offer its prickly touch and stinted shade for their protection. We are personally responsible, in exact proportion to our influence, for the character of our rulers and the management of our public affairs. We are bound by religious obligations to support public men of integrity, of uncorrupted minds, of pure morals and of sincere respect for the foundations of justice. If a candidate for office is vile, the Christian cannot conscientiously sustain him merely because he belongs to his political party. There is no alchemy which can turn a villain into an honest man by dipping him into the mixture, which has been fused from a party press and a political caucus. If all Christians of all denominations would act from the principle of supporting only good men, their influence would ere long be felt throughout the country. And this would only be acting out their avowed convictions, for they are united in believing, that when the righteous are in power, the people rejoice; and that he whose example is against the morality of the gospel, is just the man who cannot be entrusted with office without danger to the community. We do not here make use of the favorite thought, that we are making an experiment for the world; and that, if the sacred cause of liberty is wrecked in this republic, it will be wrecked everywhere! With all its interest this is a consideration that savors of national boasting, besides being too contracted for the student of God's providence and word. It is impossible for us to say what God designs to do with other nations, or with our own. For aught we know, the purest specimen of government may yet be found in Spain or Africa, and human happiness and the praises of Emanuel abound in Palestine; when a moral earthquake shall have ingulfed New England. Still every thing most precious in this world and the next, commands our pious solicitude and effort in behalf of our native land. However obscure we may be, our conduct will doubtless affect the future and eternal condition of unborn millions of Americans.

A great American statesman has said, that there is one thing which Christians have yet to learn; that in a government constituted as ours is, "the powers that be" must first be made to feel the force of religion, and act from its principles, before the great mass of the people can be elevated in knowledge and godliness. Supposing it true, that statesmen overrate civil government as a means of moral good; may it not be equally true, that it is underrated by the church and its ministers? In this respect,

have we not degenerated from the example of our pious forefathers? Have the servants of Christ, occupying places of influence, testified as they ought against the evils of anarchy? In vain shall we hope, that the rude hand of the disorganizer will stop with political changes. The anti-christian spirit which assaults government, will not spare the church. When the pillars of state are torn away in defiance of all that is terrible in apostolic denunciation, will the government of schools, or even of families, long rest secure? Will the Gothic army, which takes violent possession of the capitol, be afraid of the sanctuary of domestic life, or of the ark of the covenant in the house of the Lord? If the flames of misrule shall blast the fair and lofty tree of our constitution, shall we expect the scathing influence to pass by the trees of righteousness planted around our Zion? The servant of the cross is set upon the watch-tower, to give the alarm when danger is near. Were it true that the success of the gospel in preparing souls for heaven is in no way dependent on our political condition, patriotism would yet be the duty of the Christian. The influence of our civil condition on the welfare of our souls, is too manifest and too great to be overlooked by the follower of Christ. The ebb and flow, the rise and fall of the current of Christianity during the future generations, may be predicted with some degree of accuracy by one who is competent to calculate our political almanac.

OUR COUNTRY, AS TO THE PAST.

"TRUTH," in the beautiful language of Aulus Gellius, "is the daughter of Time." In no respect, is this sentiment more accordant with fact, than in the judgment passed on the prominent actors in the history of nations. From their contemporaries, such men rarely receive just or impartial dealing. Alike by the blind flattery of partisans and the bitter prejudice of opponents, are they liable to misrepresentation. The picture is always overdrawn. It is either extravagant panegyric, or unmitigated censure. But posterity reviews the decision, and forms a more accurate judgment.

It is grateful to our feelings to know that under this influence, justice is now done to the memory of the Puritans. For many years in England, and to some extent in our land, their peculiarities of manner and speech have been the fruitful theme of ridicule; and their stern virtues have been almost forgotten, in the sneer of the witling, and the scoff of the caviller. But this day is passing away. In our own land, where we reap the harvest of their toils, and gather the fruit of their sufferings, the sons of New England rejoice to do them honor. As time rolls on their memory is more precious; "the just shall be had in everlasting remembrance." In England, also, a true judgment is uttered from many quarters; and the day is not far distant, when ample justice shall be awarded to those who lived and suffered for liberty in their native and their adopted land. English Puritans," says a writer in the last number of the Edinburgh Review," the chief of men, whom it is the paltry fashion of this day to decry, divided their vast inheritance between them in the reign of Charles I. One body remained at home, and established the English constitution: one crossed the Atlantic, and founded the American republic; - the two greatest achievements of modern times."

"The

With their work in England we have nothing at present to do. In our land they sought to frame a constitution of government and society, based solely on the Bible. It was a noble aim, never attempted before. They made their original compact, in the cabin of the May-Flower, with solemn prayer. Religious education, both in the school and the sanctuary, received their earliest attention. The college they founded, while yet in the feebleness. of infancy, was consecrated to Christ and the Church. Into all civil and social relations, the religious element entered, and had a controlling influence. Never was a plan for the reformation of society more glorious, or commenced under more favorable auspices. The religion of these men was the religion of the Bible. It was pure Protestantism. They called no man master: they gave no heed to the traditions of the elders: they squared all doctrine by the law and the testimony. What the Bible teaches is truth!-This was their motto. And the parting counsel of that famous and good man," John Robinson, expresses their spirit, a spirit we find nowhere else in that age. "I beseech you, remember it, it is an article of your church covenant, that

you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God."

Neither did they admit any ecclesiastical supremacy. Here, in the wilderness, God was in their Zion, as in the churches of their father-land. And Christ, their head, was present; nor did they feel they had removed from under his eye, or must needs seek his blessing through the medium of churches and ministers across the sea. Such a faith has a root to it. It will bear transplanting. Nobly has it grown in the soil to which those Puritans brought it.

They were no ordinary men. They were not mere political adventurers, nor soldiers of fortune. They were men of intellect and education: men of prayer and piety. They had been tried in the furnace, and purified for the great work allotted them. As one has expressed it, they were "sifted out;" and so repeatedly sifted, that the chaff was thoroughly winnowed away. Compare them with the founders of most colonies, from the "wolf-suckled" leader of the Tiber, to the convicted felon of Botany Bay; and how marked were the men, for mind and character, whom it is our privilege to call the Fathers of New England.

There was also in this new world a field for the semination of these new principles. The old world was preoccupied by habits and customs which cramped every attempt at reform. Tyranny triumphed in church and state; and was so interlinked with the various grades of rank and power, into which society was divided, that the struggle for freedom seemed desperate. Religion was linked to the throne, and shaped under its influence. It was the creature, rather than the creator, of government. For ages this had been the state of society, and ages alone could break up the bondage. But New England was new ground. Society was not formed. The foundations could be laid; and the men who were not fettered by traditions, nor hampered by any ecclesiastical connections with the old world, were just the men to lay those foundations; and to rear a new structure of civil and religious polity, to be a model to the nations of Europe and a light to the world. Here they were separated from the old world; for in those days it was a long and dreary passage across, and there was but little to tempt the idle or worthless to these shores. The greater portion of the settlers came over in the best days of

the Puritans. According to Bancroft, "about twenty-two thousand landed in New England before the assembling of the Long Parliament, and they received few accessions afterwards." Thus secluded, and neglected by England, time was afforded for the planting and rooting of their principles, with but little admixture of foreign seed. A new structure of society was formed under their influence. It remains to this day. Each foreign traveller, as he passes through our cities and viiiages, is amazed; for all is new. And the American, in his turn, as he plants his foot on foreign shores is perplexed on every side; for society is after another model than that which he left at home.

The grand secret of this entire renovation lies in its commencement. The governments of the old world began in tyranny and ignorance. At first there were countless tribes, each under its own chieftain, and all warring one upon another. By degrees some Nimrod, more cunning or mightier than his fellows, prevailed over the others, and annexed their domain to his own. The people, ignorant and subjected, passed with the territory; and were little regarded, save as they ministered to the despot's power or pleasure. The forms of religion, whether Pagan or Christian, were shaped by these institutions of the state. And thus, in the old world, grew up civil and spiritual despotism. And in the lapse of so many centuries, it affected all the forms of society. Even now, when the power of progress and increasing intelligence introduces reform, and some of the most flagrant abuses are removed, the old root remains. Some dead and decayed limbs may be lopped off, some new and better branches grafted in; but the root and trunk are there, and radical reform would be entire revolution. In this country, there is no such root. Liberty is not ingrafted on the old trunk of despotism. It was sown in the seed; and root, and branch, and fruit, are all of one. It is a new

plant, in the perfection of every part. And for this we are indebted to the men who dared to originate a system at variance with all their early associations, and modelled after no existing form of human government; but upon principles of church organization, which, though almost universally rejected at that day, were learned from the Bible.

It must have demanded no ordinary courage and sagacity to strike out a path so new. There was one result which followed this step, and it remains to this day. They could not look back: