call our translation the “ best translation in the world,” and said that a better could not be hoped for till the day after dooms¬ day.” Would that the younger could rise to the same unsectarian sentiment. Would that the sentiments and feelings of this whole American land might be divinely drawn to the Bible. Let men take the heart from the body and suppose it will still be a living body; the sun from the flowers and think that they 31 will still flourish; the air from the lungs and expect them healthy movement; hut not withdraw the Bible from a free and general circulation, and imagine that our public institutions and private homes can be kept from decay paid corruption. We have said that the purity of a nation’s popula¬ tion is the well-spring of its prosperity. That purity must depend much upon the principles maintained and partially spread by religious teachers. It is said that at a late celebration given by the city authorities of New York upon Blackwell’s Island, a celebrated legal gentleman was called upon for a toast in honor of Archbishop Hughes, who made one of the company. He gave this: “ Our illustrious guest, the representa¬ tive of the large majority of the inhabitants of this Island.” This must have been more burning than any liquor with which it could have been drank; but it is certain that it was not suggested by any thing objec¬ tionable in the personal character of the Archbishop. It was inspired by the fact that he is the highest em¬ bodiment among us of the principles of that “ infalli¬ ble church,” which have covered many an island and mainland with ignorance, crime and wo. It is evident that when pardon for transgression comes to be ar¬ ranged with sinful men instead of a just God, sin will be quite easily committed. St. Peter’s dome may rise to the clouds upon the proceeds of commuted crime; but if this tariff upon sin does not quickly react and produce a Luther, Europe will sink so low as never to be able 32 to be recovered to the decencies of civilization and the virtues of a pure religion. The “ Saturday night ” of Scotland could never have been so sweetly calm and heavenly as Burns draws it, if the Reformation had not given the land a religious system, in which sin cannot be indulged for price, or pardon gamed by mere earthly penance. Whatever concerns the safety of freedom and the prosperity of the country of their birth may well command the attention of American statesmen. Free¬ dom is a fugitive from the old world, and should not be left to find a worse bondage, a heavier chain, in the new. National prosperity must never be crippled here, as in the old Papal countries. Yet there are dan¬ gers to both. When freedom is not considered the great national idea ; when compromises fail as “ faded leaveswhen the elective franchise is blown carelessly abroad for the grasp of ignorance and crime; when the cries of disunion are endured so easily, and sec¬ tional feeling so constantly played upon by party mad¬ men ; when the evils of Popery are winked at, and popular elections are not controlled by intelligence, patriotism and virtue; when through custom-houses, post-offices, armies and navies, the Executive can con¬ trol the ballot-box as really as if it had the monarch’s name; when the pulpit is abused if it follows the moral subject which bad men have seduced into the political sphere and endeavors to bring it back where . it may have the appropriate form and coloring: then 33 I am sure, that the land of our fathers has reached the hazardous point which they in their wisdom some¬ times foresaw and dreaded. It was Napoleon’s maxim, “ never undervalue or despise an enemy.” And those who carelessly and disdainfully treat these dangers that encompass us, show more of childish folly, than of manly wisdom. Demosthenes used to say to Philip, that “ the strongest fortress of a free people against a tyrant was distrust.” It will be well when American freemen have erected this fortress; when they have come to distrust their great party chess¬ players ; when they suspect the agencies that in¬ tend to sweep away “ the Christianity to which the sword and fagot are unknown, that general, tolerant Christianity,” which the immortal Webster has de¬ clared to be “ the law of the land.” These things we say to keep alive that perpetual vigilance which is the price of freedom. The means of safety are within the reach of the wise and the good of the land. The confidence of patriots may some¬ times waver, but it is not in their heart to despair of the Republic. It is true that Kansas is a “ stricken star; ” but this great constellation may yet receive it emerging from drifting clouds of storm, to strengthen the free, bright and undivided light which the whole assemblage should pour upon the latest periods of time. It is true that a popular election is a perfect • tempest. But a world of steam is let off at the ballot box, and the Ship of State is left with stars and stripes 5 34 still perfect, and the men all hopeful and waiting patiently till another opportunity turns up for changing her track. These Southern tempestuous conventions and Northern radical assemblages may keep the bond of union subject to storms, that look like sweeping every thing durable away. But like the telegraph wire which lies underneath the water and binds distant shores, it is encased. The memories of ancestry, the wonders of the battle-field, the counsels of those of whom the world was not worthy, the prayers of faith, the hopes of republicans all the world over, have woven around it threads of protection which the frenzies of maddened men cannot easily penetrate. It may be true that our highest representative is struck down in the very place where States are to move in majesty and freedom. But it is the “ wound of an empire,” and an empire rises to resent the wrong. It is certain that our institutions weaken by Papal interference, but the children, refined by the atmos¬ phere of liberty and a tolerant religion, may rise up and undo what their foreign ancestry have sadly done. It may be that corrupt men will cover for a time the dividing line which the high-minded politi¬ cians of Munroe’s time drew between slavery and freedom. But the hundred thousand protesting voices of New England are rising and moving on with the force of spring tide. The mighty undertone of the vaster States of New York and Ohio is sweeping along # to meet and join the softer notes of Michigan, Wis- 35 consin and Iowa, and echo them around the high places of power and trust until the boon which dem¬ agogues gave away is manfully restored. The bow of hope may be seen in the spray which the breakers make. We appeal to the same God to which our fathers did, when as they 44 look unto the land behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.” 44 We lift our eyes unto the hills from whence cometh help.” Pie that sitteth in glory there, saw the foundations of this Republic laid in faith, and may be expected to bring forth the top stone with shoutings from all parts of the land of 44 grace, grace unto it.” We may well salute your Excellency this day; for hardly could the earliest Chief . Magistrate of the Commonwealth have received more signals of public confidence and affection. Chosen at the first by what was regarded an overwhelming suffrage, and again by a plurality that seemed hardly possible amid such violently excited factions, and a third time by a vote more wonderful than the first and larger by thousands than any other individual has ever received for the office of Governor; you can but feel that States are not unmindful of the defenders of their civil and reli¬ gious privileges. Your separation from your own party in the height of its prosperity and the early part of your official course, to follow the voice of duty, will not soon be forgotten. The zeal and ability with which you have resented the wrongs of Massachusetts 36 and defended American sentiments, will be widely ap¬ preciated when sectional and selfish jealousies have passed by, and these States unite to remove domestic grievances with as much heart as they once united to destroy foreign oppression. May the testimonies of the “ final bar ” be as favorable to you as the verdicts of time. His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, the Honorable Council, and the Honorable Senate and House of Rep¬ resentatives will accept the sympathies and congratu¬ lations of this occasion. It is no light thing to be the representatives of the intelligent and cultivated people of this highly honored Commonwealth. You repre¬ sent not merely those who live on American soil, but those who are Americans in heart , freemen in politics and religion. They commit to their legislators the great public interests. The speed with which you have organized will be the symbol of the rapidity with which you will discharge the public business. In both your preparatory and after arrangements, you will con¬ trast happily with Congressional legislators, who if they had reverence enough for religion to open their session with a sermon, would find their wise and pious design frustrated unless they showed greater activity in organizing to receive it. Time is not eternity; if it was, this long party skirmishing might be more easily justified. The position of the country is im¬ portant enough to lead men to feel that they need not spend so much breath in defining their own position, 37 which may not be of so great importance. There is ample time for all public business, but not so ample that if men are prodigal of the beginning of a session, they can so lengthen it as to save them from enacting unmatured bills, or consigning them as fossils for the speculations of future legislators. A debate drawn out without limit will be found to end without wisdom, and the final activity of some legislative bodies instead of atoning for their first neglect only doubles the shame and sorrow of their expiring existence. Let him that “ giveth wisdom liberally,” enlighten you. Let the truth of God prepare you to sustain useful institutions in this world and to enter the world of realities. You hasten to a bar where your public and private acts are to be reviewed, and your earthly trusts forever resigned. “ Let him that thinketh he stand- eth take heed lest he fall.” ■ , ' . ■ .