or what is advantageous for body and goods; yet if it be not, and a legislator may prohibit any practice, because it is wicked, then he regards moral ends, and his care is directed towards man's highest happiness, and to the putting down his greatest misery, moral evil. Nor, in fact, does it appear how, on other than purely moral considerations, a State is justified in making certain abominations penal; such acts involving in them no violence or fraud upon persons or property, which, according to Warburton, are the only objects of a State's care." It will be seen, from the last extract, what Dr. Arnold regards as the very turning point of this whole discussion. "The legislator may prohibit a practice, because it is wicked." He may legislate for morality, and on purely moral grounds; that is, he may punish crimes, not simply because they affect persons or property, but because they are wicked and abominable. Here, however, the opponents of the doctrine would create a double issue. One class would utterly deny that the State has any thing whatever to do with strictly moral considerations; without, however, bringing in the question, whether such moral considerations had any necessary connection with religion. The law, say they, has no right to meddle with anything "that picks no man's pocket or breaks no man's leg." The other class, of whom Counsellor Hurlbut may be taken as the representative, would, perhaps, allow that the legislator has something to do with morality, but only after they had stripped the word of all meaning, by denying to it anything of a religious character. This distinction is based upon their system of phrenological quackery. As, however, the divorce for which they contend annihilates both, and is, besides, opposed to the conscience and common sense of mankind, we shall pay no attention to any such hypothesis, but proceed upon the supposition that a true morality, and a true justice which is any thing more than the barest consulting of convenience, are inseparably connected with considerations drawn from religion and from the invisible world.

In these considerations, too, we find a solution of the difficulty presented in a late number of the Edinburgh Review. The writer asks why a corporation, a bank, a rail-road company, or an army, ought not to have a religion, and act upon moral grounds, as well as the State. The answer is, that they are not sove

reignties. They do not stand, as the State does, with no other power between it and God. They need have no religion of their own, for another reason, namely, because they are supposed to partake of, and to be influenced by, that which is predominant in the State, and which there forms the ground of public sentiment, according as it is good or evil. Our democratic notions deceive us on this point. We are too apt to confine the idea of absolute power to a monarchy or an aristocracy. It exists as well in a republic as in any other form of government. Indeed, it is entirely independent of all forms. Absolute power, above which there is no earthly control, and which stands next to the Divine government over men-an absolute power which can do as it wills, whether that will is manifested in regular channels of law, or the irregular impulses of individual or popular volition, whether it be in the one, the few, or the millions, such an absolute power, knowing no superior but God, having life and death subject to its own final decision, and which must act for or against the highest interests of men in their highest relations (for, on these points, as we hope hereafter to show, there can be no such thing as indifference on the part of the State, any more than on the part of an individual),-such an absolute power belongs to every State, as a part of its very essence or idea, and irrespective of all the outward forms in which it may be arrayed. Power, we have said, above which there is no earthly control. Methinks the bare statement of such a fact might convince any sound mind, that God never could have intended that such an absolute earthly authority should be left to itself, free from the acknowledgment of any higher accounta bility, or that it should have any rightful control over men except as a moral and religious delegation or branch of his own government. If this is indeed the true ground of its legitimacy, how utterly insane is that political philosophy, which would seek for a security to human rights in an absolute divorce between religion and law! How inexplicable the paradox, that while we are jealous of any religious foundation for the State, we should feel safe in trusting the most precious interests of humanity to an absolute, irresponsible, and avowedly irreligious earthly power! "A nation is a sovereign society," says that most healthy-minded writer to whom we before referred, " and

it is something monstrous, that the ultimate power in human life should be destitute of a sense of right and wrong." Yet this must be the case, if it knows no authority above itself, and sustains no appeal to the immutable, the invisible, and the eternal.

Some of the physical school may not exactly comprehend what is meant by all this. To be sure, say they, the State must judge of right and wrong-who so absurd as to deny such a proposition? But look into their schemes, and it will be found that these are terms retained from the old vocabularies, without a particle of their true and ancient meaning., They have been wholly reduced to a physical sense. That is right which tends to secure the widest range of natural gratification with the least natural evil—and that is wrong which tends to interrupt or prevent it. For a moral good and a moral discipline, or the cultivation of certain moral states, irrespective of physical good or evil, they have no place in their scheme-still less for the absolute and inseparable connection of such a morality with religion. Of course they must deny, and do deny, that in punishing, the law can or ought to have any regard to any intrinsic demerit of crime, or that punishment can or ought to have anything strictly penal or retributive in its nature. This is their creed; and they demand that the law shall sanction it, whilst at the same time, with a strange inconsistency, they contend that it can decide no strictly moral or religious questions.

It is exceedingly difficult to reason on the moral and religious character of the State, with the ultra-democratic and semiinfidel school; because, in fact, there is no common ground from which we can start in the structure of an argument. Its philosophy is so deeply imbued with infidelity, that we are compelled to distrust it, even when it meekly professes to honor morality and religion, by confining them to the sphere of good in individual action. Some, as we have said, might regard the difficulty as safely avoided, by representing the State to be a moral, although not a religious agent; severing the two classes of duties, as phrenology does, by assigning them to different inches of the brain. But here, again, common language is in the way, and the common sense, as well as the moral sense of mankind, forbids the profane separation of conscience and the "fear of God," as

Moral

the utter annihilation of both. truths, raised ever so little above a mere system of convenience and political economy, must run back to the ideas of penalty, retribution, intrinsic demerit; and these again must link themselves with the thought of sanctions derived from an invisible power, and an invisible world.

Those, therefore, who would avoid this must go still farther back, and deny to the State all moral as well as all religi ous character whatever. In this way, the scheme we are opposing is fast coming to have a dreadful consistency. All its parts are gradually drawing in to a mutual harmony of error; so that, if boldly carried out, it must deny that there can be strictly any such thing as crime. It is only a physical evil, or a physical insanity, or the result of a defective cerebral organization, and law is only a physical defence against this species of madness. Punishment is not punishment, but only the cure of physical evil. In short, law has no more of moral character than the sanatary regulations of a hospital. It addresses itself solely to our sense of convenience or inconvenience, and never deals with, and is never intended to deal with, the conscience or moral sense, even supposing such a department of the soul to exist in the individual man. These are not mere inferences drawn by an adversary, but doctrines in which the authors glory as the ripe fruits of an enlightened age, and of a new philosophy which is destined to supersede all other systems. "The Law can have no religion," says one. "The State, as such, knows no God," teaches the great apostle of the sect.

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Crime," says Mr. Sampson, on Criminal Jurisprudence, a work in great repute with this new school of political philosophy, "crime has never been diminished by the inconsistency of punishing men for disorders of the brain, and it can only be safely and effectually subdued by adopting towards the sufferer (!) the same mode that we should employ, if his disorder, instead of being seated in the brain, were seated in any other organ." Most consistent reasoners! How skillfully would you seem to conceal the cloven foot of your shallow infidelity! This, then, is what you would style a state of neutrality and indifference. The State, it would seem, knows no God, no religion, no religious sanctions. It must favor no religious tenets. But it may hold and act upon irreligious principles.

It may give countenance to doctrines subversive of all religion and all morality. "The law has no Bible," says a late writer" the law has no Bible"-it cannot, therefore, rightly appeal to any of the sanctions or principles of moral conduct revealed in that book; yet still there is no inconsistency, it seems, in maintaining that government should recognize the infidel philosophy (if it deserves so venerable a name) of Combe's Constitution of Man, of the Vestiges of the Creation, of Sampson's Jurisprudence, and of other standard infidel authorities, to which the legislature is called upon to bow with the utmost deference and respect. We only mention this here as evidence of what the infidel means, when he declares that The State assumes and must assume towards religion an air of perfect indifference" "if it favors the religion of the Christian it offends the Infidel, the Jew, and the Heathen”— "It can give no countenance to any religious opinions whatever." That this state of indifference is not of this apparently negative and harmless kind, but has a great deal of positive venom, and that the State must unavoidably either favor religion or irreligion, we hope hereafter more fully to show.

Of course, the class against whom we are contending must deny that there is any divine sanction to government, or that it is an institution which the Almighty has anything to do with in the way of constituting or ordaining. To quote Scripture to them, as any authority on this point, would seem a most strange and impertinent introduction of irrelevant matter. In nearly the same light, perhaps, would they regard any appeal to classic antiquity, in proof that the innate moral sense of mankind had ever regarded the true magistrate as, in some sense, possessing a delegated divine authority, and bearing the sword of Eternal Justice as well as representing the vox populi. Paul declaring that the powers of government are ordained of God, and that, of course, they possess a religious character; and Cicero, who but reëchoes the sentiment of primitive tradition when he says-Diis immortalibus proximi sunt magistratus-would both be regarded as alike trifling with a question which has been so summarily and so conclusively decided by the new social and political philosophy.

But we may, perhaps, try these gentlemen on another tack, to see if by any

possibility there can be found some assailing point, from which to penetrate the dense scales of their closely guarded nat uralism. Let us then admit, for a moment, that government looks, ultimately, to the physical good of man and nothing else. It follows, nevertheless, from this, that it must have regard to his best and highest physical good; and that, therefore, to be consistent with this aim, it must draw within its jurisdiction whatever tends to advance, and certainly-as even the most ultra defenders of the nomeddling system must admit-whatever tends to prevent it. Within this line, then, would fall whatever, among other similar means, has a tendency to secure the peaceful possession of property, the unmolested enjoyment of personal freedom from violence, and the sanctity-but this is, as yet, too religious a word—the security, then, of the domestic relations. In short, if it should be established as a fact, that an immoral and irreligious, or rather an irreligious, and consequently an immoral, people, would be likely to be more ignorant, more brutal, less secure against personal violence, worse fed, worse clothed, with less physical comfort of every kind, and, in general, more unhappy than one that was moral and religious; then, reasoning directly from the above premises, it would follow that the encouragement of religion and morality, as means of physical good, must fall as directly within the sphere of the State's proper duties, as the care of agriculture and the mechanic arts.

The truth is so important that it will bear to be repeated and placed in different lights. Let us suppose, then, a state of things in which everything now held sacred among us should become the object of irreverent blasphemy and contempt; when there should be honored no Bible, no holy day, no pulpit, no means for the regular and systematic instruction of the people in religious and moral duties when, in fact, there should be among us no morality, no religion, no fear of God. Can any one imagine that such a total exclusion of all considerations of another world would leave uninjured the foundations of social order, and of all true happiness and all true physical good in this? Would life, and liberty, and property, be respected as they now are? We need not ask the question. The experiment has been tried. The French Revolution will remain, to the end of time, a standing proof of what even

the most civilized nation may become, that acknowledges no God, and no future life. We are aware that the most strenuous efforts have been made of late to revive a feeling of respect for the deeds and actors of this period, and to present to the world a new and transcendental view of the whole matter. Some would have us regard it, with all the atrocities even of the reign of terror, as the age of heroes, and as abounding in the germs of great ideas. We prefer, however, the old-fashioned view. We would look to the actual fruits, the actual matters of fact, and to the strange exhibitions of human depravity, with which those awful scenes abounded; and we say again, that it furnishes a sufficient answer to our question. The highest physical good for this world cannot be secured; nay, more, the greatest physical evils cannot be prevented among a people, when there is no recognition of a God and a world to come. But it is a great, some say the chief, design of government to promote the highest physical good, or, at all events, to prevent the greatest physical evils. What, then, is the inevitable conclusion, even from the premises of that theory which is most thoroughly utilitarian? We may say, on high authority, that "whatever picks men's pockets or breaks their legs," is an object of the State's care and prevention. If, therefore, irreligion, immorality, and infidelity, have a tendency to make these evils more frequent than they would be in a religious, a sabbath-keeping, church-going, gospel-loving community; then, even on the theory of the illustrious author of the above illustrious and sublime maxim, the State should do all in its power to prevent the former, and to encourage a state of things which would be favorable to the latter condition of society. Indifference, even if it were possible, would be an abandonment of its highest duties. Our theoretical conclusion we cannot help regarding as unassailable, although a consideration of the manner in which it should be practically carried out might present questions of great difficulty.

In the ascending scale of means, then, the next care of government, in addition to the requisite physical force for the immediate preservation of order, would be the acquisition of a moral power, or the production of those principles of action, modes of thought, and habits of soul, that would furnish this security with the least amount of violent constraint; for without them

as it would not be difficult to provephysical force might soon be the enemy rather than the ally of government, and law itself would sink in precisely the same ratio with the motives and principles of those whose will, according to the radical theory, constitutes its true and legitimate expression. Hence, too, we may say, by way of passing corollary, that if any State needs a religion on these grounds, then, a fortiori, does a democracy require such an aid above all others. If certain habits and states of soul are necessary even for the physical well-being of mankind, then, as a means to this means, comes the subject of education; by which, in this place, we refer to the moral training of the citizens of a State in its most enlarged acceptation. Thus are we slowly rising to higher positions, and gradually approaching the dangerous ground, although, it may be, by a system of introverted ends. This education may be a direct teaching in schools expressly established for that purpose-a topic on which we propose to enter at another time-or it must be, in connection with the former, what may justly be styled the educating power of law itself, in bringing to bear upon the mind, even from early infancy, the force of certain principles having a restraining effect, so as to prevent the first thought of certain crimes ever arising as a purpose; and this, in distinction from that other and more easily estimated yet less available power of law, which acts directly, through a present fear of specific inconvenience, in deterring men from a specific and then actually meditated wrong. Here, again, in this subjective influence of law upon the soul, we are approaching the region of duty, as distinguished from a mere sense of convenience or inconvenience. We are directing the eye to something absolute and eternal-to the law's immutable principle in distinction from the temporary, and fluctuating, and imperfect application to individual cases. We are on the borders of a true right and wrong. We are near the domains of a true morality, which is an end in itself; and, if we are not very careful, this dreaded religion will force itself upon us before we are aware of our real position.

There is a vast deal of trite and unmeaning declamation on this very subject, namely, the importance of religion and morality to the preservation of our republican institutions; and yet how few are aware of the inevitable conclusion to

which they must be led. How little is it realized that the argument can never stop until it ends in recognizing the Supreme Power in the State to be what we contend it really is, namely, a true moral and religious power that ought to have a conscience, and by it to recognize an eternal righteousness. Virtue, they say, is essential to a free people; but how wretched and senseless is this trite babble in the mouths of those who contend that the State has no religion and can recognize no religious tenets. Whether virtue itself is an eternal principle with eternal sanctions, and connected with the law, revealed or natural, of an eternal God, is a question involving a religious tenet-a tenet, too, to which law and government cannot be indifferent. Either directly or impliedly, in the practical administration of their principles, they must be for or against; they must assume the attitude of a friend or an enemy.

Let us now recapitulate, and briefly condense the argument which, in order to bring in all the considerations connected with it, has been presented in a discursive and irregular form. Admitting, as we do for the sake of the argument, that the State's great object is the physical and not the moral good of man, that it is intended, in other words, for the protection of property, security against personal violence, and the guardianship of the domestic relations; then, we say, that, in addition to positive inconvenience to transgressors, designed to deter them from actual crimes, there must be acknowledged in the law that doctrine of retributive justice, without which punishment, appealing only to the animal fears and taking no true hold upon the conscience or moral department of the soul, can exercise no true reforming powereven if this were the great and chief object for which it was designed. Besides this, there are needed, also, certain habits or states of mind, or principles of action, having an intimate and sympathizing connection with the standard of truth manifested in the law. In other words, there must be a public conscience corresponding to the governing principle or spirit of the law, rising as it rises, and falling as it falls; being moral and religious, or barely economical, according as that, whose representative it must, in time, ever become, sustains the one or the other of these characters. To this result, then, a true morality is an indis.

pensable means; and equally indispensa ble to the latter is a religion from which alone morality can receive its sanctions.

Religion and morality, then, although denied to be legitimate objects of the State as ends, come in as means to other ends. But religion and morality, when they are not regarded as ends in themselves, cease to be truly religion and morality. They do, undoubtedly, when pure, tend to protect property, to secure from personal violence, &c.; but then this is an incident, and not of their essence. When called in aid, therefore, for such purposes alone, they will not be pure; they come not in their true nature, and must inevitably degenerate into something of a lower species. We have proved, however, that the State must have religion and morality, as means for the successful accomplishment of its physical purposes. But it cannot have them as effective means, without recognizing them as ends, before it employs them as means. Therefore, finally, the State must neglect even the highest physical good of men, or it must be a religious and moral agent, in the absolute and not merely mediate use of the terms-Q. E. D.

Let us apply this to a case easily imagined, and which, as a little knowledge of the history of our own country may show, has actually happened. A company of religious persons, professing the Christian faith, are cast upon a certain locality, on which is to arise a true State, and a corresponding system of law. Although deeply religious, yet, in founding their State, we may suppose them to have regard, in the first place, to the physical well-being of themselves and their posterity. Familiarity with the letter and spirit of the Word of God, a deep knowledge of themselves and of human nature, satisfy them that this can never be effectually secured by the mere letter of any system of jurisprudence, without the life imparted to it by a true morality, containing a true appeal to the conscience, and resting on those sanctions from an invisible world, which we denominate religion ;--the conscience, or moral sense, never being truly affected, unless by considerations connected with the eternal and the immutable.

Such being the case, would they not be required, even on the physical hypothesis, to make the conservation of this morality and this religion one of the great objects of the State's care, and to fence them round by all the guards that