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institutions; such as the world needs, and, attended as they have been by the power of God, able to enlighten and renovate the world. They recognize the equal rights of man-they give the soil to the cultivator, and self government and the rights of conscience to the people. They enlighten the intellect, and form the conscience, and bring the entire influence of the divine government to bear upon the heart. It was the great object of our Fathers to govern men by the fear of the Lord; to exhibit the precepts, apply the motives, and realize the dispositions, which the word of God inculcates and his Spirit inspires; to imbue families, and schools, and towns, and states, with the wisdom from above. They had no projects of human device-no theories ' of untried efficacy. They hung all their hopes of civil and religious prosperity upon the word of God, and the efficacy of his Spirit. Nor was theirs the presumptuous hope of grace without works. It was

by training men for self government, that they expected to make free men; and by becoming fellow workers with God, that they expected his aid in forming christians; while, by intellectual culture, and moral influence, and divine power, they prepared men to enjoy and perpetuate civil liberty.

The law, with sleepless vigilance, watched over the family, the church, and the state; and a vigorous and united public opinion rendered its execution certain and efficacious. Every family was required to possess a Bible, every district a school, and

every town a pastor. The law protected the sabbath, and sustained the public worship of God, and punished immorality; and with mild but effectual energy, ruled over all. The great excellence of these institutions is, that they are practical and powerful; the people are not free in name and form merely, but in deed and in truth. Were all these forms blotted out this day, the people would be free, and other forms of civil freedom would arise. The governments are free governments from the foundation to the top stone, and of such practical efficacy as to make free men. The family, embodying instruction and government, was itself an embryo empire. In the school district, the people were called upon to exercise their own discretion and rights, and in the ecclesiastical society, to rear their place of worship, elect their pastor and provide for his support; and all under the protection and guidance of law. The towns, in their popular assemblies, discussed their local interests and administered their own concerns. In these, originated

the legislature, and from the legislature emanated the courts of justice. In the States, as they are now organized in our nation, all which is local and peculiar, is superintended with a minuteness and efficacy, which no consolidated government could possibly accomplish. The people have only to ascertain from experience what their convenience or interest demands, and their wish becomes a law; and still, in the national government, there is all

the comprehension of plan, and power of resource, and unity of action, which are required for the highest degree of national energy and prosperity.

It has been doubted, whether a republic so extensive as ours, can be held together and efficiently governed. But where there is this intellectual and moral influence, and the habitual exercise of civil and religious liberty from the family upward; we see not why a republic may not be extended indefinitely, and still be the strongest, and most effective government in the world.

The history of our nation is indicative of some great design to be accomplished by it. It is a history of perils and deliverances, and of strength ordained out of weakness. The wars with the savage tribes, and with the French, and at last with the English, protracted expense, and toil, and blood, through a period of one hundred and fifty years. No nation, out of such weakness, ever became so strong; or was guided through such perils to such safety. "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul then the proud waters had gone over our soul." These deliverances, the enemy beheld with wonder, and our Fathers with thanksgiving and praise. But, in the whole history of the world,

God has not been accustomed to grant signal interpositions, without ends of corresponding magnitude to be answered by them. Indeed, if it had been the design of heaven to establish a powerful nation, in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, where all the energies of man might find scope and excitement, on purpose to show the world by experiment, of what man is capable; and to shed light on the darkness which should awake the slumbering eye, and rouse the torpid mind, and nerve the palsied arm of millions; where could such an experiment have been made but in this country, and by whom so auspiciously as by our Fathers, and by what means so well adapted to that end, as by their institutions? The course which is now adopted by christians of all denominations, to support and extend, at home and abroad, religious and moral influence; would seem to indicate the purpose of God to render this nation, extensively, the almoners of his mercy to this world.

For two hundred years, the religious institutions. of our land were secured by law. But as our numbers increased, and liberty of conscience resulted in many denominations of christians, it became impossible to secure by law the universal application of religious and moral influence. And yet, without this mighty energy the whole system must fail; for physical power, without religious and moral influence, will not avail to sustain the institutions of civil liberty. We might as well rely on the harvests

which our Fathers reared for bread, as to rely on the external forms of liberty which they established, without the application of that vital energy, by which the body politic was animated and moved. But, at the very time when the civil law had become impotent for the support of religion and the prevention of immoralities, God began to pour out his Spirit upon the churches; and voluntary associations of christians were raised up to apply and extend that influence, which the law could no longer apply. And now we are blessed with societies to aid in the support of the Gospel at home, to extend it to the new settlements, and through the earth. We have Bible societies, and Tract societies, and associations of individuals, who make it their business to see that every family has a Bible, and every church a pastor, and every child a catechism. And to these have succeeded Education societies, that our nation may not outgrow the means of religious instruction. And while these means of moral culture are supplied, this great nation from her eminence, begins to look abroad with compassion upon a world sitting in darkness; and to put forth her mighty arm to disenthral the nations, and elevate the family of man. Let it be remembered also, that the means now relied on, are precisely those which our Fathers applied, and which have secured our prosperity. And when we contemplate the unexampled resources of this country in men, soil, climate, seacoast, rivers, lakes, canals, agriculture, commerce, arts and

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